Green Risotto

I found this recipe on a local cooking show and just barely was able to try it. You may remember my mishap with the peas: this was that day.

The cook is British, so the measurements are by weight. I’ve included my notes, as always.

INGREDIENTS

4 tbsp olive oil
250g (9oz) peas, fresh or frozen
100g (4 oz) spinach (destalk if the leaves are large)
950ml (1 pt 12 fl oz) vegetable (or chicken) stock
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed or minced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
350g (12 oz) risotto rice
150ml (5 fl. oz) white wine (I omitted the wine and used extra stock)
100g (4 oz) Parmesan cheese to serve

METHOD
Preheat the oven to 180'C/gas 4. (I cooked mine entirely on the stove top, so you can bake if you like, or not).
Heat half the olive oil in an oven-proof saucepan.
Add the peas and spinach and cook, stirring all the time, for 2 minutes, until the spinach wilts.

Add about 50ml of the stock and puree in a blender or food processor.
Set aside.
In the same saucepan, heat the remaining olive oil, add the onion and garlic and season with salt and pepper.
Cover with a lid and sweat over a gentle heat until soft but not colored.
Add the risotto rice and stir it around in the saucepan for a minute, then add the remaining stock and the wine.
Stir and bring it up to the boil, cover with the lid and place in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until the rice is just cooked and all the liquid has been absorbed.(Again, I did mine entirely on the stove, like you would normal risotto: adding the stock and stirring until it dissolves, then adding more , repeating until the rice is cooked, then continue with the recipe.)
Stir in the vegetable puree and set aside with the lid on.

To serve
Serve the risotto in warm bowls topped with Parmesan.(I mixed my cheese in with the pureed spinach and peas, but do as you please).

Green Risotto: Not for the faint of heart!

Marry Me Toffee

Yes, this is the actual title of the recipe. It comes from Jane Sharrock’s “Who Wants Candy?” Cookbook. The title of the recipe has no punctuation so I get to imagine it for myself. One option is, “Marry me, toffee!” like in the old joke. “I love this!” “If you love it so much, why don’t you marry it?”

Another option (and my personal favorite) is, “Marry Me!” Toffee (a la Arrested Development).

But however you do it, it’s delicious.

 

I’ve had trouble with recipes from this cookbook before, and so I was pleased when this one turned out so well.

Ingredients:

2-2 1/2 cups of chopped, toasted almonds

6, 1.5 oz Hershey’s chocolate bars (I used 9 oz. of Baker’s semi-sweet chocolate bars. I’m sure you could use whatever, just keep it unmelted).

1 pound of good quality butter – margarine doesn’t work.

2 cups granulated sugar

3 Tbls water

1 tsp. vanilla extract

 

1. Scatter a little over half the almonds (I used dry roasted almonds instead of toasting them myself) over two baking sheets (the book reads, one large and one small to medium. I used two medium ones and it worked fine). Reserve the remaining almonds for the top. Break the chocolate into pieces.

2. In a heavy, 3-quart saucepan over medium heat, bring butter, sugar, and water to a boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves. One it begins to boil, stir constantly and cook to the hard crack stage, 300 degrees.

3. Remove from heat, quickly stir in vanilla. Immediately pour over the almonds on the baking sheets. the candy won’t go all the way to edge of the sheet. Immediately place the chocolate onto the candy roughly evenly spaced. Let the chocolate melt for a few minutes, then use a spatula to spread it evenly over the surface of the candy.

4. Sprinkle the reserved almonds over the chocolate, pressing into the chocolate if desired. Let it all cool to room temperature before cutting (I used a pizza cutter, but you can break it by hand, too). It will keep for a week or two in an airtight container at room temperature.

 

Creamy Lemon Crumble Squares

I love bars. I love to make them, I love to eat them, I love the little lemony crust they get on top when they bake. I thought I would never find anything to replace them.

But I have. 

I found this recipe on Pinterest (yes, I do that now) and I thought we’d try for dessert when the missionaries came for dinner.

 

Crust:

6 Tbl butter, softened

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup flour

3/4 cup oats

3/4 tsp baking powder

scant 1/2 tsp salt

Filling:

1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk

1/2 cup lemon juice

zest of 1 (or 2) lemons

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cream butter and sugar. Add oats, flour, baking powder and salt. Mix till crumbly.

3. Mix filling well, until consistent.

4. Press about 2/3 of the crust into the bottom of a 9x9 pan. Pour filling in, spreading if necessary. Sprinkle the remainder of crust on the top.

5. Bake for 30 minutes, until golden brown. Eat warm or cold. I like mine with ice cream on top, but they’re delicious by themselves.

I’d consider this golden brown.

The original recipe comes from here, and she has a larger version to go into an 8x11 pan. I don’t have an 8x11 pan, and since I didn’t want them to be thin in a 9x13 pan, I cut the crust recipe by 1/4 and put it into a 9x9 pan. It still makes a little too much crust, but it’s yummy yummy!

Frog-Eye Salad

So I mentioned on my blog a little while ago a dessert salad: frog-eye salad. An unfortunate name, I know, but I didn’t name it. It’s deceptively delicious and it kind of grows on you. I’m considering changing the name to “white cloud of happiness salad.”

16 oz acini di pepe pasta (This is a small round pasta about the size of a peppercorn. I found some at Wal-Mart made by Da Vinci. I assume this is what gives the salad its name, but if you can’t find it I recommend orzo).

1 small box vanilla pudding

1 1/2+ cups milk

1 pint whipping cream

1/4 – 1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

3+ cups mini marshmallows

2 cans mandarin oranges, drained

1 large (28oz?) can of pineapple tidbits, drained

 

1. Cook pasta according to package directions, cool pasta under cold water in strainer and set aside.

2. While cooking pasta, make vanilla pudding with 1 1/2 cups milk instead of the recommended 2 cups. Once set, combine with cool pasta. Add fruit and marshmallows.

3. Whip cream with sugar and vanilla till very stiff. Fold into salad. For best results, let rest overnight. (or enjoy right away). This makes A LOT of salad, so you may want to half this recipe on your first try. That way, if you hate it, you have less of it.

Now, the recipe I used to make this calls for a container of cool whip. I did not have success. It made the salad very very gooey, so I went for the real thing, but feel free to give it a try. Just make sure the cool whip is thawed before folding into the rest of salad.

 

For as many times as I’ve made this, this is the only picture I have of it. We just eat it too fast.

Rollo Cookies!

A coworker of Dana’s made these and brought them in to work. Dana brought one to me and asked me to make them for him. Hooray for the internet and its searchable contents! I found a recipe quickly and made these delicious cookies.

1 cup of butter, softened

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups flour

1 tsp soda

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

48 Rollo candies*

1. cream sugars and butter together. Add eggs and vanilla.

2. Combine dry ingredients and add slowly to egg mixture. Transfer dough to dry ingredients bowl and press in slightly. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours. (I don’t usually go through the trouble of combining the dry ingredients separately, but I did this time. And if you put the dough into the dry ingredients bowl to chill, when you remove it from the bowl, it comes out readily.)

3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Separate dough into 48 balls (Just keep halving the batch of dough till you get 16 sections, then split each of those into 3rds. Or feel free to eyeball it; that works too.) Wrap each ball of dough around 1 Rollo candy. Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven when done, but let sit on the cookie sheet 4 minutes before removing to a cooling rack.

Here are my cookies cooling deliciously. Feel free to eat them warm; they’re kind of amazing that way.

 

*Did you follow the asterix? You really do have to use Rollo candies. The caramel is nice and soft and already chocolate coated, which helps keep it from making a mess. You may ask how I know this. It is because I foolishly tried to use caramels. The hard cube-ish kind you melt to cover apples with: that kind. This is what I got…

Are you thinking about the picture that the man drew of a snake eating an elephant? Because I am. These caramels aren’t in the oven long enough to get all nice and gooey. They just stay shaped like caramels. Then when the cookies cool, you have a nice soft cookie with a hard, yucky caramel in the middle. Go ahead and spring for the Rollos, you’ll be happy you did.

Stuffed Peppers

I made stuffed peppers once in college and filled them with my own mixture of mostly rice and some ground beef and vegetables.

We had our own early Thanksgiving a few weeks ago and had the inevitable leftover turkey. I don’t like leftover turkey. Every year I search for another thing to do with leftover turkey that will make it yummy. And this year I finally found one!

This recipe comes from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

3 large stuffed peppers halved and seeded

3 Tbl olive oil

1 onion, chopped fine

1 lb. ground cooked or uncooked beef, pork, veal or lamb (or cooked, chopped turkey!)

2 tomatoes peeled and chopped (I used 1 15oz can of stewed tomatoes, drained

2 Tbl minced parsley

1 1/2 tsp dried basil

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup bread crumbs

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a shallow baking dish. Cook the pepper halves in boiling water for 2 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Heat oil in the skillet and add chopped onion. Cook, stirring until soft. If using uncooked or cold meat, add and cook until done or heated through. Add tomatoes, parsley, basil, and salt and pepper to taste. Lightly fill each pepper half with some of the mixture. Top with breadcrumbs (I put some parmesan cheese on first). Bake for 30-40 minutes.

These are super yummy and I’m definitely making them again.

And one fuzzy picture, sorry guys.

The Cake

Ever heard of a video game called “Portal”? In the game you are helping a company test this portal gun. You use the gun to solve puzzles that GLADOS gives you and the promised reward is cake.

At the end of the game GLADOS sings a song (written by Jonathan Coulton) and mentions the cake and that it is delicious and moist. There is even a picture of it.

So one year for Dana’s birthday I made him The Cake. I used this recipe that always gives me something delicious and moist (if some times more structurally sound than others).

Hershey’s Perfectly Chocolaty Cake and Frosting (from the Unsweetened Cocoa box).

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cups flour

3/4 cup cocoa

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup boiling water (yes, for realz).

 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Combine dry ingredients. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water – batter will be thin.

3. Pour into 2, nine inch round (greased) pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Remove when a toothpick comes out clean, but the tops of the cakes should still look moist.

While the cake is cooking, you can make the frosting:

1/2 cup butter or margarine

2/3 cup cocoa

3 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Melt butter and mix with coca. Once well mixed – no lumps – add the other ingredients and mix until thick and creamy.

To assemble The Cake: let the cakes cool to room temperature before removing from pans. Place one round, flat-side down, on a plate. (Some cakes end up with too much cake and have bulgy middles: store bought cake mixes, for example. This cake tends to sink a bit in the middle. So you might need to use some frosting to make the middle even). Frost with a thin layer of chocolate frosting. Fill with some sweetened fresh berries (I think I used raspberries for this, but strawberries would be good too) or jam. Or just put some more frosting in the middle and use that as the filling. Place the next layer, flat-side up, onto the frosting. Cover the outside with frosting till it looks good to you. (I was taught to do a thin, crumb layer and let that dry a little bit before putting on the “show” layer of frosting.

With either whipped cream or some white frosting (whipped cream from a can would be super easy to do this with, but you’ll have to eat it right away. I used cream cheese frosting before I had some on hand) make 8 rosettes around the edge of the cake. Place gummy raspberries or cherry sours in the middle of each white rosette. To make it really authentic, press chocolate shavings into the outside of the cake and place one candle at the center of the cake.

The cake is not a lie!