Easy Vegetable and Seafood Paella

It's no secret that my husband is a picky eater. I cook a lot of dishes that he has no interest in eating. Luckily, I have the opportunity to cook dishes that I'm interested in eating during my lunch hour.  I have also been trying to cook from my pantry and freezer so that I use things up before shopping for more. Yesterday I spied a bag of mixed seafood in the freezer. Usually I make bouillabaisse, but I didn't want to make that for lunch. I rummaged through the pantry and decided that I would try to make paella. Since I'm trying to cut back on eating meat, I wanted to make it a vegetable and seafood paella. I also wanted to use up a bunch of veggies I had in the not-so-crisper drawer. I know that I totally did things out of order, but hey, it worked. :) Some will say it isn't a true paella if it isn't made with chicken, or with sausage. Oh well. I will go with my version of paella today and enjoy it.

Vegetable and Mixed Seafood "Paella"

2 T olive oil
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, finely sliced
1 cup thinly sliced mushrooms (4 really large baby bellas)
1 cup arborio rice
1/4 c white wine
1 orange bell pepper cut in thin strips (use what ever color you have on hand)
1 can diced tomatoes, drained
1 can artichoke heart quarters, drained
2 cups frozen mixed seafood (shrimp, calamari, mussels, scallops)
2 cups broth
1 small pinch saffron
1 t smoked paprika
1 T garlic powder
1/2 t salt

Heat a large, heavy bottomed pan over medium high heat. When pan is hot, drizzle in the olive oil. After a minute the oil should shimmer. Add your diced onion and stir around. Cook until softened, about 2 minutes, then add in the garlic. Cook for a couple of minutes, stirring to make sure the garlic doesn't burn. At this point, I should probably have added the rice, but I didn't, I added the mushrooms. Feel free to do it in reverse order. I added the mushrooms and then the rice. Stir the rice to make sure it gets a light coating of the olive oil, and cook for about 5 minutes. Next, I de-glazed the pan with the white wine, stirring to scrape up any bits on the bottom of the pan. Stir in the bell pepper, diced tomatoes, artichoke hearts and the seafood. Pour in the broth and the spices, mixing everything together so that the broth is distributed evenly.

Turn down the heat to low and cover. I set the timer for 15 minutes. After the 15 minutes, I stirred the mixture to make sure the seafood was cooking evenly, covered it up and set for another 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, I removed the lid, stirred again, raised the heat to medium to cook off excess liquid for a few minutes.  Before serving, check your seasoning and remove any mussels that didn't open.

I have a confession to make. For lunch, hot, it was delicious. For leftovers cold, it was even more delicious. When I was packaging the leftovers later I was eating more. Then I spied the muffaletta olive salad in my fridge. This is a mixture of marinated olive pieces, carrot, small bits of cauliflower that I get at the antipasto bar at Kroger. I've made "Spanish" dishes that had olives in it, why not this. So I spooned some in to my bowl with the cold paella. It was absolutely delicious. It added just the right briny kick to the dish.  Perfect. My second confession. I just had cold paella for breakfast. I'm a happy girl.

Capsule Kitchen - Could I do this?

I stumbled upon something that intrigued me today while I was searching for information about what appears to be a capsular kitchen. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything about this neat little Jetsons type kitchen, but I did find something else using the term capsule kitchen

I have no idea where this picture came from, it was in an email forwarded to me

As it turns out, there is a challenge put forth by a blogger, Be More With Less, to choose 33 items, food and drink. Water, spices, condiments and flavor enhancers, that you use in small amounts, etc, don't count as part of the 33. Then, you plan your meals around these items. The aim is to do this for 3 months. I thought it would be interesting to come up with my list of 33. I'm glad that spices and such aren't included, because I use a lot of spices in my cooking. I'm guessing that cooking oil isn't supposed to be included either, since you don't actually eat the oil.

dairy	cheese
dairy	milk
dairy	sour cream
dairy	yogurt
fruit	banana
fruit	berries
liquids	coffee
liquids	juice
liquids	wine
protein	almond milk
protein	bacon
protein	beef
protein	chicken
protein	eggs
protein	lamb
protein	protein powder
protein	salmon
protein	shellfish
seeds/nuts	nut butter
seeds/nuts	sunflower seeds
starch	flour/bread
starch	oats
starch	peas
starch	rice
starch	sweet potato
starch	white potato
vegetable	broccoli
vegetable	tomatoes
vegetable	green beans
vegetable	leeks
vegetable	mushrooms
vegetable	onion
vegetable	salad greens

I am sure that I'm missing something that, if I didn't have it I would be absolutely devastated. Oh, crap. I left dark chocolate off the list. I can consider cream cheese a cheese, right?

Oh, to tie this in to today's Axis Of Ineptitude prompt, "gratitude," I am profoundly grateful for the abundance in my life. I have the opportunity to make a list like this, not wondering where my next meal is coming from. I am grateful that I have a stocked pantry. I am very blessed.

What would you put on your "33" list?