Simple Mushroom Risotto

At Becca's request, I'm posting this recipe. There are probably a lot of different things you could do with it, like deglazing the pan with white wine, sherry, and adding herbs such as rosemary, sage, or other mushroom-friendly plants. Play around with it as much as you want, but it tastes just fine like this and isn't very difficult. Use whatever your favorite mushrooms are, from portobellas, criminis, oysters, porcinis, plain white, shitakes. I usually use two different kinds to give it depth of flavor but nothing too complex. You do not have to purchase expensive Arborio rice to make risotto, even though Arborio makes the best creamy risotto. Just make sure you get short grain white rice and you will be fine.

Ingredients

-2 cups short grain white rice
-about 8 cups chicken broth, or water with chicken bouillon mixed in
-4 tbs unsalted butter
-2 tbs olive oil
-2 large shallots, diced
-2 cups mushrooms, your choice, chopped fine (make sure the two cups is AFTER they are chopped fine, not before)
-about 1/2 cup large mushroom pieces, halves or quarters, for texture
-salt and pepper, to taste

In a pot as large as necessary, bring to boil all the chicken broth. This is actually quite important.

In a medium to large soup pot, melt your butter in the olive oil and add the shallots, allowing them to turn translucent and brown slightly. Add the mushrooms and salt and pepper everything to layer the flavor.

Once the mushrooms have begun softening, throw in your rice and stir it around for about 1-2 minutes to coat the grains and get them started. This done, add about two ladel-fulls of the boiling chicken broth. (Because the broth was already boiling, it will not reduce the heat of the rice concoction, so the cooking of the rice is never interrupted). Stir the rice frequently until the broth is absorbed. Keep repeating this step until the rice is soft and creamy. If you run out of broth before this happens, just use a little water to finish the job.

Plate a serve with plenty of parmesan cheese.

Raspberry Limoncello Preserves

I am a raspberry-holic. When you combine raspberry with a citrus element, I do believe you've achieved the rapture. I'm not even going to mention adding chocolate to that, it'd be the end of the world. This little recipe for raspberry limoncello preserves is wonderful, but if you do not have limoncello on hand, you could use Grand Marnier, or even just plain lemon (in which case I'd add a couple extra tablespoons of sugar) or orange juice. But the cooked-off alcohol element is quite delicious. Thought I haven't tried it, I imagine that even Amaretto would be incredible. Enjoy!

Ingredients

-1 cup fresh raspberries, washed
-1/3 cup granulated sugar
-2 1/2 tablespoons of limoncello (or other citrus juice)

Place all ingredients together in a small sauce pan. Mush the raspberries as they heat. There should be a decent amount of liquid. Bring everything to a boil and let it reduce a bit till the mixture gets foamy then stir it well. When the mixture is sirrupy, remove it from the heat and let it cool before pouring it into a storage container. It should last about a week in the fridge.

Fettuccine Alfredo

This recipe is from my mom. It is the best alfredo sauce I've ever had, because it is so simple and the flavor is very straightforward. There is no garlic, no onion, no spices. It's just salt, cream, parmesan and egg. It makes a beautiful escort to chicken, fish/shrimp and I imagine that dropping in some lump crab meat after the pasta is assembled might taste fantastic too. Serve with a white wine, something dry and tragic and wonderful.

Fettuccine Alfredo was created by Italian restaurateur Alfredo di Lelio in 1914. He developed it, originally, with ridiculous amounts of butter in its creamy self to serve to his pregnant wife, who was having difficulty keeping food down (I'm sure many of us have been there). After her pregnancy had ended, he began serving it on the menu of his Roman restaurant, Alfredo alla Scrofa.

One important thing to note is that you will need a "double boiler" or "bain marie." Here is a nice inexpensive one. Also, even though this recipe calls for no butter while most alfredo recipes call for ridiculous amounts of it, we cannot be under any illusions that we will somehow lose weight by eating it :) Handle with care, and buon appetito!

Ingredients (more than enough for two adults; I made this yesterday and there was a huge serving leftover)

-2 cups heavy whipping cream
-3 egg yolks beaten (mom says, one egg per person, then one egg for good measure. Do not multiply the "good measure" egg no matter how many people you make this for)
-1/2 cup parmesan cheese
-about 1/2 tsp salt, or to taste

Set the bottom pan of the double boiler on the stove filled about halfway with water. You don't want the boiling water licking the bottom of the top pan. While you bring that to a boil, pour your whipping cream and 3 beaten egg yolks into the cold top pan and stir to mix well. Fit the top pan into the bottom pan and allow the cream mixture to heat up. When the water beneath starts to boil, keep stirring the cream and add in the parmesan. Just keep an eye on it. You will see it starting to thicken up and you'll want to reduce the heat. When you can tell that the cream is nice and hot you can add the salt and taste it (I don't taste it until I know the egg is cooked). Keep it on your lowest heat setting till you're ready to put it over the pasta. My mom actually serves this with wide egg noodles, the widest you can find. I know that the Egg Yolk brand actually has super wide noodles called "dumplings," and that is what I have used here.

Saltimbocca (or Saltinbocca)

Vesti la giubba,
la faccia infarina,
la gente paga e rider vuole qua
e se Arlecchino
s'invola Colombina,
ridi pagliaccio
e ognun t'applaudirà.

How do you like my commedia dell'arte? I could not believe this is just clipart. The Italian is an exerpt from "Vesti la giubba" from Leoncavallo's opera "I Pagliacci." The translation, as far as my Italian goes, is:

"Put on your costume,
powder your face,
the crowd has paid and they want to laugh here
and if Harlequin
seduces/steals Columbina,
laugh, clown!
And everyone will applaud."

Admittedly I am not a huge opera fan. I adore the arias but sitting through sung dialogue is not my cup of tea. This play, however, always makes me cry. For the storyline, go here

Now for cooking! The name of this recipe literally means "it jumps in your mouth," or "hops in the mouth" it's that delicious. My mom serves this with her fetuccine alfredo (recipe to be posted), and it is such a crowd pleaser. It’s one of those meals that looks like it took hours to make and really only took a small amount of time. She always made it when our parish priest came over for dinner, which made it difficult because I always wanted seconds, even thirds, and I had to make sure the guests got enough!

Several saltimbocca recipes do not bread the chicken. Some fry them in a pan (which is probably delicious but baking is definitely healthier) and many add a sage leaf in with the "stuffing" ingredients. Still other recipes serve the chicken with a carmelized onion or shallot sauce. However, I'm recounting this recipe the way my mother and grandmother do it, and I know for certain that it's so good that "salta in bocca!"

Buon appetito!


Ingredients

-4 thin-sliced chicken breast (the kind that are about ¼ inch thick)
-4 slices hard or Genoa salami or prosciutto
-4 thin pats of butter
-salt and pepper
-1 egg beaten, two if necessary
-1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs, more if necessary

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Take each chicken breast and salt and pepper one side. Lay a slice of salami/proscuitto on the salted side. Place a pat of butter over that. Gently, roll the chicken breast over the salami/prosciutto and make a little “chicken loaf” with the red meat and butter on the inside. Hold it shut by inserting a toothpick through it. Dip the chicken rolls into the beaten egg and then into the bread crumbs and coat it. Set each breaded roll into a baking dish. Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes until the rolls are browned and crunchy on the outside. I usually test it by cutting my own roll in half and making sure there’s no pink in the chicken, but if you’re good at telling when chicken is done, do it your way.

Tomato Pesto Cream Sauce

This sauce is my own creation. I thought it'd be neat to have pesto and cream sauce get hitched. I imagine you could probably do it with a regular basil pesto, or a cilantro pesto. I am a pesto-holic and will post more super simple recipes eventually. When you look at the ingredients you may ask "why no nuts?" Usually pesto contains either walnuts or pine nuts. Well, I never use walnuts because Zach is allergic, and I used to use pine nuts, despite how expensive they are, until one day I didn't have any and made a pesto without them. I honestly couldn't taste any difference, so I decided to stop wasting $3.50 on 1/4 cup of pine nuts when I could just leave them out.

The first time I made this it was kind of like stars aligning. The pasta went on the fork, the fork went to Zach's mouth, and suddenly his eyes teared up and all he could say was "Wow." I had tasted the sauce before I gave it to him and thought it was good, but I honestly hadn't expected that reaction. He immediately decided he wanted it to be a regular around here, and I've made it three or four times since developing it a month and a half ago. I hope you like it as well. I will stress the fact that sun dried tomatoes packed by themselves (as opposed to in olive oil) are much, much better in this recipe. It is a noticeable difference. You can find the dry, sundried tomatoes usually where they keep the tomatoes and garlic in the grocery store. Buon appetito!


Ingredients

-1 package sundried tomatoes (not packed in oil, preferably. If you cannot find the dry kind, use the ones packed in oil and omit the added olive oil)
-1 large handful of basil leaves, about a 1 – 1 ½ cups
-3-4 medium cloves garlic
-about ¼ cup of olive oil, or more depending on consistency. You want the pesto to look like a squishy paste.
-1/3 cup of parmesan cheese
-about ½ - ¾ cup light cream.
-1 lb penne pasta (I prefer Barilla)

Bring a pot of salted water to boil on the stove. As soon as it starts to boil, pour in the penne, stir once, and cook with the l id off for about 8 minutes for “al dente” consistency. Meanwhile, combine all the ingredients (except cream and pasta) one by one in a food processor, blending each one before adding the next ingredient. When it makes a fragrant, sticky paste, scoop into a small saucepan and heat thoroughly. When the pesto is steamy, slowly add in the light cream, stirring to combine. The sauce will have a “bisque” consistency.

Drain the pasta. I leave a tiny bit of pasta water in the bottom of the pan to help the sauce spread. Pour the pasta back into the pot then add the sauce. Stir to coat. I think a slightly sweeter wine tastes good with this and counters the acidity of the tomatoes. A favorite white or rose wine would be perfect.

Lemon Butter Tilapia

Zach is particularly fond of this dish, my variation on a time-tested method. We are both huge tilapia fans, because it has a beautiful, "fluffy" texture and isn't fishy in the least bit. This makes for a delicate, healthy meal and tastes fantastic with scalloped potatoes, herbed rice, or, a personal favorite, couscous.

Ingredients

-4 Tilapia filets
-4 slices lemon, round
-4 sage leaves
-4 pats butter
-salt and pepper
-tin foil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Lay out a strip of tinfoil long enough to accommodate the tilapia filets laid side by side, with about 2-3 extra inches at either end. Salt and pepper both sides of each filet. Lay the filets side by side on the tin foil as described. Place one sage leaf on each filet. Place a lemon slice on top of each sage leaf. Finally, place a pat of butter on top of each lemon slice. Fold up all the edges of tinfoil around the fish to make a little “house.” Place on a cookie sheet (just for handling purposes) and bake for about 15 minutes or until the fish is white and flaky. Simply scoop out each filet and serve with the sage and lemon still on top.