Spring Risotto & Baked Flounder with Wine & Herbs

Yay! Spring Risotto and Baked Flounder! Can you get more yummy? The simple answer is, "No!"

So, there are two dishes behind the cut and both are easy and delicious. Try 'em, you'll like 'em!

The risotto was a featured recipe in Cuisine at Home, which is a really great magazine that my friend Pat has given to me as a Christmas gift for several years. The recipe is not posted online, so I will give it to you.

Cuisine at Home Spring Risotto:

• 3 ounces prosciutto, diced
• 2 Tbs olive oil, divided
• 1 lb. asparagus, trimmed, cut into 1" pieces
• 1 Tbs shallots (I didn't have shallots, so I used green onions)
• 2 tsp garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 cups arborio rice
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 6 cups chicken stock, hot
• 2 cups fresh spinach, chopped
• 1 cup frozen peas, thawed
• 1/2 tsp fresh tarragon (I omitted this/not a tarragon fan)
  
• 1/2 cup Parmesan, shredded
  

So, here is a photo of the ingredients for the risotto:



Baked Flounder is really simple...and it is a baking recipe for fish that I have used for years. You can use any firm white meat fish for this method.

In a baking dish, place:

• Several sprigs of fresh parsley
• Several sprigs of fresh thyme
• Several cloves of crushed garlic
• Several bay leaves
• Fill the baking dish to the top of the herbs with dry vermouth
  

Place the fish on top of the herbs, sprinkle with kosher salt, pepper and drizzle on some olive oil.



Cover with foil and preheat the oven to 450 degrees. It will cook for about 20-25 minutes or until the fish is opaque. The thickness of the fish you choose will cause a variation in the cooking time.

Just prepare the fish in the dish, and I'll tell you when to pop it in the oven.

Chop the asparagus, prosciutto, scallions and garlic:


Put one tablespoon of the olive oil in a skillet and brown the prosciutto. Remove it from the skillet and set is aside when it looks like this:


Add the asparagus to the skillet and saute until tender, about 5 minutes. Remove it from the skillet and set it aside when it looks like this:


Add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil, scallions (or shallots) and garlic to the skillet and saute until translucent:


Heat your chicken stock:


Have your wine, peas and chopped spinach ready:


To the skillet with the onions and garlic, add the rice and stir until the rice is coated with the oil. Add the wine and cook until the wine is absorbed into the rice, about 2-3 minutes:



Put your fish in the oven now, because the risotto recipe should be finished about the same time.

You are going to start adding the hot stock in 1 cups batches to the risotto and stir it with a wooden spoon until it is nearly absorbed:


Side note: The wooden spoon pictured above was a gift from Pat's daughter, Amy. I just love hand carved wooden spoons! That is one of my all time favorites...thanks, Amy.

The process of adding the stock and stirring takes about 20-25 minutes and you can see what happens to the risotto...it is plumping up and getting creamy:



Heat the bowl you are going to mix the risotto in and add the spinach. Putting the spinach in a hot bowl will help wilt the spinach.

Remove the completed risotto to a bowl and add the asparagus, peas and parmesan cheese (I used parmigiano reggiano, of course.) Stir to mix.


Pull the flounder out of the oven and squeeze on some fresh lemon. Both dishes look like this:


Now, just plate them both, sprinkle some of the crisped prosciutto onto the risotto and add a fresh parsley sprig:


So delicious! Join me as I dine...

Paula

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Sauce Love...An All Day Adventure.

Most of my days off are spent on all day cooking projects. I just love puttering in the kitchen and the smells of my favorite foods permeating the house. This post will be the first in which I share one of my own recipes. It was a revelation preparing it because I normally just dump things in; I had to take notes and measure! I offer Pasta Sauce...simmered all day.

The best things about this recipe are:

1. It makes a ton. So, you can freeze the remainder in serving sized containers for future meals.
2. It is totally adaptable to your tastes or dietary needs or wants.
3. It's yummy! Yes, that's a technical term.

Here is a photo of the ingredients, as I made it:

1. 2-26 ounce boxes of Pomi Strained Tomatoes. (You can use tomato sauce, but I found this at Kroger and I'm here to tell you, it's fabulous!)
2. 2-28 ounce cans of Hunt's Crushed Tomatoes
3. 2 Bay Leaves
4. 2 ounces Pesto (I used this because my regular grocery didn't have fresh basil. This is a nice substitute for dry basil. When converting fresh herbs to dry, use 1 tsp of dry for 1 Tbs of fresh.)
5. 2 Tbs chopped fresh oregano
6. Black Pepper and Salt (I added about 2tsp of salt since the tomatoes are not salted.)
7. 1/2 bottle of red wine (Remember, in cooking you want to use wine you would drink...I used a nice Bordeaux.)
8. 2 red peppers*
9. 2 yellow peppers*
10. 2 red onions*
11. 5 large cloves of garlic
    
12. 1 Tbs olive oil
13. 4 Links of Italian Sausage
14. 2 Lbs Ground Round
    

Options for this sauce are:

1. Making it meatless. I do this often. Just leave out the meat.
2. Add mushrooms (I usually do, but I didn't have any) or any other lightly sauteed vegetables, i.e. squash or zucchini or eggplant.
   
3. Making it Vegan friendly, obviously make it meatless (or add a meat substitute). Also, you would not use the Pesto as a basil substitute because it contains Pecorino Romano cheese.
4. Making it Kosher friendly, obviously no pork sausage. If you use ground beef, leave out the pesto and the parmesan I add later.
   

[ *I used the red and yellow peppers and red onions because they provide a lovely sweetness to the sauce that I find lacking in green peppers and white onions. ]

The first step is to put the first six ingredients into a large stock pot:


Next, add the wine:



Dice the peppers and onions. For this recipe, I prefer a chunky dice, but try to make the pieces kind of uniform in size:



And then the garlic, I have a garlic press, the Susi by Zyliss, but I just chopped it. The garlic skins can easily be removed by taking the flat side of a butcher knife and giving the garlic a good whack! Also, you want to cut off the stem end of the garlic. Then, just chop away:



Add the olive oil to a hot skillet and add the peppers, onions and garlic. You want to saute them all slowly on low heat so they become translucent, but not browned:



Once they look like the picture above, just add them to the stock pot:


In the same skillet you sauteed the vegetables (no need to wash it), remove the casing (just cut a slit in the casing and peel it off) break up and brown the Italian Sausage:



I always drain the meat in a colander and rinse the fat off with hot running water. Then, add the browned sausage to the stock pot:


Next, again in the same skillet (no need to wash) brown the ground beef:



Again, drain in a colander and rinse with hot running water to remove excess fat and add to the stock pot:



And it looks like this:



Now, sit back and relax (remember, you have a half bottle of wine to drink *wink*). Enjoy the aroma as the sauce simmers slowly, uncovered, over low heat..all day. Stir it occasionally to prevent sticking. The sauce will reduce in volume and thicken naturally as the day goes on. Did I mention, it smells wonderful?

This sauce can be used on any variation of pasta. I used Ronzoni Healthy Harvest Spaghetti.

I also topped the spaghetti with a completely wonderful parmigiano reggiano. It is a bit expensive, but there is nothing to compare to the taste of this lovely aged cheese. I used my micro plane to finely grate it.



Set the table, add a fresh salad (I dressed it with a balsamic vinaigrette), and you are ready to dig in:



After a long day relaxing, join me as I dine!

Paula

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Chicken Piccata with Lemon, Capers and Artichoke Hearts...An Early Taste of Spring

It's still winter, but spring must be near! My taste buds are telling me it is so! I got a hankering for something a bit more spring like, so I made Chicken Piccata with Lemon, Capers and Artichoke Hearts.


The recipe served this over rice and lima beans, but I paired the chicken with some lightly sauteed zucchini and grape tomatoes. It's easy, elegant and it was delicious.

The ingredients are here:


The recipe calls for 4 chicken breasts but these were Dolly Parton sized, so I just used two. The first step is to flatten them. I have an old, old, old meat mallet that is horrible, so I just used my (yes pink...it was a gift from a friend) silicone rolling pin. If you don't have a meat mallet or a rolling pin, just smash the chicken with a heavy pan. Just about anything heavy will work. Putting the chicken in a zip lock bag makes for easy clean up and the bag comes in handy later.

Once the chicken is 1/4 inch thick, it looked like this:


The recipe called for the chicken to be salted and peppered and then coated in the seasoned flour, but I just dumped the salt and pepper right in there with the flour.


There is also lemon zest in this recipe; the zest of lemon holds the essential oils and is very fragrant and wonderful. Zest is just the finely grated rind. I use a micro plane to zest, but I have zesting tools too. You can use a very fine cheese grater or a sharp paring knife. When you zest you only want to get the top colored layer, not into the white pith, which is bitter. You can buy dried zest, but it's not the same as fresh.


All of the spices and the flour and lemon zest are added into the plastic bag with the chicken and tossed together to coat the chicken well. Heat the oil in a skillet and add the floured chicken (just shake it off a bit first). Saute it for a few minutes on each side until it is golden brown and cooked through.


Once the chicken is browned on each side, add the lemon juice, wine and stock.

That will simmer until the sauce thickens from the flour that has coated the chicken. While that is happening, slice up some zucchini and toss it in a skillet with 2 tsp olive oil, a pinch of garlic powder and salt/pepper. I also added a hint of the lemon zest. Normally fresh garlic is preferred but I was doing a super quick saute and it wasn't really enough time to sweeten the fresh garlic.


Now, both skillets are ready for the final ingredients. The chicken gets quartered artichoke hearts (I buy them quarted, so I don't have to cut them) and the capers. The zucchini gets some grape tomatoes that I halved.



Then, just plate it and serve.


Spring is coming! Join me as I dine!

Paula

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