Mushroom Risotto

Another Day another challenge! Last night I decided to try my hand at a mushroom risotto , which for those who don't know if a fancy Italian rice dish. I thought I was the rice connoisseur, little did I realize that there is a whole world of rice out there that I haven't discovered!

The process starts with sauteing mushrooms and shallots in a heavy based pot. Once the mushrooms have started to brown you add just enough water to cover them. Once the water has been added you bring the mixture to a boil and let it simmer for at least 30 minutes.

The next step is to strain the solids from the broth; this gives you the mushroom soup stock that is required to cook the risotto! The recipe tells you to squeeze as much juice out of the solid mixture as you can and then throw out the solid mixture.

Since I am unable to knowingly waste any food I decided that if you added a little bit of soy sauce to the mixture and sauteed it, it would top the steak we were serving with the risotto quite nicely!

If you want the flavour of the stock to intensify a bit let the stock simmer longer and boil down about 1/3rd.

Step 3 is in another large pot add a tble spoon of butter, 3 shallots and 2 garlic cloves and saute them until the shallots become clear...not brown as the recipe emphatically stated!

Now comes the fun part! Add the uncooked risotto rice to the pot Carefully stirring the mixture until all of the liquid had been absorbed. I loved the look and the texture of the arborio rice...for years I thought that all rice looked like long grain rice and that was that. Now I have a new mission...discover and try all kinds of rice available!

Back to the risotto! So once all of the liquid had been absorbed you would add about 1/2 a cup of the stock and very carefully stir the mixture until all the stock had been absorbed.

The thing I found funny was how emphatic the recipe was that you gently stir the rice, I wondered why so I googled it and found many horror stories of people being left with a pot of mush as they had stirred to vigorously and broken the grains.

The process was repeated over and over for about 12 minutes; add stock gently stir, add stock gently stir...laborious but worth it in the end!

So the final result was dished out with asparagus and steak...all in all a yummy combo. One regret though was that the entire meal seemed a little greasy...no sure why...even the asparagus had too much butter on it. Maybe next time I'll try just buying the mushroom stock and seeing if that makes a difference.

Canned Salsa

With the arrival of fall comes the season of canning. Hoarding all of the lovely produce painstakingly created over this year what was a bitter, cold, wet summer. Hoping that it's enough and it will last through the winter.

Personally I hate store bought salsa...full of preservatives and other chemicals it never tastes like it should, so I usually turn most of the tomato's I grow into salsa. I find that salsa also makes an excellent spaghetti sauce when I've run out of my own. This year I planted 6 tomato plants as I wanted to have tons of tomato's for the winter...well thankfully I did as our growing season was pitiful and I got from 6 plants what previously I had gotten from 3.

The first step is an obvious one...boil the tomato's until they crack and the very carefully remove the skins. I always burn myself doing this...everytime...I think of this now as part of the tradition of canning in the fall.

After peeling the tomato's I chop them up and dump them into a pot with chopped red pepper, green pepper, 3 chilies peppers, 4 Jalapenos, 1 red onion, 1/2 cup of vinegar, 1 tbsp of brown sugar and some salt and pepper. I then bring it to a boil and let it simmer for about 5 hours.

The end result for the first batch of the year! Not a huge bounty but I still have a HUGE bowl of green tomato's waiting to ripen for the next batch...my kitchen is smelling sooooo good!

Crab Cakes

I have in recent months become obsessed with crab cakes. I had them when my hubbie and I went out for my birthday at an amazing restaurant; and ever since it has been my mission to find the prefect recipe.

The problem with most of the recipes that I found is that they had a tremendous amount of filler in them and I wanted mostly crab meat. Eventually I came across a recipe that intrigued me so I decided to give it a try!

I started my mixing the crab meat with red pepper, shallots, bread crumbs (made from tostitos...more on that later), parsley, sea salt & pepper

I then created the wet mixture with mayo, mustard (it called for Dijon, but I only had regular so I lessened it a bit),Worcester sauce, an egg, and lemon juice.

After whisking it all together I then carefully folded it into the crab mixture (the recipe was adamant about the careful part).

The next step was to somehow form this mixture into patties and roll them in the bread crumbs. It was a challenge but one worth conquering, after that I refrigerated them for a couple of hours to let them set properly.

At this point I realized that they were becoming more the main dish then the appetizer that I had originally planned, so I left the steak for another day!

After letting the set for a few hours the next step was to sear them on a high heat...again flipping them proved to be challenging but all in all they turned out pretty great!

The final step was to continue cooking them by baking them at 350 for about 15 minutes (or until they were heated all the way through. They turned out amazing! I loved them, as did my hubbie.

I did wonder about maybe adding a hint of cream cheese to them as they were firmer than I'd envisioned. There was a sauce that I thought about making for them but something about the recipe for it made me question it...too much mustard I think...I've put out the call for the perfect sauce recipe so we'll see what comes in.

All in all yummy. yummy, yummy!!!!

Sauteed Scallops

If there's one thing that my friend Alison taught me is that scallops are gifts from the sea, to be honoured and worshiped above all else. I took that small piece of knowledge with me when I visited Digby, Nova Scotia for the first time and found it to hold true...I had Digby Scallops for dinner every night while I was there and have ever since been obsessed with those plump little morsels of flesh.

I marinate them in a chardonnay for a few hours just to get rid of that 'fishy' smell that turns many (myself included) off of seafood. Then comes the fun part...cooking them!

Other than wrapping them in prosciutto my favourite way to have them is and old one...saute them in a wee bit of butter with some fresh garlic. It works out well every time!

I will say though that this time it almost seemed that they had been injected with water as they shrunk in size tremendously by the time they were done. I was a little bit disappointed by that but they still tasted like little bites of heaven!!

I need to win the lottery so I can eat like this all the time...

'Grilled ' Zucchini

With the arrival of fall comes the inevitable arrival of garden zucchini. Everyone who has a garden is always looking to unload some and I love it! I've Bbq'd it, sauteed it, shredded it and by the end of next week I'll have eaten it in every conceivable fashion.

Today though I decided to cook it in tin foil in the oven as it's raining and it seems silly to light the bbq only to cook veggies.

I started by peeling the zucchini as it's a huge one that's a wee bit old and that skin can be nasty! From there I sliced it into 2 inch long pieces and added tomato, shallots and fresh garlic with a drizzle of olive oil, sea salt and fresh ground pepper and baked it for about 30 minutes.

Tasty and scrumptious...although I would probably use a little less garlic next time...

Chicken Kabobs

So the mothers day feast so far had been a little heavy on the seafood influence (my mother LOVES seafood), however I knew I had to come up with something to pacify the non seafood lovers at the table.

So i decided on the simplistic yet yummy fare of chicken kabobs! No other food announces the arrival of summer to me like kabobs! Green pepper, red onion, grape tomatoes (never cherry always grape) and of course chicken. I then smother them in peanut sauce and grill.



The end result, so tasty and as usual none left!

Proscuitto wrapped asparagus & prawns

So the second round of my mothers day feast was prosciutto wrapped asparagus. A simple process of wrapped the asparagus in prosciutto and then brushing it with olive oil and a balsamic vinegar.

You grill them until the asparagus turns that specific shade of green that tells me they are ready for eating! Yum!!

I also made the prosciutto wrapped prawns that have been featured before so I won't go into them much more other than to say they were fabulous!!

The end result...so yummy....for once there were no left overs at all!!