BLT Risotto

Tags

bacon, dinner, recipes, risotto, spinach

I really didn’t know what to do with the 3lb bag of Arborio rice that was given to me by mistake from Fresh Direct, so it sat in my cupboards. Sure, I could make risotto… I mean, that’s what arborio rice is for. But the thought of using it never came to mind until I was looking through a cookbook at Patty’s house.

“Oh, I have been meaning to give that to you…”

A free cookbook! It was Emeril Lagasse’s Sizzling Skillets and One Pot Wonders. Everything about a one pot dinner sounded great to me but when I spotted the BLT Risotto recipe my mind went right to the giant bag of free Arborio Rice.

I had most of the ingredients on hand, so I figured “Why Not?”

I was also nursing a really gnarly hangover and was craving CARBS like crazy. There was no time like the present to 1) make hangover risotto and 2) stop feeling hungover.

Ingredients:

6 cups chicken stock

6 ounces thick cut bacon  1/5 lb thick cut bacon

1 cup onion, diced

3/4 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 tsp crushed garlic

1 1/2 tsp fresh thyme 3/4 tsp dried thyme

1 1/2 cups Arborio rice

3/4 cups dry white wine

1 lb vine ripened tomatoes 2 vine ripened tomatoes

5 ounces fresh baby spinach

2 Tbsp unsalted butter

2 ounces parm cheese

To start, set the 6 cups of broth in a pot to simmer. It has to be hot in order to do its magic later.

While the broth was simmering, I crisped up the bacon in a large skillet… the same skillet I would be using for the duration of the cooking! One skillet to wash! yesss!

I digress.

When the bacon is nice and crispy, remove it from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside on some paper towels.

Add the onions to newly rendered bacon fat and season with salt and pepper. Cook over medium, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon until the onions are translucent. About 4-6 minutes.

Add the garlic, rice, and thyme. Toast up the rice, stirring frequently for 5 minutes. Pour in the wine and allow the rice to absorb it.

When the wine is absorbed, add 1 cup of the chicken stock and gently stir the rice. As the stock evaporates, continue to add 1/2 cup of stock at a time. This should go on for about 15-18 minutes until there is 1/2 cup of stock remaining and the rice is al dente.

Add the tomatoes and allow to cook for two minutes.

After that, add the spinach, bacon, remaining stock, butter and parmesan cheese. Once the spinach wilts, allow it cook for an additional 5 minutes.

Plate and serve with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Amazing.

And it made for an awesome hangover breakfast!

Sundried Tomato Baked Tilapia

Whew! Boy am I exhausted after that lengthy post yesterday! But, I was very honored to write it and hope you enjoyed reading it! When I returned home in the New Year, I had a freezer full of pasteles and other randoms. But my fridge was BARE. Aside from some random condiments, I had very little to do anything with.

I was about to boil some pasteles for the 3rd day in a row when I saw half a bag of frozen peas and carrots, a bag of tilapia fillets, and some sundried tomatoes in oil.

Call me crazy, but those few ingredients led to one of the best meals I have had on a whim in a while.

I cooked up some risotto with tons of chicken stock, a glug of white wine, frozen peas and carrots and chopped up sundried tomatoes. I didn’t use an exact recipe as I stood over the stove, ladling chicken stock into the rice as needed. I finished it off with some freshly grated parmesan, also a random in my fridge.

Here’s an actual recipe, inspired by my pantry.

Ingredients

4 tilapia filets (4 oz each)

1 T italian seasoning

salt

Sundried tomatoes packed in oil. (I used what was left of an 8 oz container)

2T oil from sundried tomatoes (optional)

1 cup jarred marinara sauce

Method:

Place the fillets in a non stick baking dish. Sprinkle tilapia with italian seasoning and salt. Drizzle with oil from sundried tomatoes. Garnish with sundried tomatoes. Covered with foil and baked at 350 for 30 minutes.

To serve, I placed the tilapia on a heaping spoonful of marinara sauce and a side of risotto.

Midway through, I decided to cover the entire thing in marinara sauce (not the risotto).

MMM. 

 

I felt really good about eating this. It tasted light and was a nice change of pace compared to all of the spanish food I have been consuming as of late!

Diva’s First Risotto

Okay, so I HAVE made risotto before… but it came from a box.
*gasp*
and I freakin hated it.
I have had some amazing risotto… and when I was preparing myself for the possibility of making it to Round 3 in Project Food Blog, I received some cheese from Ile De France. They sent me a new Camembert and rather than make yet another baked cheese dish, i decided to try my hand at risotto.
yay!
And when i started generating ideas for my risotto, I thought I needed something else. Sure, cheesy creamy risotto sounds great but I need another little something to add to the mix.

Mushroom? Yeah, that will work. It wasn’t until after I made this dish that I told the foodie Dude about it and he said I should have used fancier mushrooms.

I hate when he’s right.

But when I grocery shop, sometimes I just pick up whats on the list and bounce… especially when so many other things are going on simultaneously. But my baby bellos were enough (for now) and next time, i will play with fancier ones.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons Butter
salt and pepper to taste
1 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms (sauteed)
1 cup Arborio rice

1/2 cup DRY white wine
5 cups Chicken stock

1/3 cup Ile De France Camembert cheese, cubed
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

I started by heating my skillet and melting the butter. I toasted the Arborio rice for a few minutes. Then I added the already sauteed mushrooms.

I added the white wine and 1/2 cup of chicken stock. With the risotto over medium heat, i kept stirring it around to ensure the rice was absorbing all the liquids.
Dice up your cheese…and try not to pick at it. Yes, it IS delicious but remember, its for the rice!

STOP Munching on it!

Continue to add Stock 1/2 cup at a time until the rice is soft (this involves tasting – unless you are uber professional and can tell by lookin at it when its done)… and obvi- use your salt and pepper accordingly. My chicken stock was very oniony so i didnt have to add any additional flavors… just a few pinches of salt.

With the last bit of liquid, add your cheese and watch the cheesy goodness melt into the rice and transform it to the most creamy pan of wonderfulness that did NOT come out of a box.

Cheesy rice… with mushrooms.

Yes please.Now that I am No Longer a Risotto Virgin, I am going to toy with a few more recipes… maybe some butternut squash risotto! or some leafy greens wilted into a creamy bowl of risotto.

Oh the possibilities are endless!

Thank you Ile De France Cheese for the AWESOME camembert! It was hard to resist snacking on while preparing this dish. And it totally made this dish deelish in every way!

Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Crazy Pic Overload!!!

I have a bad habit of slacking off on the weekend, with respect to the blog, and then on Monday I get flustered and go nuts uploading pics and then sorting them out by day.

We are going to go over the weekend as it happened.

FRIDAY
On Friday after work, it was a coworkers birthday so we all headed over to Whiskey Tavern for Happy Hour.

My First Drink was a pitiful Dirty martini. It was too dirty, It was incredibly cloudy and they used the cheap stuff *blech*, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th round was a very safe and yummy Vodka Tonic. Thats my “go to” drink when I go out.
This was dinner. I only paid $9 for a Chicken Florentine burger. The fries were perfect. But the chicken was a little tough. A Little spicy mustard and dab of mayo cleared that problem right up!
That is ONE Mamoth Burger! I looked at it and felt overwhelmed because i imagined a $9 meal in the city would be smaller. Quite the bang for my buck! I was hoping to NOT eat this whole thing…

Drinking leads to mindless munching… and I ate that WHOLE thing. Except the napkin of course.
Went home, went to bed because Saturdays I have TAP CLASS!

SATURDAY
Alarm clock went off and I was happy to NOT have a hangover (who the hell wants to bounce around with a hangover)

I made a super healthy breakfast of Oatmeal with cinnamon and walnuts.

And I MUST have my vitamins with all the sickies around!

Looks like Orange Juice. Tastes like crushed Orange Vitamins. I usually put this in Orange Juice but I was all out so i used water. Chug Chug Chug.
I got lost on my way to tap class because our studio moved to a FURTHER part of Queens and Im a Brooklyn Girl. I had to take the bus and I am not good with the bus. So after witnessing a man beatup his girlfriend in Jamaica Queens, being offered weed on Parsons and Archer, someone asking me to marry them at the bus stop and the perv that faced the back of the bus to stare at me I made it to class. Next week Im carrying Pepper Spray. Class went well. We were productive. I, as usual, had tourettes in class; because when i cant nail a combination i curse.
Went home to moms house and freeloaded.

Thanks to Missy and her wraps, I made a Smoked Turkey, Meunster Cheese and Roast pepper wrap.

Wrap-tastic!I was geared up to go to Michael’s 5th anniversary of his 21st Birthday (or 26th Birthday to all the old fogies) and I got so sick all of a sudden. I had a splitting headache and got chills, a fever, and felt really dizzy. My dad took me home and I missed the party! I was so bummed. Later that evening, I ate some chicken fried rice. And then I splurged on a cupcake my bro brought home from work.

Went to bed with an ice pack on my face.

SUNDAY
I felt pretty rotten. Stupid headache. Everything else felt better but I could not open my eyes, the light was sooo bright. And when I moved I hurt like hell. It was definitely a sinus headache. I made some breakfast and realized it was time to go food shopping.
No bread around so i made an egg with some grits. Not exciting at all. But it filled me up. I rummaged through the cabinets and fridge and made my shopping list. I also took out a Beef Tenderloin to defrost for Dinner.

I seasoned a 3 lb tenderloin with some Montreal Steak Seasoning. Its a coarse rub with pepper, garlic, salt, and some other delicious spices. I preheated the oven to 425.

And placed the tenderloin in a baking dish with carrots and potatoes. I covered with foil and cooked for 50 minutes. It was 20 minutes in the oven for every pound of meat.

Next time I will cook for less time. The meat was a little one the chewy side. To accompany the meat, I made some Risotto. I kind of BSed this recipe but what else is new?I took some arborio rice (or med grain rice) and tossed it in some Oil to toast the grains a bit. Once they were a bit toasty, I added two packets of mushroom soup mix from my Ramen Noodles (minus the noodles).and poured three cups of water into the pan. Let it come to a boil and cover. Stir every 5 minutes until the water is absorbed. Some people add 1 cup of water at a time so the rice slowly absorbs the water but Im impatient that way.

Its just about ready in this photo. Remove it from the heat after about 15 minutes and let the remaining liquid absorb into the rice.
Iit should be very moist and as my mom would say it “MUSHY”.
Plate it and serve! After all this cooking, I gave it a taste and was more than happy to serve this to Henry and put mine aside. I still had a headache and wanted something creamy. Was going to make pudding but it would have taken too long and the thought of taking out the mixer made me tired. So I went for the Chobani yogurt that I splurged on today. This one yogurt was $1.99!No complaints. It was tart and sweet and creamy and just what i wanted! YuM!

Henry came over later on, ate dinner and surprised me with dessert.

He rememberd how taken I was with the photo I took last week and bought this to me hoping it would cure my headache.It didnt cure me but it certainly did taste good! it wasnt too sweet and the cake itself was fluffy. polished this slice off with a glass of milk.

I think I am lactose intolerant… After the yogurt and milk I had a tummy ache.

If you’re still reading… thanks and sorry. I hope you feel caught up. Because I need a nap now.