Salmon-Dill Risoto

• 1 med onion, finley diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 8 oz Ariborio Rice
• 187 ml White Wine (1 single serving bottle)
• 32 oz Chicken Broth
• 1 C Grated Parmesan Cheese
• 1/2 C Butter, cut into small cubes
• dill to taste
• 1 1/2 C peas (we use frozen)
• 6 oz can boneless/skinless salmon
• olive oil

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil until onion is translucent. Add rice and saute for about a minute or until rice just begins to toast. Add entire bottle of wine and cook over low heat stirring frequently until almost all of the liquid is absorbed. Add ~1/2 C. of broth and cook until almost abosorbed. Continue addding broth ~1/2 C. at a time until you have stirred all of it in and your risoto is nice and creamy. (Do not walk away and stir constanly until you get a feel for how fast the liquid absorbs. The first few additions will absorb much faster than than later additions.) Once all the broth is added and mostly absorbed, stir in the parmesan and butter. When they all well incorporated, add the dill, salmon, and peas.

Note: The base recipe (everything up until you add the peas, dill, and salmon) is good as a side dish on it's own and the possibilites to what you can add in are endless.

Note 2: Do not try to use a different kind of rice! Only ariborio rice will give you the nice creamy texture you want.

Note 3: Buy a microplane and a block of parmesan. The difference that fresh grated cheese makes is huge. If you do not have a microplane/do not want to buy one try the KRAFT Grate-It-Fresh parmesean

Note 4: You can skip the wine, but the flavor will change quite a bit. Almost any grocery store with a liquor department will have the single serving bottles in 4-packs and most sell them individually now. We keep four white and four red on hand at all times. (Red wine is a great addition to marinara sauce!)

Note 5: If you want to make this vegetarian, no problem. In most stores you can now buy vegetable broth. I think this would be great made with mushroom broth and chopped portabellas.

Possible Additions

Mushrooms
Corn and Pimento
Spinach
Tomato and Fresh Basil

Yes, we're back. Look for new posts coming soon!

This is something I just threw together. Mostly to use up the seasoned parmasean bread cumbs from the baked chicken nuggets we had awhile back.

Chicken Parmasean (sort of)

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (would use smaller ones or only three large ones next time)
1/2 C. melted butter
1 C. parmasean bread crumbs
1 jar spagehtti sauce (I used Newman's Own Sockarooni)
1 can tomato sauce (I used this to strech the spaghetti sauce)
6 slices white cheese (we used chihuahua, but mozzarella would be good too)

Cut chicken in large, equal sized chunks (2-4 per breast). Dip chicken chunks in butter and then in bread crumbs. Place in 9x13 glass baking dish and bake at 350 until the chicken is cooked through and the crust is crispy. Pour sauce over chicken and top with cheese slices. Back until sauce is hot and cheese is well melted. Serve over pasta of you choice.

This was good, but nothing spectacular. I would make it again becuase it is easy. If I did not already have the chicken breasts in the freezer I might buy chicken tenders to speed up the process.

We served it over whole wheat feticcini and had a salad on the side.

Yet again this is something we totally made up.

Acorn Squash Florentine

2 Acorn Squash
2 boxes frozen, chopped spinach
1/2 C. pine nuts
8 oz. cream cheese
1/3 C. red onions diced
Nutmeg and cloves to taste

Cut squash in halve and place cut side down on baking sheet/pan (for ease of clean up line baking vessel with foil). Bake at 350 for 45 - 60 min, or until squash is done. In the mean time, thaw squash and squeeze all of the extra moisture out of it (this is very important, the spinach must be very dry). Mix spinach and remaining ingredients well (I used my hands, I think that is easiest). Divide spinach mixture between squash and place back in to 350 oven (uncovered). Bake until filling is warm and melty.

This was very good, but it needs more/different cheese in our opinion. I think next time, I will try goat cheese or a combination of goat cheese and cream cheese. A great vegitarian meal and really easy. We served it with a side salad.

Another recipie from the Cooking for A Cure cookbook.

1/3 C Olive Oil
2 lbs. Lean braising steak, cut into small dice
1 Large onion, chopped
1 clove Garlic, chopped
8 oz. Button mushrooms
1 Red Bell Pepper, seeded and diced
1 Tbsp chopped Fresh Thyme
1 Tbsp chopped Fresh Rosemary
2 Tbsp Seasoned All-Purpose Flour
2 Tbsp Paprika
1 tsp cinnamon
2/3 C Beer
14 oz can Chopped Tomatoes
2 Bay Leaves
1 C Beef Stock
1/2 C Pine Nuts
1/3 C Raisins

Preheat slow cooker on High while peparing ingredients. Heat half the oil in a non-stick skillet and fry meat over a medium heat 4 or 5 minutes, until lightly browned. Use a slotted spoon to transfer beef to cooking pot. Heat remaining oil in pan and saute onion, garlic, mushrooms, bell pepper, thyme and rosemary for 5 minutes. Stir in flour, paprika, and cinnamon and cook 1 minute, stirring. Stir in beer, then add tomatoes, bay leaves, and stock and bring to a boil, stirring. Pour over beef in cooking pot and stir to mix. Cover, reduce the temperature to low and cook 7 to 9 hours. Stir in pine nuts and raisins, cover and cook on Low and additional 1 to 2 hours or until beef is cooked and tender.

Slow cooker recipes are always a plus in our book, because we can put it together in the morning, and come home to food that's ready to eat, and an apartment that smells fantastic. This recipe is no exception. In fact, while good, I think it smelled better than it tasted. I thought the beef was overcooked, but Nicole did not. (Of course, i tend to order meat rare... like chase-a-cow-past-a-grill-then-cut-it-up rare) It was not bad by any stretch, but not excellent. With as many recipies as we have, it has to be a little better than this to get many repeats. Also, the rosemary, thyme, and pine nuts make it more expensive than it deserves to be. That might be different if we grew our own herbs (something we're planning on trying to do soon).

Sorry, no picture for today.