Plantain salad and squash blossom risotto

I love summer salads. You can throw one of these suckers together in less than five minutes, with tons of fresh veggies, some fruit and nuts. As you've guessed by now, one of my compulsions is use-up-that-thing-we-have. I bought two plantains last week at the farmer's market, and here they were, turning black and soggy. Why not throw them in the toaster oven and put them on a salad? Brilliant! (Jeremy didn't think so, but what does he know?)



Okay, he does know some things, because as he predicted, the crystalized ginger chunks were weird on my salad.
Jeremy, my creative and wonderful husband, felt inspired to try squash blossom risotto. I was thrilled after seeing them at the market for two years and being clueless as to what to do with them. A word of caution: after you buy them, they will wrinkle and close, but it's very important to wash them before cooking them. The blossoms will actually open up, so you can rinse away the dirt and bugs hiding inside. After Jeremy started cooking, we discovered we were out of arborio rice. We did have orzo. What the hell.



As it turns out, not only is the orzo a very effective substitute for short grained rice, it reheats much better than traditional risotto. The blossoms we delicious and bright orange! They taste very much like the squash that they were once attached to, but add textural fun. Go look in your gardens or farmers markets, becasue soon they will be gone.