Food: Risotto

I have been meaning to conquer risotto for some time.  I love its creamy texture, the nuttiness of the arborio rice, and how everyone is impressed more if you say "risotto" than if you say "slow-cooked rice."  Plus, it's creamy and delicious and oh, so amazing.

So I went to the interwebs and found me a basic risotto recipe and basically followed it.  With a few alterations.

Here's what I did.

First, I put a quart of chicken broth (Swanson organic) on the back burner to get really warm but not simmering.  Just nice and steaming hot.

Then, I melted about a tbsp of butter in a saucepan with a tablespoon of veggie oil (canola to be exact).  Then I cooked a chopped shallot (medium size) in it until the shallot was almost translucent.

Added rice and stirred until the rice turned translucent except for the center and it smelled nutty and delicious and amazing.

Poured in a half cup of good white wine: Casa Larga Chardonnay to be exact.  I would also recommend Toasted Head Chardonnay (my favorite white wine EVER; the Casa Larga was a Christmas gift and it was just as good).

Stirred and stirred and stirred until the liquid was almost absorbed.

Then I added a ladleful of broth and stirred and stirred and stirred until it was almost absorbed.  Lather, rinse, repeat until the broth is gone.  Don't stop stirring except to add the broth.

I tasted a few times to make sure the rice was absorbing the liquid.  Partially cooked arborio rice is kind of gross.

Once all the broth was gone, I stirred in 3 tbsp of unsalted butter and a quarter cup of Parmesan cheese.  Freshly grated is good, but I use Wegman's brand in the green can because it has the most flavor of any canned Parmesan I've ever tasted.

Then I served.  And ate.  And ate.

I normally have a rule of no seconds, but this risotto was creamy, drowned in butter, subtle-tasting, and amazing.  It punctuated a glass of that Casa Larga very nicely.  So did the roast chicken I made to go with the risotto.  But really?  It was all about the risotto tonight.

YUM.

Sorry no photos... I was busy stuffing my face after all the stirring.

Food: Gram's English Toffee

Neither English nor toffee, Gram's cookies were always my favorite of her cookie assortment.  It's a brown sugar cookie bottom covered in chocolate and (optional) nuts.  (I don't do the nuts because I don't like them.)

You need:
1 stick butter or margarine
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup brown sugar
3 egg yolks
1/2 tablespoon vanilla
2 cups sifted flour (sift it and then measure)

a whole bunch of chocolate.  For me, it was 2 10-ounce bags of bittersweet chocolate chips.  For Gram, it was 12 Hershey bars.

First, cream the butter, shortening, brown sugar, egg yolks and vanilla together.  Add the flour.  Press this dough into a jelly roll pan or small cookie sheet.  Mine was 10.5"x15" I think.  Bake at 375F for 10 minutes.

Once you remove the dough from the oven, put your chocolate on it immediately.  As the chocolate melts, spread it around with a spatula.  (For the chips, I returned it to the turned-off oven for about 2 minutes and then spread things around.)  At this point, if you want nuts, sprinkle them on top of the chocolate.  I don't.

Cool completely and cut into squares.

Food: Pan seared beef tenderloin steaks

The fanciest-sounding dish I make is a pan-seared beef tenderloin steak with a red wine reduction sauce.  What's hilarious about this is that it is incredibly easy to make if you have a basic knowledge of cooking, and it tastes amazing.  It's a little expensive if you use actual tenderloin instead of sirloin, but it's worth the expense if you want a flavorful, tender, medium-rare steak.

To make this dish you need:

• 1 beef tenderloin steak per person eating
• 2 shallots, minced
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• about a tablespoon fresh rosemary, minced
• 2 cups red wine (or thereabouts - I just pour from the bottle)
• 1 heaping teaspoon beef-flavored Better than Bouillon
• 2 tablespoons butter (unsalted)

First thing's first: get your steaks out and DRY them with a paper towel.  Wet beef will not brown properly.

Warm your pan to pretty hot.  Place the dry steaks in them.  Let them sit for a few minutes, or until you can feel the steak "release" from the pan.  Then flip and do the same thing on the other side.  Usually this takes about 5 minutes per side on my steaks, but it will depend on the thickness of your steak and how well-done you like things.  Regardless, make sure your steak has a nice golden brown crust on it before you flip it to the other side.

Once the steaks are done to your liking, remove them to a plate and cover them with foil.  You might have to pop them in the oven at 300 if you like a more well-done steak to finish them off.  This is up to you, not me.  I like mine pretty bloody.

Anyway - there will be a beautiful crusty accumulation on the bottom of your pan.  Throw in your 2 tbsp of butter and scrape this up with the butter.  Then throw in the shallots and garlic and rosemary and stir constantly until barely brown.  Then add the wine.  Keep scraping up the bits from the bottom of the pan.  Stir in the Better than Bouillon.  Bring to a boil and cook until the wine mixture is reduced by at least half.

Serve over the steaks.

Sorry no photos - I never have time to photograph what's going on while I cook this.  But try it.  You'll like it.

Food: Chicken Soup

Every time I get a cold, I crave old-fashioned chicken soup.  Nothing fancy, just plain old chicken soup.  Today after teaching for a full day and straining my vocal cords with elementary-school-aged children, I looked forward to nothing more than a bowl of chicken soup.  So I stopped at the grocery for the ingredients and made it.  This is what I did.

First: chop up 1 heart of celery (leaves included), 2 medium onions, and half a pound(ish) of carrots.  Saute all these in a bit of olive oil in the bottom of your soup pot.  When the onion becomes translucent, add 5 cloves minced garlic.  Yes, 5.  Garlic is good for a cold.  Go ahead and add more if you want, but never less.

When the smell becomes almost too much for you, but before the garlic has browned, add 2 quarts chicken stock.  Since I didn't have my usual handy-dandy chicken stock boxes around, I made my own out of Reduced Sodium chicken flavored Better than Bouillon.  It worked just fine.  Add in: 2 bay leaves, about a tablespoon fresh rosemary (I just snipped off a sprig and threw it in the pot), and about 3 tablespoons of freeze-dried shallots from (you guessed it) Penzey's. 

Next: tear all the meat off a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store.  (My reason for not roasting my own chicken?  A whole rotisserie chicken was cheaper than a whole raw chicken by about a dollar.  And it saved me a few hours time.  And I wanted chicken soup TODAY, not tomorrow.  If I had a raw chicken, I would have made roasted chicken for dinner today.  I digress.)  Stir the meat into the soup.  Bring to a simmer.  Oh yeah - don't put the chicken skin in the soup. Ick.  Season with seasoned salt and pepper to taste.

About an hour before serving, add 1 cup uncooked white rice.  Stir occasionally until it is time to serve.

Food: Frangelico Cheesecake

I made this for my dad's penultimate birthday cake and it turned out great.  I haven't really made it since, but it's delicious.  It's a cheesecake laced with frangelico, topped with frangelico-laced chocolate ganache and fresh raspberries.  It's  also probably the fanciest thing I've ever made.

For the crust, you need:
1.5 cups chocolate graham cracker crumbs (I used chocolate-flavored goldfish and crushed them - they're chocolatier than Oreos)
1/4 cup sugar
6 tbsp butter, melted
a pinch of Cassia cinnamon (or just regular.  But I use the Cassia variety because it's spicier than Ceylon cinnamon.)

Do the things you need to do to turn this into a graham-cracker crust (mix it together with a fork), and press it into the bottom of a springform pan.

For the filling, you need:
32 oz cream cheese (by weight), softened
3 eggs
3/4 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup Frangelico liqueur

Blend the ingredients together with a hand mixer.  Pour over the crust.  Bake at 350F for 40 to 50 minutes and remove from oven.  (It's often cracked on top, but the ganache fixes this!)

For the ganache topping, you need:
8 oz bittersweet chocolate
3/4 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp Frangelico liqueur

chop the chocolate and set in a medium bowl to the side.  Bring the cream and butter to a boil on medium heat and then pour over the chocolate and let it sit for 5 minutes.  Whisk together until blended.  Add the liqueur and whisk until blended again.  Pour enough of this over the cheesecake to cover it.  Eat the rest with a spoon while it's warm, or refrigerate it and roll it into balls later for impressive chocolate truffles.

While the ganache is still warm, put fresh raspberries all over the top of the cheesecake.

Voila.  YUM.

Food: Lasagna my way

It's lasagna night, oh yes.  Before I go into the intricacies of how I make my (totally inauthentic yet delicious) version of lasagna, I must establish my paradigm from which I'm cooking:

• I'm Irish-German but grew up in a village that has a large Italian population, so Italian food is no stranger to me.
• I don't cook my lasagna noodles, ever.
• My dad was famous for his lasagna, even before we moved to said Italian-American village.
• I'm a fussy eater who refuses to eat mushrooms in any form, so if you want mushrooms in your lasagna, be prepared to be disappointed.  Also be ready for not many bell peppers in this recipe.
• I have not had much "authentic" lasagna because the one time I had it in one of those hole-in-the-wall restaurants that has a cute little old Italian lady making the secret-recipe red sauce, I was disappointed.
• I like a lot of sauce and cheese.  My lasagna weighs at least 10 pounds.

So with those in mind, I bid thee to keep reading my process.

First, we need sauce, and a veritable ton of it.  To begin, brown your ground beef in a LARGE pot:

And add about this much chopped onion:

When the beef begins to look like this:

See?  The beef is crumbly, but not brown all the way yet.

After that, add a bunch of garlic:

at LEAST this much.  You can pop it through a garlic press, mince it, or do like I do and SLAP-CHOP it!

Make sure all that garlicky goodness is in that pot.   Ohhhh, yes.  YUM.  Stir.

Next, add the cast of (simple) seasonings: seasoned salt, black pepper (freshly ground of course), and "green stuff" (also known as Italian seasoning).  Do it to taste.  I have no measurements for this process, but do remember that the flavors deepen slightly after you bake the lasagna.

Next, it's time for the sauce.  I always make too much sauce while creating lasagna, but this is the sauce-mix ratio that I find most pleasing (and you can always use the leftover sauce for a terrific sauce for spaghetti later):

For those of you who don't have Wegman's around you, more's the pity.  But "Grandpa's Sauce" is simply a tomato sauce with Italian Sausage, roasted red peppers, and wine.  It is oh, so good.  If you can't find Prego traditional, I'm terribly sorry and question your grocery store.

Pour it all in:

YUM.  Turn the heat off because you don't need to simmer this long, as long as you let the lasagna rest a few hours before you pop it in the oven.  If you're cooking it all at once, simmer this sauce for a good 30 minutes.

Next, it's time to assemble the ricotta cheese mixture.  This is a very simple mix of ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, and two eggs.  Mix 2 pounds of ricotta with about a cup of parmesan and the two eggs until it looks like this:

Now that you have your sauce and your cheese mixture, get out your big huge lasagna pan (mine is actually a turkey-roasting pan), your noodles, and your (8 cups of grated) mozzarella.

Assembly goes like this.

First, coat the bottom of the pan with sauce:

Add noodles:

(the reason I love this pan is because it fits 6 noodles perfectly with room to expand in the cooking process.)

And spread a third of the ricotta mixture on the noodles:

Cover that with some of the mozzarella.  Continue in this fashion:

• generous amount of sauce (cover that cheese!)
• noodles
• ricotta
• mozzarella
• sauce
• noodles
• ricotta
• sauce
• the rest of the mozzarella

Finally, you should have a full pan and a lasagna that looks like this pre-oven:

Wow, the lighting sucks on that photo.  But that's how full it is and that's what it looks like.

According to a chef my mother-in-law knows, this whole she-bang is supposed to rest in the fridge overnight. I don't necessarily rest it overnight, but I do let it sit for several hours.  This saves me sauce-simmering and lets me cook the lasagna in advance of the dinner party I'm having, so I can greet my guests with a glass of wine and the lasagna happily in the oven.

Now, for baking.  I do it at about 300 degrees F, for at least 90 minutes.  Keep it covered with foil for at least the first hour, and then take off that foil to allow the top layer o' cheese to brown up a bit.  And remember!  Let it sit for about 5 minutes OUT OF THE OVEN before you serve, otherwise your poor lasagna will run all over the place!

Ohhhh, yes.

My first goulash

For years, the dear husband mentioned "goulash" to me as a food he likes.  I had no idea what goulash was, and an internet search yielded so many differing results that I couldn't be sure.  The Joy of Cooking seemed to pose no help either, because that version of goulash was not what he meant either.  I finally settled on asking him what the heck was in it, and if it didn't sound too bad, I'd try to make it.  He described it as some kind of pasta dish with tomatoes (canned), peppers and onions, and ground beef with a thin sauce.  He was completely vague on spices.  So I took those ingredients, performed a kitchen experiment, and the results were pretty darn good, if I do say so myself.

To make this version of goulash, which is neither authentic nor Hungarian, you need:

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• 3 small onions, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed (I used my garlic press)
• 1 can diced tomatoes (I used the onion and garlic flavored ones at Wegman's)
• 1 pound pasta
• about a quart of warm water
• seasoned salt and black pepper, to taste

The process:

Start browning the ground beef.  Once it has started to brown and get crumbly, stir in the bell pepper and onion and cook until the onion is almost translucent.  Add the garlic and stir.  Pour in the can of tomatoes without draining them, and simmer for about 20 more minutes.  Season with seasoned salt and black pepper.  I used a lot more seasoned salt than I thought I would.

About 20 minutes before serving, stir in the pasta and pour in enough warm water to cover everything.  Bring to a boil, cover, and cook the pasta.  Once the pasta is cooked, uncover the pot to boil down the "sauce."  My sauce thickened by some miraculous act of foodie voodoo, and I hope yours does too.

Serve with parmesan cheese, if you like.  That's all husband.  I ate mine plain and was happy as a clam.

Food: chicken tortellini soup

One day that I was substitute teaching, I had the good fortune to stumble upon having lunch with the weekly lunch club in the faculty room. The home and careers teacher had made chicken tortellini soup and it smelled sooo good. Next thing I knew a bowl was in front of me and I was having some of this heavenly concoction. Upon demanding the recipe, here is what she gave me.

You need:

• 2 quarts chicken stock (not broth)
• olive oil (enough to coat bottom of pan)
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 to 3 cloves garlic, diced (I tend to use extra)
• 1 can diced tomatoes, not drained
• 1 pound frozen spinach
• 2 to 3 large, cooked boneless skinless chicken breasts (or the right chicken equivalent)
• 1 pound (approx) fresh cheese tortellini
• salt and pepper to taste

First, saute the onions and garlic in the olive oil until the onions are translucent.  This smells phenomenal.

Add your 2 quarts chicken stock, chicken, diced tomatoes, and spinach.  Cook about a half hour on medium to medium-low heat.

About 15 minutes before serving, add the tortellini and let them heat through.

Add salt and pepper to taste.  I use seasoned salt and a lot of pepper.

Eat this delicious substance: