Paella!

Mmmm creamy veggie Paella. Inspired by the "Med". A wonderful Mediterranean restaurant in downtown Boulder with tapas and rusty yellow tiled patio. You could almost feel the Mediterranean sea breeze ruffle through your hair. Their paella really brought me back to a few carefree days a group of us spent in Barcelona after finals but before heading stateside while studying abroad. The lack of school work, the beach, the sun, the fruit, the good company, the Sangria...all made for a somewhat joyous end to an amazing adventure. I believe every night, without exception, we ate Paella. All we knew was the tapas were overpriced and the Paella was amazing. To Will's dismay, Christa, Matt, and I demanded Paella every evening (yes I believe demanded is the correct word). Anyways, this recipe always scared me off a bit because the main (and nearly only) spice is saffron. Saffron. Nope no room for that on a grad student stipend. Yet my roomate Heather reminded me of the salty (cheap!) yellow saffron rice from the grocery store. I even had some in my cabinet....brilliant! Indeed the recipe was very easy.

First chop some onions and a liberal amount of garlic and saute them in some olive oil in a heavy frying pan. Side note: This weekend I bought this amazing (ok..neat) kitchen gadget which is a little chopper on wheels where you put in the cloves of garlic, close the lid, wheel it around like a little kid playing with hot wheels and voila....minced garlic! Considering heads of garlic here are 5/$1, I figured it was a worthy investment. Anyways...After sauteing the onion and garlic for a few minutes, in goes the yellow saffron rice packet. Seasoning, msg, and all. Fry that around for a few minutes then throw in whatever other veggies are around. I was lazy and used some frozen mixed veggies but I especially liked the broccoli. Fry that for a few minutes then add broth and simmer until the rice is cooked. To be honest I used whatever leftover broth I had in my fridge and somehow it was the perfect amount to make the rice creamy yet not runny by the end of about 2o minutes. To finish it off I added the juice of half a fresh lemon, some leftover feta cheese that I've been afraid to eat for a while, and some chopped green olives. Voila...a masterpeice made with refrigerator classics.