Easy Squash Risotto

I think I already posted about a good risotto with butternut squash that I made for a crowd last fall. Last night I made a different one and it was so quick and easy I figured I'd better write it down.

2 tbsp butter
2 leeks, cleaned and finely chopped
1 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and chopped into 1/2-inch cubes
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup white wine
1 1/4 cups arborio or other short-grain white rice
2 tsp crumbled dried rosemary or 1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 bagful washed stemmed spinach
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan
3 1/2 cups chicken broth

Melt butter on medium-low heat. Saute leeks briefly to coat, then cook covered for five minutes. Uncover and saute, stirring, until some begin to brown. Raise heat to medium; add squash and garlic and saute 3-4 more minutes. Add rice and rosemary and stir for 1-2 minutes to coat. Pour in wine and simmer, stirring occasionally, until liquid has evaporated. Add 2 cups of chicken broth; bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until broth is absorbed. Add 1 1/2 more cups of chicken broth; bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until broth is absorbed. Turn off heat. Add spinach and fold into risotto until wilted. Add Parmesan and stir until well mixed. Serve immediately. Serves 3 or 4.

This took about an hour and fifteen minutes from start to finish, but there were long breaks in labor where I could get other things done. Tasted great.

Roast Chicken with Fennel

I made this a week or so ago when I got home early one day. I post in order to memorandize a couple of useful facts: that it took almost exactly three hours from taking the chicken out of the freezer to sitting down to eat, and that if you stuff anything inside the chicken and roast it, it won't cook as nicely as the stuff roasted outside the chicken.

This recipe involved the usual chicken roasting procedure at 425 degrees for about an hour and forty minutes. The spice rub, which worked pretty well, involved a teaspoon or so each of fennel seeds, rosemary, marjoram, thyme, and sage, plus some salt and pepper, stuffed under the skin. The stuffing involved boiling quartered fennel bulbs for eight minutes and then mixing them with olive oil, whole garlic cloves, and some of the same spices, and rubbing this mixture on and stuffing inside the chicken. I put about half inside and half outside and supplemented with some cubed carrots and sweet potatoes and more garlic outside the chicken.

I don't really recommend this recipe. I had about four fennel bulbs slowly dying in the fridge (thanks, Eatwell!) and you can only eat shaved-fennel-and-parmesan-and-artichoke salad so many times a week, no matter how nouvelle it's supposed to be, so it was nice to find this recipe. I did discover that I enjoy fennel much more after it's been cooked, but I still have a limited stomach for the stuff and the combination of fennel bulbs and fennel seeds in the spice rub was overpowering after a while. The recipe I was sort of following called for stuffing some fennel and garlic in the chicken, but the garlic in there only got partially cooked and the fennel that ended up there was far inferior to the fennel that roasted outside.

To go with it, I whipped up some pasta with sliced sauteed portobello mushroom, leeks, and roasted red pepper. It worked out fine.

Pasta with Kale, Garlic and Sausage

Once again, the principle that bitter greens are eminently lovable when combined with fatty spicy meat products is borne out. As a bonus, this dish is very simple and quick. I recommend pasta that's short and chunky rather than long and noodly because this didn't turn out very saucy, and it's hard to distribute little chunks of stuff among long strands of stuff.

1/2 pound whole-wheat pasta, preferably penne or rotini
1 bunch yummy organic kale
3 cloves garlic
2 bratwursts
1 tsp dried thyme
1/4 cup wine or broth or what-have-you
1/4 cup grated Parmesan

Bring a pot of water to a gentle boil or strong simmer. Dunk the kale in and leave it for five minutes or so, or until it gets a bit limp but not squishy. Remove the kale; bring the pot to a strong boil and add pasta. Cook pasta according to package directions (I hate this particular instruction, because half the time I find it in a cookbook and the referenced ingredient is something I pulled out of a bulk bin somewhere, or have otherwise repackaged in a handy glass jar or something, but I confess I actually have no idea how to boil pasta and usually just cook it until I suddenly remember that there's pasta on the stove, at which point it's either still crunchy or unappetizingly soggy (which is how CTM seems to like it best, so no harm done). So, you know, just cook it as per usual). Meanwhile, chop up sausage and saute in olive oil along with sliced garlic, thyme, and boiled kale with stems removed. Add wine or broth and steam, covered, for three minutes; uncover, turn up heat, and saute, stirring, until liquid is reduced to taste. Stir in grated Parmesan; stir in cooked pasta and serve.

MgSO4 Cream

Not strictly food and probably not useful to anyone else, but I'm going to post it so I don't lose the recipe.

3/8 cup water
1/4 cup Epsom salts
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup regular body lotion
1 tbsp lecithin
15-20 drops lavender oil or other essential oil

Add water and Epsom salts to a small stainless steel saucepan. Heat to a low simmer and stir until Epsom salts are dissolved.
Add coconut oil and lecithin to a medium bowl. Add the hot Epsom salts mixture and blend with a mixer until homogenized and cooler. Gradually add regular body lotion and essential oil and blend, scraping sides of bowl, until the mixture is opaque, at room temperature, and resembles whipped butter. Pour or scrape into a jar and enjoy.

Next time I make this recipe I'll probably try using less lecithin, which makes the lotion yellow and stinky, and more body lotion, since the salts in this are very drying.

Calzones!

I haven't posted in SO long! Fortunately I made a dish last night that was good enough to be worth posting about: yummy calzones. Very easy if you have pounds and pounds of mozzarella lying around in your freezer, as I do for some reason.

The recipe I used, loosely adapted from some other recipes that were lying around the web:

Dough:
2 1/2 tsp yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 cups white all-purpose flour

Add warm water to yeast and stir briefly. Allow to dissolve for 5 minutes. Add olive oil and salt. Add whole wheat flour and then white flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until you have added about 3 1/2 cups. Reserve the final 1/2 cup of white flour for kneading in. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead in the last 1/2 cup or so of flour until smooth, about 10 minutes. Place in oiled bowl and cover with a clean towel. Leave to rise in a warm place for about 1 1/2 hours. After the dough has risen, divide into fourths and gently pat or stretch each fourth into a circle about 10 inches in diameter on a floured surface.

Filling:
12 oz mozzarella cheese, grated
5 cloves garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
4-6 oz fresh spinach, stemmed, washed, and dried
1 tsp dried oregano
1/4 cup olives
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes packed in olive oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Saute garlic in olive oil briefly; add spinach and oregano and saute until spinach wilts. Chop olives and tomatoes. Divide 1/2 of grated mozzarella evenly among the four dough circles, placing the cheese only on one half of each circle and leaving a 1/2-inch margin. Top cheese with equally divided portions of the spinach mixture, olives, and tomatoes. Cover with remaining cheese. Fold each calzone over the filling and roll edges up to seal. Place on cornmeal-dusted baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes or until golden-brown.

These were very delicious and very easy and satisfied my unquenchable pizza craving in a slightly less greasy and more savory manner than most commercial $2-a-slice pizza. They don't take long to prepare if you have time to mix the dough a bit ahead of time. Unlike much of my pizza dough, which has a habit of being heavy and dense and taking too long to rise and bake, this dough turned out chewy and flavorful and baked clear through without burning.