Risotto, risotto, risotto

Hands up the people who love risotto! I can't say that I am one of them, mostly because I don't eat a lot of carbs, and hence I do not cook a lot of carbs. This led to The Boy saying the other day: "I walked down the pasta aisle at Coles the other day and had pasta envy". Bottomline, he wanted me to cook more pasta. Risotto is not pasta, but it's Italian and it's carbs. And The Boy does like risotto.

A common myth about risotto - which I would like to dispel right away. You DO NOT stir risotto. Stirring aggravates the starch, which leads to carbs, which leads to all those things they say you should not have carbs for. Instead, you should just agitate (or flip) the pan you are cooking the risotto in (not a pot) and only stir (very gently) occasionally in order to make sure that all the rice is coated in stock. Repeat after me, "stirring, bad!". If you cook pasta or rice al dente, and do not stir or beat it around roughly, you do not activate the carbs. Result? 2/3 less carbs in the pasta or rice you are eating. Much better for you.

I'm not strong enough to flip the pan, so I agitate it, which basically means shaking it back and forth on the burner. I shudder to think that that shaking back and forth, metal on metal, on the burner will do to the bottom of my pan, but that's the point of using the pan the correct way, I guess.

In case you are wondering what I mean by agitating, flipping or shaking back and forth, here's a video that will show you how to do it, courtesy of someone who has uploaded the vid. Note the shaking back and forth before the flipping. The flipping is pretty impressive, but I'm not strong enough to do that, so I just shake it. This vid is shot using a wok. It doesn't matter wok or fry pan.

Okay, so onto making the risotto. Here's the RECIPE for making a base risotto. From this base, you can pretty much make any type of risotto.

Ingredients:

• 1 onion diced
• 2 or 3 garlic cloves, finely minced (more garlic, if you like it)
• 1 litre stock (type depends on the risotto you are making, either chicken or vegetable) per 2 cups of rice
• 2 cups of Arborio rice
• 75g of unsalted butter
• Olive oil
• 1/2 to 1 cup of Parmesan cheese for texture

Instructions:

• Heat stock and bring to boil. Turn off heat but make sure that stock stays hot
• Put frying pan (large enough for the amount of risotto you are making) on medium heat and add olive oil
• Put onions and garlic into pan and saute till onions are translucent
• Melt butter into pan and when butter is melted add rice
• Coat rice in butter by flipping pan (do not stir - you don't want to activate the starch) and brown over heat for a few minutes
• When rice starts to turn a lovely yellow color, add one 3/4 ladle of stock to the pan
• Simmer stock in pan, flipping pan occasionally, until stock is absorbed
• Add more stock and repeat until rice is al dente. This means the rice needs to be firm but not hard (and the rice does not crunch).

Note: you can occasionally use a spatula and gently scrape along the sides of the pan or turn over the rice from bottom to top, to make sure all the rice is covered by stock and absorbing

I learned that while doing this, my pan was a little too hot at the beginning and I had to turn the heat down. The result of the pan being too hot was that all my stock was evaporating and it was not being absorbed into the rice. That is not good.

So that's the base risotto. What happens next is that you add whatever flavoring you want to make it a risotto of your choice.

For a mushroom risotto:

Ingredients:

• A whole bunch of different types of mushrooms
• 1/2 cup parsley, finely chopped

Instructions:

• About 2/3 way through the stock absorption process of the rice, add in the mushrooms and fold through mushrooms to make sure the mushrooms are mixed through the rice
• Continue to add stock until risotto is al dente.
• When risotto is al dente, add Parmesan cheese for texture
• After Parmesan cheese is mixed in, just before serving, gently fold through parsley to add a bit of color to the dish
• Top the risotto with a small handful of rocket salad in a white wine vinegar and dijon mustard dressing

Note: The mushrooms will release liquid, so watch this to determine how much more stock to add. Also, you want the risotto to have enough liquid in it yet, so that it falls off individually from the spoon when scooped up, instead of being clumpy.  You can add a bit more stock for this.

For a pumpkin and goat cheese risotto:

Ingredients:

• 4 cups grated pumpkin
• 1 packet goat cheese fetta crumbled

Instructions:

• Grate the pumpkin
• About 2/3 way through the stock absorption process of the rice, add in the grated pumpkin and fold through to make sure the pumpkin are mixed through the rice
• Continue to add stock until risotto is al dente.
• When risotto is al dente, add Parmesan cheese for texture
• After Parmesan cheese is mixed in, serve into plates
• Sprinkle a small amount of the crumbled goat cheese on top of the risotto
• Top the risotto with a small handful of rocket salad in a white wine vinegar and dijon mustard dressing

For the rocket salad:

Ingredients:

• Packet of rocket, whatever amount is needed to serve the number of people you are serving
• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
• Pinch of salt and pepper

Instructions:

• Mix white wine vinegar, olive oil, dijon, salt and pepper together to make dressing
• Pour over rocket and mix through
• Serve

Note: do not mix dressing into salad until just before serving, otherwise the rocket will wilt.

There you have it, 2 variations of risotto from that one base. Of course, there are lots of different variations that you can concoct now that you know that base risotto.

Chicken and chorizo sausage is a very tasty variation and works great as a main meal. With the chorizo though, while frying it in a pan with the onions and garlic, it will release oil, because of the fat in the sausage. You want that oil to coat the rice along with the butter because that will give you all that lovely smoked chorizo flavor.

Another one that I like is chicken and green peas. It's a very clean simple dish and the peas add a lovely dash of color to the pale chicken risotto.

The sky's the limit. Enjoy!

So, are you going to try these risotto dishes? How do you like the variations? What would you like to add to the basic risotto recipe to make it essentially your own? 

© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny’s Fortunes Pty Ltd

F-F-F-Friday - Helping My Girl Cook

I've got The Boy back to write my F-F-F-Friday post for me because he did such a fabulous job the last time. Plus, I just love hearing from him. So .... here's The Boy ....

After a year of being the beneficiary of my wonderful wife’s delicious cooking, I decided to take some cooking lessons myself.

I did this for three primary reasons:

• I realised what a large chore it was for her to do on her own, and I felt I could help her out when needing to take some of the pressure off,
• I remembered how cooking (I used to do a lot of Chinese cooking 25 years ago, but was self-taught) concentrated my attention on cooking and pushed work to the background and felt I would benefit from that again,
• And I felt that better understanding and participating in the cooking process would provide healthier and better tasting foods and also help me to better select matching wines for the meal

Most importantly, since my dad’s massive stroke (and remarkable recovery, thank God), I have taken to making my occupation the one of living and not working (of course, one still needs to work to make a living, but it is a matter of setting the right priorities). There is nothing more basic than preparing and eating meals and relating to others, so the focus on cooking has helped me to achieve that goal. It does take some time to learn and practice and also the time to prepare the meals, but it has been a fulfilling experience and as with most things, it is not a matter of time, but rather one of priority. Once I placed cooking, health and socialising with great friends higher on the list, I made the time and you can too.

Christmas cooking class, which involves drinking
with friends too

I have had six lessons so far, including three lessons from Cooking for Blokes, a great program in North Sydney, a special Christmas cooking lesson and special knife skills lesson from Cooking for Blokes, and recently a How to Cook Pasta lesson from Sandalyns in the Hunter Valley. I have loved the experience as it has provided me with a deeper understanding and more confidence to take on more myself.

My Girl still plans the meals when we have guests over and controls the kitchen, but I participate more. Additionally, I have been doing a few meals on my own for us, including making a cauliflower soup and a chicken risotto and tonight will be preparing a mushroom and sausage risotto. Additionally, in two weeks’ time, we will congregate with close friends at our place in the Hunter Valley to have a cooking, eating and drinking weekend among great friends – kind of like The Big Chill, but without the funeral and neuroticism! Each couple will lead the preparation of a meal, we will all cook, sit around and eat, drink and socialise and have a great time of it.

Resources available to help you get started are this blog, which provides a number of recipes and instructional material and here is the link for Cooking for Blokes which is a great way to learn and improve. It is for blokes, but also for women (this is where DAZ first trained!) and they have a six lesson Level 1 course followed by numerous Level 2 courses, provided by one of the Masterchef finalists.
I have learned to cook and have more confidence and fun doing so and so can you. It is not as intimidating as it might appear!

Hamming it up

Well in my previous post, I talked about turkey, not done the traditional way. :-)

Today, I'm going to talk about ham, done the traditional way :-) but with a super delicious glaze (which is not so traditional after all *grin*). Plus I love ham in all it's various incarnations - ham and cheese croissant, ham and cheese sandwich, sliced ham on it's own, honey baked sliced ham, ham off the bone ... you name it, I'm a ham lover, so I'm super excited about this post.

The only thing I would say in warning about ham is to make sure that it is not too large, so that it fits into your oven. Of course, if you have a super large oven, then you can have a super large ham, but if you're like me and have a dinky oven, just be mindful of the size of the ham. I always like a super big ham, but I'm constrained by the size of my oven. Argh!

Anyhow, enough of the chit chat ... on to the ham ...

Preparing the ham:

Ingredients:

• 1 leg of ham
• 20 - 30 whole cloves
• Ham glaze (I'll put the RECIPE below)

Instructions:

• Take the leg of ham out of the fridge and let it warm to room temperature
• Remove the skin off the ham but leave the layer of fat using a ham slicing knife
• Using a paring knife or a chef's knife if you prefer, lighting cut into the fat of the ham to create a cross-hatch pattern in about 1.5cm diamonds
• Using whole cloves, stick them into the diamonds on the fat of the ham, scattering them evenly around the surface of the ham
• Once the cloves are in, turn the oven onto 180dC
• Place the ham into a roasting pan
• Pour all of the glaze over the ham, making sure that it's evenly coated all over the ham
• Put the ham into the oven and roast for 1 to 1.5 hours depending on the size of the ham. You want the ham to cook through to about 65dC, so use a meat thermometer and check the core temp of your ham before removing it from the oven
• When your ham is done, take it out of the oven and let it rest for about 30 minutes, carve and serve

RECIPE for the glaze:

Ingredients:

• 250g mango chutney
• 75g dijon mustard
• 150g brown sugar
• 250ml orange juice
• Zest of 1 orange
• Bunch of cloves

Instructions:

• Mix all ingredients throughly together

And that's it. That's how you make a rather yummy Christmas ham. Of course, it doesn't have to be Christmas for you to enjoy a ham. You can always get a smaller leg to cook for just everyday use. A leg of ham usually keeps quite well in the fridge wrapped up in some paper towels to absorb any excess moisture. You can get a good 10 days out of the ham that way, I have found. Much better staying power than sliced ham from the deli.

F-F-F-Friday - Love affair

I'm cheating a little ... I'm reposting this note that I wrote about my love affair with coffee that I wrote a few months ago but never posted on a blog, only on my Facebook page. I re-read this and really had fun with it, so I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did. I'm also posting this a day early 'cos I won't be able to post it tomorrow as scheduled.

I’m having a love affair … shhhh …. don’t tell The Boy! Oh, hang on … he already knows!

I’ve recently, okay about a month ago, gave up soy milk at the urging of my Nazi of a naturopath. Actually, she told me to give it up (too much sugar) about 3 months, possibly 4 months ago, but at that time, I was already giving up too many things – sugar, carbs (including rice, pasta, noodles, muesli, cereal, oats, etc.), any product that contained lactose, milk chocolate, and the thought of soy milk as well when I so loved my morning decaf latte was just too much to deal with.

So, after ignoring her advice for several months, I’ve finally done it.

I’ve given up soy milk.

I’ve started drinking my coffee black instead.

So for the last month, I’ve been ordering decaf long blacks with one equal in them and quite enjoying them.

More recently, The Boy discovered that without having to use milk, our rather aged coffee machine can make a rather nice long black.

It’s an old, old Nespresso Krups machine and it makes a BEAUTIFUL long black.

I’ve discovered that Nespresso makes positively delicious Decaf Intenso and Lungo coffee, and thus began my love affair.

I’m completely addicted to the Nespresso Decaf range.

Of course, being decaf, I can indulge in my addiction. 1 cup of coffee has 65mg of caffeine. 1 cup of decaf has less than 1mg of caffeine. I would have to drink about 65 cups of decaf to get the caffeine kick, which suits me just fine.

The Nespresso Decaf Intenso is dark, rich and intense.

The Nespresso Decaf Lungo is smooth, luxurious and flavourful.

I can’t enough of them.

The machine makes a “long” which is about 110mls.

That, I have discovered, is rather a small cup.

The machine also makes the coffee in the perfect temperature and I can drink it right away.

It makes the coffee go down a little too quickly and I run out way too soon.

Hence the need to go back and make another one.

We ran out of capsules for the Nespresso machine, so we trooped over to the Nespresso shop this last weekend past to pick up more. While there we discovered these hand blown, double walled, clear glass coffee cups in various sizes for different drinks. Ah … the ultimate accessory to the ultimate drinking experience!

Now, not only do I get to drink the most wonderful coffee whenever I want (except when I’m not at home), I also get to drink it in the most exquisite coffee cup.

It is a pleasure not only to drink the coffee, it is a pleasure to drink out of this cup, and drinking coffee out of this cup is the ultimate combination.

If you think I’m waxing rather lyrical over this, take yourself over to your closest Nespresso store and ask them to make you a cup of “lungo” (any flavour) and serve it to you in the double walled, clear glass cup (not the one with the handle). You will understand my exuberance.

Or you could come round and I can make you a cup. But then you’ll have to listen to me extol the virtues of my coffee drinking experience.

I don’t miss the soy milk at all.

Well, after all that, I think I’ll go make myself another cup of Decaf Lungo.

5 cups of decaf a day isn’t so much, is it?

And after all that, the only thing I can say is ... RUN, don't walk to your nearest Nespresso store and get yourself some of that coffee. (This is not a paid promotion by Nespresso *grin*). I tell you, it's good stuff!!

And in case you're wondering, The Boy's drink of choice is a double macchiato.

What about you? How do you feel about your coffee? Do you drink decaf or do you like to get hit with the full caffed experience? How many cups a day keeps you going? How do you like to drink your coffee? Or as some would say ... what's your poison?



© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny’s Fortunes Pty Ltd

Roasted root vegetables

Last night, because I'm still on antibiotics, we decided on a simple dinner that was "bland" but still delicious. Now, don't get me wrong, bland does not mean no taste here. Medically speaking, when they tell you bland diet, it means no spicy hot food, no high fibre foods, no dairy, no caffeine and no alcohol. It's not the easiest thing in the world to adhere to because, well, I like my spicy food. But I digress ...

We cooked! The Boy helped because he's been taking cooking lessons and he's been right handy in the kitchen. I'm loving him cooking with me. The best part for me was the fact that he helped clean up too and the kitchen was spotless when he was done!

I would like to point out that this is super easy and very tasty.

Here's my RECIPE for roasted root vegetables:

Ingredients:

• 3 carrots
• 2 sweet potatoes
• 1/4 pumpkin
• 2 onions
• 8 cloves of garlic
• 1 tablespoon honey
• Masterfoods Seasoning All Purpose - Seasoned Salt
• Olive oil

Instructions:

• Cut the vegetables into 2cm chunks and toss into large mixing bowl
• When all the vegetables are done, put into a large ziploc bag (it has to be large enough to fit all the vegetables)
• Pour in a very generous amount of olive oil
• Put in honey
• Sprinkle in a very, very generous serving of the Masterfoods Seasoning All Purpose - Seasoned Salt
• Close the ziploc bag tightly
• Grab the bag by the sides and start to move all the vegetables around in the bag until the olive oil, honey and seasoned salt is thoroughly mixed through all the vegetables
• Take a roasting pan and spray lightly with oil
• Turn on oven and heat to 180dC
• Pour vegetables out of the bag into the roasting pan and squeeze out any of remaining seasoning
• Lay the vegetables out flat in roasting pan and put into oven
• Cook in oven for 30 - 45 minutes until the vegetables are soft and they are slightly blackened around the edges
• Take out of oven, cool slightly and serve

Note: if you do not have any Seasoned Salt, you can also just use salt and pepper

Talking turkey ... 'cos it's almost Christmas

I'm ba-ack! Well, mostly I'm almost recovered from a rather nasty bout of bronchitis which knocked me on my back for about 10 days until I dragged my ass to the doctor and got antibiotics. Once I got the antibiotics, I was on a steady improve almost immediately (except for a night of heaving 'cos the antibiotics didn't agree with my stomach). I had to go on a bland diet (no fun!) for the duration until I'm off the antibiotics though I did take a short break from it in order to do some cooking ... and of course, the eating after that.

As we know it's coming close to Christmas. In our part of the world, Thanksgiving is not a holiday so even though it's only early November, we're gearing up for Christmas. The shops have all their Christmas decorations out, Christmas cards are doing a roaring trade and my family are already making plans for Christmas lunch.

Today, in preparation for Christmas, we did some Christmassy cooking. Turkey, ham, BBQ prawns (after all, it's Summer over here!), Christmas cake (made into a Bombed Alaska), fruit coulis Champagne .... mmmmm ..... yum!!!

It was also a day of fun and frivolity as we chatted, cooked at ate.

So ... let's talk turkey.

Instead of your traditional whole turkey stuck into the oven that comes out crinkly and dry (though there are bits of that I do like ... can you say "thigh meat"?), this was much more tasty and fun.

Preparing the turkey:

• First off, we take a whole turkey. A size 34 turkey which is rather small and weighing about 3.4kg will feel a good 6 to 8 people, more than amply, especially since there are lots of sides and dessert to follow.
• We then de-bone the turkey and cut off the important bits: turkey breast pieces and turkey thighs.
• Then we save the rest of the turkey for stock.
• With the turkey thighs, we de-bone the thigh, so it's just the meat. Remember to cut off the sinew 'cos that's going to be tough and chewy and you don't want that.
• With the breast meat, make sure to cut as close to the bone as possible so that you get a nice big piece of meat.

Cooking the turkey breast:

• Take the turkey breast and lift one side of the skin
• Put in a few thin slices of butter under the skin - about 100g of butter (this will keep the meat moist)
• Repeat for the second breast
• Then, season both pieces of the turkey breast with salt and pepper - be generous 'cos there's a lot of meat going on
• Take one piece seasoned turkey breast, put it on a sheet of tin foil that has been lined with baking paper. Roll it up into a log
• Repeat for the second turkey breast
• Turn on the oven to 160dC
• Put both turkey breasts into a roasting pan and fill the pan with about 1/2 - 1cm of water
• Put turkey breasts into oven and cook for 1.5 hours until ready (you can check this by sticking a thermometer into it. You want your turkey to be sitting at around 75dC
• When the turkey is ready, take it out and rest it for 30 minutes, then carve and serve

Turkey breast after butter goes into skin

Cooking the turkey thighs:

• First off you will need some stuffing. I'll post the RECIPE for the stuffing below
• Take the turkey thigh and open it flat, meat side up, laying on a sheet of tin foil lined with baking paper
• Season the turkey thigh with salt and pepper (be generous)
• Repeat for the other turkey thigh
• After seasoning, fill lay a layer of stuffing across the whole of the turkey thigh and then roll up the turkey thigh into a log
• Wrap the turkey thigh in the log shape in the foil and baking sheet and set aside
• Repeat for the other turkey thigh
• Place the turkey thighs into a roasting pan (no water needed this time)
• At this point your oven is already on and cooking the turkey breast, about 30 minutes into cooking the turkey breast put the turkey thigh into the oven. You want the turkey thigh to cook for about 1 hour
• Check to see if the turkey thigh is cooked, again about 75dC with a thermometer
• When ready, take out of oven and rest for 30 minutes, then carve and serve

Note: this will allow both the turkey breasts and thighs to be ready about the same time

RECIPE for stuffing:

Ingredients:

• 2 onions, diced finely and cooked till translucent but not browned or caramelised
• 1 bag of walnuts, diced
• 1 jar of cranberry sauce
• 1/2 bunch of sage, chopped
• 150g of bread crumbs
• 400g of pork mince
• Zest of 1 orange
• Season generously with salt and pepper
• 150g butter, softened

Instructions:

• Put all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl and mix throughly

RECIPE for turkey gravy:

• Take the remaining bits of the turkey that has not been used so far - carcass, wings, etc., and roast in oven at 180dC for 1 hour until nicely browned
• Boil in a large pot of water
• Put roasted turkey bits into water and boil the turkey stock for about 1 hour (longer if you have time)
• Remove the turkey bits from the stock and continue to simmer to reduce the stock to a thickened state (you can cheat and use corn flour to thicken it a bit more if you like really thick gravy)
• Add salt and pepper to taste
• Pour over turkey when ready to eat

So that's it for all the turkey-ness. I love turkey, so I'm particularly fond of these dishes. In fact, I'm thinking, I don't need Christmas to do this. I might just serve this when the mood takes me and I feel like some turkey.

Gobble! Gobble! everyone.

I'm not away, but I'm sick ... so, it's sort of like being away

I'm so sorry that I haven't posted in such a long time. I have a very good excuse though - I've been sick, still am, in fact.

I've got a nasty, nasty cough that is keeping me (and The Boy) up nights and exhausted during the day. It's been going for about a week now and even though I'm up during the day, I'm just too tired and my mind is just too fuzzy for me to do much of anything. I've tried concentrating, that doesn't seem to work very well.

I just took a shower and that's wiped me out. I'm surprised how tired I'm feeling from just taking a shower. On top of that, my appetite has gone. I'm barely eating at all and only forcing myself to have breakfast and dinner just because the meds need to be accompanied by food.I'm off to the doctor tomorrow in the hopes that I'll be able to get some anti-biotics to knock this sucker out of me.

As a result of being sick, I haven't been cooking much either. I've made oatmeal a few times for breakfast, The Boy has whipped up some cauliflower soup and we've had Chinese take out a couple of nights. I'm going to attempt a chicken and pea risotto tonight and there might be a post coming out of that, if I'm up to cooking. Hopefully, there will be.

Anyhow, this was just a quickie to check in and let you all know that I've not disappeared off the face of the earth.

When was the last time you caught something you didn't want? What are you doing to prevent catching any bugs and infections?

© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny’s Fortunes Pty Ltd

F-F-F-Friday - Cookbook haul

I'm a bit late for my F-F-F-Friday post, what with it being Monday now. Apologies. All this back and forth between The House and The Apartment is taking it's toll on me. At the very least, I'll be a bit more regular and in The Apartment for a few weeks. We're also getting phone and Internet in The House, so that will help too.

Sometimes I don't wake up so early in the morning ... ha ha ha ... okay, okay, I admit it, I'm not a morning person, so a lot of times, I don't wake up so early in the morning. *grumble* The Boy on the other hand is an early bird. He will even wake up at 5am on a Saturday morning. Horrors! My point?

Well, on some mornings when The Boy wakes up at such an awful hour, he'll take himself off for a walk around the city. On one such morning he discovered a discount bookstore. He came home that morning all excited because that bookstore has an entire wall dedicated to cookbooks and cooking reference books ... all discounted!

Being The Wonderful Boy that he is, he made a date to take me to the store as soon as it was possible for us to find a time to take a walk over there. It was such fun!!! I didn't have my camera with me, so I didn't take a picture of the awesome wall, all covered in cookbooks, but I did get quite a haul. Most of the books ranged from $5 to $15 each, down from anywhere between $30 and $75 each.

Here's what I ended up with:

As a result of the haul, we had to rearrange the bookshelves a little bit, but here's what my collection of cookbooks look like right now.

All those pretty, pretty books ... *sigh* ... and the very best news? This store has recently bought up all the stock from Angus & Robertson and Borders shutting down, so there will be more discounted cookbooks for me to rummage through in the near future. Oh happy days!!!

Do cookbooks excite you or do you now just hop online and search for what you want? How do you like those recipes you're finding online? Do you enjoy flipping through a lovely, colorful cookbook full of pictures of beautifully prepared food? How many recipes would you make out of a cookbook? What's your favorite cookbook? The one book that you will not do without in your kitchen? 

© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny’s Fortunes Pty Ltd