Double post: asparagus & mushroom orzotto with pan-fried chipotle steaks, and beef/lamburgers

This is a two-parter, because I rarely get this thing to myself (my laptop is in the shop so I have to share with Chris).

Earlier in the week I read all of Elly's blog, and decided to make an orzotto with asparagus...I followed a recipe I found elsewhere which called for five cups of broth and one cup of white wine, but I didn't have any wine, so I went with six cups of broth (from bullion cubes...I know, I suck, but why buy or make broth when you can get bullion cubes?). Anyhow, I would definitely wait until I had wine if I was going to do this again, because it was a little too salty.

Basically, I fried some onions and garlic, toasted the barley for a bit, and then added broth two laddlesful at a time till it was cooked. I fried the asparagus and mushrooms in some butter in another pan and then added them to the barley, and finished it off with some asiago (the current parmesan-esque cheese I have in the house).



Doesn't it look good? For the main, I rubbed some steaks with olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, and some chipotle hot sauce (it was either Tabasco brand or a Sobey's brand one, I've been using both lately), then pan fried them in some more olive oil.



Yummy. These steaks were especially tender. We only ate half of each, and the next day I put sliced steak on top of the left over orzotto we ate for lunch, and the steak was STILL juicy the next day post microwaving.

....ok, I was going to discuss the lamburgers in this post but Chris' laptop is really annoying (weird things keep happening while I type, as if the cursor had a mind of its own), so I'll save that post for another day!