Post-Wrock & Dinner Follow-Up

(I like hyphens and consider them the most under-used punctuation mark. I dedicate today to them.)

So Mariya and I went to the store to pick up all the tasty things necessary for dinner last night and for me to make scones for Chris today. Then Christy and Ryane arrived at the perfect time for us to race to make dinner a bit last-minute because I spent ALL day working on applying for a job.

We made a shrimp "risotto" with Bulgur (cracked wheat) instead of Arborio rice. It was meant to be a super healthy dinner, and it was, but we did not sacrifice an ounce of flavor for our tasty dinner. It was amazing, so I thought I would share my version of the instructions because the original could have been more efficient, and we took the advice of several reviewers, so I've included those modifications.

Grocery List
2 tablespoons olive oil 3 cloves garlic--minced 1 cup bulgur 1 can veggie stock 1/2 teaspoon salt 12 ounces raw shrimp	2 cups corn kernels 1 red bell pepper--chopped 5-6 stalks asparagus--chopped 2 limes--1 juiced, 1 in wedges 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes 1/4 cup cilantro--chopped

Cooking Process

(If shrimp is frozen, put it in a sink full of water to thaw.) Fill a small pot of water and put it on the stove to boil. Put a large pot on the stove at medium heat with 2 tablespoons of oil. Mince garlic, and add to warm oil in the large pot (leave for about a minute). Begin chopping asparagus, pepper, and cilantro--continue as you can or get backup. Pour bulgar into pot with oil and garlic. Pour veggie stock over bulgur, and stir. Add boiling water from small pot as needed to keep bulgur a soupy consistency. Cook bulgur for 8-10 minutes. Keep chopping veggies. Then, add shrimp, and stir constantly until shrimp is pink. I recommend throwing asparagus into your remaining boiling water to soften it a tiny bit while the shrimp cooks. When the shrimp is pink, toss the corn, asparagus, red pepper, and cilantro into the pot. Stir regularly. While the veggies are cooking, squeeze the lime if you haven't already, and add the juice to the pot. Add the red pepper flakes. The veggies only need 1-2 minutes, so you're probably done, unless you were really fast with the lime.

This serves 4-6 people, easily. Serve it with the lime wedges. The more lime the better!

Once we ate that (and most of us had seconds), Mariya and I took off for the 4th Annual Hallows and Horcruxes Ball, a wizard rock (aka wrock) concert put on by Kansas State University's Children's and Adolescent Literature Community (ChALC). It's kind of nerdy, but it's fun. My favorite wrock band is The Whomping Willows from Rhode Island. I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan, but being a part of the K-State fandom has been a lot of fun. I realized last night that that was probably my last wizard rock concert since I am leaving K-State. I may have to actually keep up with some of the bands because in the last two years I have seen 5 shows in Manhattan, KS. Wow.

Of course, instead of going out for the after party with the bands, I stayed in and read the first few chapters of Gay-neck: The Story of a Pigeon by Dhan Gopal Mukjeri for my Indian Children's Lit class. I'm not sure what to expect from this book yet, but it really is about a boy and his pigeon. It's not a metaphor.