Vegetable Risotto

Last night was one of my favorites, vegetable risotto.  Watching Gordon Ramsay yell at people all the time over risotto had me a little intimidated by it initially, but one day I just tried it and it’s really not that hard.  Granted he would probably throw me out of my own kitchen if he saw my risotto but it tastes good to me.  So the way it works is you coat the rice in fat then slowly add hot stock to the rice and that releases the starch.  This creates a rich, thick creamy sauce.  You have to stir the rice constantly so you are kind of stuck in front of the stove for like 20 minutes, but I think it’s completely worth it.  You can use lots of different combinations of vegetables but this time I actually went with what was in season and did a summer squash risotto.

3 tbs butter, divided

1 clove garlic, minced

2 zucchini squash

1 yellow squash

3 cups mushrooms

½ cup peas

1 ½ cup Arborio rice

Dry white wine

Chicken stock

¼ cup parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

You will need a total of 4 ½ to 5 ½ cups of liquid and you can divide that between the wine and stock however you like.  I usually do about 2 cups wine and 3 cups stock.  There are a lot more calories in the wine than the stock so you can cut it back or out if need be.

In a large saucepan melt 1 tbs butter.  Add the mushrooms and cook until browned.  Dice or cut the squash into bite-sized strips and add to the mushrooms.  Season the vegetables with salt and pepper after each addition.  Cook until the squash is crisp tender.  The squash doesn’t take as long to cook as the mushrooms so that’s why you want to start cooking the mushrooms first. Remove from heat and set aside.  The sauce pan that I use is big enough for either the vegetables or the rice so I put the vegetables in a large bowl and use the same pan to cook the rice.

Bring the chicken stock to a simmer in another pot.  Melt 2 tbs butter over medium high heat in your rice sauce pan.  Add the rice and stir to coat well with a wooden spoon.  Cook until the rice is translucent, 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly.  Add ½ cup of the chicken stock and stir constantly.  Continue stirring the rice until all of the liquid is gone then add ½ cup wine.  Since the wine is cold or room temperature I add it slowly so it heats up quickly in the pan.  Stir the rice constantly until the liquid is absorbed.  Continue the process with the rest of the chicken stock and wine until the rice is thick and creamy and softened. Once the rice is fully cooked add it to the vegetables, stir in the cheese and peas and additional salt and pepper to taste if necessary. 

Serves 4, 525 calories, 12 g fat

A typical risotto is much creamier than this because you usually add more butter and cheese but this is one of the few times where I actually don’t think all that extra cheese is needed.  The rice makes the dish creamy and a little bit of cheese adds to it and makes it just a little bit richer.  It of course would be nice if it had more cheese, but I actually don’t think it’s necessary.  This also makes a good lunch the next day.

Don’t be intimidated by Chef Ramsay, just try it.

Hatch green chile chicken enchiladas

Being that it’s hatch green chile season I thought I’d try to make enchiladas with a hatch green chile sauce. This is not a meal to make in a hurry.  It wasn’t that difficult and there wasn’t that much going on, but there was enough to do and enough mess being made that I have to take my time or I get rushed and screw things up.  I was not quite as pleased with the enchilada sauce as I was anticipating, but it wasn’t bad at all.  The next day it was actually quite a bit better so it may not be a bad idea to make the sauce the night before and let it sit.

1 ½ lb chicken breast

1 tbs cumin, ground

½ tsp salt

olive oil

16 hatch green chiles

1 small yellow onion, diced

1 roma tomato, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

8 oz sour cream (fat free)

3 oz Manchego cheese, grated

12-16 corn tortillas

Lay the chiles out on a roasting pan and broil until the skin is blackened and bubbling away from the chiles.  Turn the chiles so that they are roasted all the way around.  Remove the chiles to a plastic or paper bag and allow them to steam for 20 minutes.   Open the bag or remove the chiles from the bag until they are cool enough to handle.  Peel off all of the skin, cut off the stem, seed and dice the chiles.

In a large skillet heat 1 turn of olive oil to medium heat.  Season the chicken breasts with cumin and salt and cook them in the skillet.  Once fully cooked remove the chicken and set aside to rest, at least 5 minutes.  The chicken will go into the oven eventually so err on the side of undercooked rather than fully cooked and dried out.  Cook the onion and the garlic in the chicken drippings until tender, not browned.  Add the diced chiles and tomato to the onion and stir.  Season the mixture with salt.  Transfer the salsa to a bowl and add the sour cream. 

Preheat the oven to 350.

To prepare the enchiladas, first slice the chicken thinly.  Warm the tortillas in the microwave for ~15 seconds so they are pliable.  Place a small handful of chicken in the center of a tortilla then a scoop of sauce alongside the chicken.  Roll the tortilla and set in a large baking dish with the seam on the side up against the wall of the dish.  Repeat with the remaining tortillas until all of the chicken and sauce is used up, laying each rolled tortilla sideways with the seam up against the last one in the dish.  Sprinkle the cheese on top of the enchiladas and bake until the cheese is melted and the chicken is reheated, about 10 minutes.  If you don’t put the enchiladas in the oven fairly quickly the tortillas will dry out and crack, no longer looking like pretty little rolls.   

This made 14 enchiladas for me and I had to use 1 large pan and 1 small pan. Serves 7, 417 calories, 16 g fat.

Machego is a Spanish sheep’s milk cheese and has a very distinct taste, kind of sweet and buttery, not real overpowering.  If you can’t find the cheese or are nervous about trying it you can always use Monterey Jack instead.

I was planning on making Spanish rice with this, but we may or may not have eaten a substantial amount of chips and salsa before dinner and decided to skip the rice and basically only ate the enchiladas because they were ready. Sad, I know.  But I do highly recommend the hatch chile salsa roja (or something like that, it's the red hatch green chile salsa) from HEB.  It is very good; I just wish I could figure out a way to eat it without having to eat so many chips.  I have considered a spoon but I just can’t bring myself to do that.

Cilantro Chicken

I found a recipe on another food blog that I wanted to try.  The picture was really pretty, it was really easy, and it had really good reviews so I thought I’d try it.  Unfortunately it didn’t live up to my expectation.  I definitely think it is good to look for new recipes and try new things, but you can let me be the experimenter on this one, don’t waste your time.

 2 chicken breasts

1 tbs soy sauce

1 tbs toasted sesame oil

2 cloves garlic

1 ½ cup cilantro

Pulse the soy sauce, oil, garlic and cilantro in a food processor until the cilantro and garlic are roughly chopped.  Pour the marinade over the chicken in a sealable plastic bag and let sit in the refrigerator for one hour.

Preheat the oven to 425.  Bake the chicken on a roasting pan for 25 minutes.  Remove from the oven and let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

It was as simple as you could get but to me it just tasted like sesame.  This is the way I always cook my chicken breasts though, they always turn out very tender and juicy.

Thai Basil Chicken Stir Fry

Last night I made Thai basil chicken stir fry.  The star of the dish is of course basil, and what did I do, I forgot to buy basil.  Brilliant.  Usually on Sundays we end up running around town because we don’t want to just sit at home on our last day of freedom.  For me every Friday feels like the last day of school and Sunday is the last day of summer vacation so we always try to do as much as we can on Sundays.  I already had my grocery list done and had it with me so we could stop at the grocery store on the way back from whatever random thing we ended up doing.  By the time we got to the grocery store and finished with the shopping it was already 7:15.  That is a little late for me, I like to start dinner closer to 6 or 6:30 and so of course J tried to convince me that it was way too late to cook so we should just go ahead and order pizza.  But I stood my ground, I knew I was making a stir fry and I can have it done in 30-45 minutes. So don’t let those voices distract you from your goal, making the stir fry didn’t take too much longer than having a pizza delivered and I saved at least 500 calories.

2 large chicken breasts, cut into ½” strips (Mine were 1 ½ lbs total)

1 tsp olive oil

1 small onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 cups mushrooms, sliced

2 carrots, chopped

2 cups sugar snap peas

1 tsp crushed red pepper

1 ½ cup chopped fresh basil leaves

3 tbs soy sauce (low sodium)

1 ½ tbs fish sauce

3 tbs rice vinegar

2 cups jasmine rice

Boil 3 cups of water.  Add the rice and stir to keep it from initially sticking to the bottom of the pot.  Return the water to a boil, cover and turn off the heat.  By the time the stir fry is ready the rice will be perfectly fluffy and all the water absorbed.

Heat the olive oil to medium high-heat and cook the onion and garlic until lightly browned.  Add the chicken and cook until browned.  Add the mushrooms and cook until browned.  Add the vegetables and cook until crisp tender.  Add the remaining ingredients and stir to coat well.  Serve over the rice.

6 Servings, 450 calories, 5 g fat

Meal Planning

I thought it might be a good idea to go through my meal planning process and start setting goals for the budget.  So what I do is, every Sunday, or Monday if I get distracted on Sunday, I plan out my meals for the week based on what I have left over from the week before.  I also like to at least consider what the Tuesday grocery store flyers say will be on sale and what’s in season, but I usually just end up making what sounds good.  I have the Pepper Plate App for my Kindle where I can schedule the meals for the week and type up a grocery list.  I also use www.caloriecount.about.com to calculate the nutritional value of my meals.  It is a lot better for me if I calculate the meals before I cook, that way I am much more aware of what is influencing the meal and what my goals are.  I have noticed that sometimes they will give you different information so you have to use common sense and double check the values if they look funny.  I use www.livestrong.com as my confirmation.  There are a ton of websites and apps for your phone that will calculate nutritional information I have just been using calorie count for a long time so a lot of my recipes are stored there.

My menu for this week

Sunday plus 2 lunches – Thai Basil Stir Fry (6 servings)

Monday – Cilantro Chicken, Potatoes and Broccoli

Tuesday plus 2 lunches – Chicken Enchiladas (6 servings), Spanish Rice, and Salad

Wednesday plus 1 lunch – Vegetable Risotto (4 servings) and Salad

Thursday  plus 1 lunch – Cajun Chicken Pasta (4 servings) and Salad

Friday – Should cook but no plan yet

I like to keep a decently stocked pantry and plenty of vegetables so I have most of the things I need on hand all the time and then I just have to replace them every once in a while.  I like to keep different types of rice, homemade pasta in the freezer, pastas I don’t make like penne, bread crumbs, a bag of onions, and all kinds of spices.  For standard spices I go to Penzey’s because they are really good, not cheap, but good.  For any Indian spices like cumin, cardamom, turmeric, etc, I buy at an Indian grocery store.  They are ridiculously cheap there, every store I’ve been to has been.  They are always “expired” so I buy them as whole seeds.  Spices that are old and already ground will not be as flavorful as whole spices freshly ground.  I buy large quantities and store them in the freezer.

So for my grocery list this week I had to purchase the meat and almost all of the vegetables.  I already have the pasta and the rice, but I did have to replenish my stock of Arborio rice for the risotto, but now I will have enough for quite a while and I do like to make risotto pretty often.  So you can see that buying in bulk may make your grocery bill a little high one week but when you use the ingredients often it evens out over all.  And when I say bulk I don’t mean I have turned my laundry room into a pantry filled with 50 boxes of cereal and 100 1-lb bags of rice like on those coupon shows, I mean I purchase 2 or 3 bags of rice when they go on sale or a couple packages of chicken and freeze what I don’t need.  I am not denying those people are “saving” tons of money, but in my opinion having 50 bottles of ketchup that I got for $2 doesn’t do anything for me when I go through 1 bottle of ketchup a year. Who wants 50 year old ketchup?

So thinking about this, I realized that counting cost/serving based on my grocery bill for the week didn’t make sense since I already had a lot of the ingredients.  So I am going to try to break down the cost of the meal based on the amount of the ingredients that I actually used, regardless of when I paid for them.  We’ll see how that works, sounds like a lot of work.