Dinner

I made an incredible dinner from the garden today: Roasted Tomato Basil Soup, Basil Saffron Rice, and steamed fresh vegetables. The soup was delicious! I pretty much followed the recipe, except that I substituted freeze dried onions and dried thyme. The rice was also surprisingly good. I based it off this Saffron Rice recipe, with half the butter, fresh basil instead of parsley, and a bit of parmesan cheese. I also ground the saffron with a bit of salt first as one of the comments suggested. This was tougher than I thought -- I ended up with saffron paste stuck all over the mortar that I couldn't get out no matter how much I scraped. So I poured the water into the mortar before putting it into the pan, and that worked. It turned out great. Normally I'm not a big fan of butter, but the hint of butter flavor really complemented the saffron.