Asparagus and Zucchini Quiche with a Whole Wheat Tart Dough {SRC}

For this month's Secret Recipe Club I was assigned Fried Ice and Doughnut Holes written by Melissa.  I love the name of her blog.  The story behind it is her grandfather would tell them if they didn't behave they would get Fried Ice and Doughnut Holes for dinner...love it!  I should try that with my boys but knowing my luck they would probably claim that Timbits are doughnut holes and actually try to make me fry ice!

As I was browsing Melissa's blog I noticed we follow a lot of the same blogs.  I already regularly make two of the dishes that are currently on her blog.  They are Baked Southwestern Egg Rolls and Jalapeno Cheddar Burgers.  They are both great recipes.  I make the Jalapeno Cheddar Burgers quite often except I use 1 pound of chicken to intensify the flavours and a green chilli since I usually don't have jalapenos.  It is an amazing recipe and you should definitely give it a try.  The only reason I haven't posted it is because I just never have had a good opportunity to take a picture.

Barley Risotto with Peas and Asparagus

We all loved the Spring Green Risotto I had made awhile ago.  What I didn't like was that there was not a lot of fibre in the dish.  I had read about making risotto using barley.  It sounded interesting and I always have barley around for making Haleem.  So I gave it a try and it turned out great!  I changed the method for this using a bouillon cube instead of stock.  I found this method at Aurora Importing.  Also, I didn't have all the ingredients so made some substitutions.  Either way it will turn out well.

Spring Green Risotto

I have eaten Risotto twice.  Once it was so delicious.  The other time it was extremely bland.  I have always been daunted with the idea of making Risotto.  I've  heard it is very time consuming.  Lately I've been looking at a few Risotto recipes and decided I would like to give it a try.  After reading a few recipes I realized compared to Indian cooking it really wasn't that time consuming.  The other thing I discovered was dry white wine is always added to Risotto.  So if you ever eat Risotto outside check if there is any alcohol in it.  Instead of wine I just used water.  I settled on this Risotto recipe because I had some asparagus in the fridge and needed to cook it before it went bad.  My changes to this recipe was mainly to reduce the fat but replacing the butter with olive oil.  I also used light cream cheese instead of mascarpone and significantly reduced the Parmesan cheese.  Even before adding all the cheese this was very tasty.  I also added garlic.  I don't think I cook anything without garlic.  I also used vegetable broth instead of chicken broth.  I reduced the lemon zest and lemon juice as well.