10/8 Risotto Cakes

Inspired by a recent post on Mark Bittman's blog, I made a ton of mushroom risotto the other night for dinner. It was a pretty basic risotto with some not so home-made stock and some formerly dried shiitake mushrooms. All things considered, 'twas pretty good the first time around. Rather than nuking it today for the second go 'round, I decided to make some risotto cakes out of what was left. As I'm sure you can see, I did use a mold, but this could easily be done without one. I seared them in some butter (as recommended in Harold McGee's latest article to minimize stickiness) and served the three "cakes" with some lightly dressed greens. All in all, a rather successful meal.

12/10 winter squash and seared radicchio risotto

Well this is a bit illogical, but I had about 4 butternut squashes which had arrived in my pantry over a series of weeks, so last weekend I cubed and roasted and froze all of it. The illogical part is that this recipe only called for one cup of roasted winter squash, and yet somehow I felt good about how I was making progress in "using up" an entire crop's worth of squash.

Here we have a simple risotto recipe with the addition of the cup of squash and one head of radiccho, cut into wedges and seared until caramelized a bit (about 10 minutes). For some reason I worried that I would mess up the radicchio and this would come out "gross" (in the parlance of our time), but it was actually awesome - just the right balance of sweet and bitter. I am no longer afraid of searing radicchio.

9/27 wild mushroom risotto

I think I've always been a person who likes food and flavors. One of the first foods I learned to make for myself (and still a favorite comfort food) was a grilled cheese sandwich. I can remember sprinkling dried oregano on top of my slices of cheese and tomatoes to see how it went - and being thrilled with the results.

But didn't really "start cooking" until about half way through my undergraduate years. Oh sure, I hacked Annies Mac N Cheese (added canned green chilies and beans to the yellow cheddar mac, or tuna, frozen peas, and extra parm to the alfredo). And I had helped my mom in the kitchen for many years before that. But really cooking my own things - trying out new recipes and starting from scratch - wasn't a common occurrence.

One of the first things that I made that really turned me on to the pleasure of cooking was a risotto from Jamie Oliver. Yeah, okay, he's kind of an overgrown man-child, but hey, I like his recipes. Anyway, the risotto had shrimp, peas, and mint. Risotto is special to begin with, since it's a very "transformative" dish (coaxing creaminess from crunchy little grains of rice one cup of stock at a time). Jamie also advises the risotto chef to throw in a couple of tablespoons of butter at the very end, after you've achieved saucy goodness, turning off the heat, and letting the risotto "rest" for a few minutes before serving. Oh, heaven.

I picked up some maitake mushrooms and tomatoes at the farmers market for a wild mushroom risotto - chanterelles came from the Berkeley Bowl. The risotto base" is standard: leaks, garlic, arborrio rice, veg stock. I also stirred in some cream at the very end as my "finishing fat" and topped it off with parsley and parm.