While I sit down to compose this post about one of my favorite veggies of the season - asparagus, I was enjoying another favorite spring veggie - the artichoke. My wonderful CSA, Suzie’s Farm, provided not 1 but 2 gorgeous artichokes in my last share, & you better believe I’m not sharing! I’m inspired. Will there be an “artichoke risotto” recipe coming soon? You betcha, but until then, I am excited to be able to share this with you lovely readers…

Making a risotto for the family has become my new spring holiday tradition. What’s not to love about this rich & creamy dish? When made well, I can easily sneak this by those who are weary of my vegan tendencies (mostly my boisterous adolescent carnivorous cousins). Rest assured cousins, there is no absolutely no tofu in this!

Over the years I’ve made tried & true risotto recipes from Giada de Laurentiis to Tal Ronnen, & it was time to try another new recipe. This year’s pick? The “Lemony Asparagus Risotto” from Vegan Holiday Kitchen’s Easter chapter, fittingly. 

Quite obviously, I adore asparagus. It’s one of those vegetables I crave relentlessly come springtime. Simply roasted in the oven with sea salt & a squeeze of lemon, steamed & smothered in lemon-cashew cream sauce, or folded into a rich risotto, I’ll take asparagus any way I can get it. Which is why this dish was so appealing. It just screamed springtime. The other main flavoring components are just as fresh & springy - spinach, parsley & oh-so-bright lemon juice & zest. Yum.        

Now for a very special treat! Vegan Holiday Kitchen author & creator of this risotto, Nava Atlas, so kindly allowed me to share her recipe with you! So here it is…

“Lemony Asparagus Risotto” by Nava Atlas from Vegan Holiday Kitchen.

(recipe published with permission from the author)

• 2 cups Arborio rice
• 1 32-oz carton vegetable broth
• 1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
• 3-4 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 10-12 ounces fresh slender asparagus
• 2 good handfuls of baby spinach or baby arugula leaves (we used spinach)
• 1/2 minced fresh parsley
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 Tbsp. organic lemon zest (optional, but highly recommended) 
• Salt & freshly ground paper to taste
• Grated vegan mozzarella cheese for topping, optional (Daiya is particularly good with this)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Combine rice with the broth, 2 cups of water, the oil, & garlic in a deep 2 1/2 quart casserole dish. Cover & bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Stir in 1 cup of additional water when you stir for the second time, then add 1 more cup water when you stir for the third time. 
3. Just after the third stirring, trim about 1/2 an inch from the bottoms of the asparagus spears, & cut them into 1-inch lengths. Place in a skillet or sauce pan with a small amount of water & steam, covered, for 2 to 3 minutes over medium heat, until bright green & tender crisp. Add the spinach; cover & steam just until it’s wilted. 
4. After an hour, the rice should have a tender & creamy texture. Remove from the oven & stir in the asparagus & spinach mixture, followed by the remaining ingredients. Let stand for 5 to 10 minutes, then serve. Pass around grated cheese for topping, if desired.

***Now, before I get to how utterly awesome this risotto turned out, let me first explain why I feared a near disaster. I cooked this recipe for the 1st time in my family’s mountain home, which is at a very high altitude. In addition, we cooked another dish in the oven simultaneously. For those reasons, I assume, it took considerably longer than an hour for the rice to absorb the liquid. I was a bit worried that the liquid would never absorb, but luckily, & eventually, it did! Cooking at high altitude or not, my recommendation is to heat the broth & additional water prior to adding it to the casserole dish to ensure quicker cooking.  

I’m happy to tell you that with enough patience, love, & dedicated stirring, this turned out beautifully & adorned our holiday table with the rest of our Easter feast. This risotto was ultimately more moist & creamy than any previous recipes I’d made. And baking it in the oven, as opposed to continuously stirring over the stove meant I could visit more with the family, enjoy a glass of wine, & hover over my cashew goat cheese log! 

Speaking of wine…

Bonterra’s Chardonnay paired particularly well with the risotto. The wine’s crisp apple & refreshing citrus undertones complemented the risotto’s richness & zesty flavors.  

Oh, & I too recommend that final addition of heavenly Daiya mozzarella sprinkled into your bowl. It adds to the already creamy, savory, decadence of this dish! 

I hope you enjoy creating this in your own kitchen. It would be perfect on a warm spring evening with a crisp glass of wine. I also encourage you to pick up a copy of Vegan Holiday Kitchen if you haven’t already. The book covers the bulk of the holidays from Thanksgiving to Independence Day, offering festive seasonal recipes & menu ideas that will spark new traditions in your household. 

You know how they call that time from Thanksgiving to New Year’s “the holiday season”? There are holidays all year round, it turns out. (Flag Day: June 14). What would fill the “seasonal” aisle of the grocery stores otherwise? So while you might think a cookbook called Vegan Holiday Kitchen should get reviewed in like, November (which happens to be when everyone else reviewed it), it’s with an eye to strategy and not simply a result of laziness that I bring you this late March report. This cookbook covers not only Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Hanukkah, but Passover, Easter, Rosh Hashanah, and Independence Day. Plus brunch, which I guess is its own holiday.

PSA: Passover starts after sundown Friday, April 6. Easter is Sunday, April 8. Holidays approacheth! Do you have a plan?

Nava Atlas had a clear purpose with this photo-heavy offering: honor tradition, add the vegan element, and create special-occasion meals that are fun, not stressful. To that end, her recipes tend to the simple and don’t shy away from shortcuts (canned lentils?!). But the lack of elaborate preparation or unusual ingredients makes this a really awesome resource when you’re looking to cook in someone else’s kitchen (like I did for Thanksgiving), or if you’re short on time, or if you just think complicated recipes are scary.

I’ve made a lot of stuff from this book over the last six months (though it’s not an everyday go-to), but somehow I failed to photograph most of it. Here’s the Red Wine-Roasted Brussel Sprouts everyone loved in November (pre-roasting):

And here’s a sandwich I made on the Vegan Challah, which came out really delicious, if not quite as flaky as the original (secret ingredient: squash!):

While some of the recipes are restricted to particular holidays or seasons (Passover = lots of matzoh, July 4th = grilling), it’s also fun to mix and match. At Christmas, we brought Moroccan-Flavored Tofu with Apricots and Olives, in theory a Rosh Hashanah offering, to a friends’ house for fancy dinner; it got devoured with compliments. 

Atlas is a good communicator: The recipes are written clearly and are easy to follow, and each is labeled at the top if it is or could be soy-, gluten-, or nut-free. I’ve wanted to tweak some of her instructions (less sweetener in the Agave and Mustard-Glazed Green Beans, for example), but haven’t had any disasters or failures, praise be.

My only major complaint is that, especially in the Thanksgiving and Christmas chapters, Atlas shies away from star-of-the-show, protein-heavy, centerpiece dishes that I think are pretty key to a vegan celebration. Stuffings and pilafs abound; hearty stews and tofus do not. Perhaps this is a rebellion against Tofurky, but I want my protein, dammit.

Anyway, this book will be my #1 go-to for figuring out what to cook in my mother’s kitchen to bring to a seder next month. I’d wanted to try the matzoh balls before writing my review, but I’ll just have to post about it later. 

Final verdict: Solid, crowd-pleasing recipes designed for simplicity. Especially valuable for the wealth of Jewish recipes, more than I’ve seen collected anywhere else.