Butternut Squash Risotto & Pork Chops with a Rosemary-Vinegar Sauce

This dish is the perfect plate of chilled weather comfort food and the risotto itself will yield enough to feed a small country. The butternut squash risotto can also be served by itself as a yummy vegetarian entree without the pork tenderloin or, if you really want to go all out, with a tofu cutlet drizzled in the rosemary vinegar sauce. The undertaking of this dish is a bit laborious although totally worth the time.

Starting with the risotto, bring 7 cups of chicken or vegetable broth (I prefer the chicken broth) to boil in a large saucepan. Cover. Reduce heat to low. In another large pot, melt 3 tablespoons of butter over medium heat, adding 1 1/4 cup of finely chopped onion, sauteing until tender. Add your 2 pound butternut squash - peeled, halved, seeded, and cut into about 1/2 inch dice - with 1 1/2 teaspoons of chopped fresh rosemary.

Once the squash is coated with butter and rosemary and slightly tender, add 2 cups of arborio rice and stir for about 2 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of dry white wine and simmer until it evaporates. Add your 7 cups of broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered until the risotto is creamy and slightly soupy. If needed you can add more broth by 1/4 cupfuls to maintain the consistency, stirring occasionally.

Once it has the proper consistency, stir in 4 cups packed baby spinach,1/2 cup of heavy cream, and 1/2 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Season to taste with salt and pepper and transfer to a large bowl, sprinkling 1/2 teaspoon of fresh rosemary on top before serving.

Right about now is when you're probably wondering at which point will you have time to make the pork chops and the rosemary-vinegar sauce. I recommend prepping the pork chops while prepping the squash dish and cooking in a large skillet at the point where you are bringing 7 cups of broth to a boil for the risotto. It seems to work out pretty well, time-wise, and neither dish sits for longer than necessary.

Sprinkle 4 large boneless pork tenderloins on both sides with 3/4 teaspoon of chopped fresh rosemary, salt and pepper. Coat each with flour, shaking off any excess. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium heat. Add 2 cloves of sliced garlic. Saute. Remove with a slotted spoon.

Add pork to skillet, sauteing until brown and cooked through. Transfer to plate tented with foil.

Add 1 cup chicken broth, 1/4 cup dry white wine, 1/3 cup heavy cream, 4 teaspoons of raspberry or red wine vinegar, and 1/4 teaspoon of chopped fresh rosemary. Bring the sauce to a boil until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon, stirring often. Season to taste with salt and pepper, pouring any collected pork juices from plate back into skillet to stir into sauce before serving. Spoon over tenderloin, serving with risotto.

The Case of the Missing Foodie

Like Max, I too have sailed to the Land of the Wild Things. While enjoying the wild rumpus, I have still been cooking and documenting my many culinary adventures, though I'm sure you know that while one is in the Land of the Wild Things one may not have the immediate resources to update one's blog. Fear not, fellow readers; I have not given up, nor have I forgotten my zester. Many delicious meals are soon to follow, and I promise you, that you will once again discover, like Max did upon his return to home that "... it was still hot."

Copyright Maurice Sendak," Where the Wild Things Are"

Chocolate Chip Cookies from Scratch!

I have never been afraid to proudly announce my fear of baking. But, like having to overcome my fears of poultry gizzards in order to make a real gravy, I decided I needed to overcome my fear of making crappy baked goods. Hmm. That was probably a really strange analogy as fowl gizzards have nothing to do with cookies, but I'm sure you get my point, as misguided as it may have been.

Anyway. I was pleasantly surprised to find that baking chocolate chip cookies is not only fairly easy, but also fun in a deliciously messy way. I think most of my reticence is based on a prior baking mistake wherein I mistook baking soda for baking powder when baking a cake. Determined to forge ahead without salty tasting cookies (more on that debacle later), I followed the instructions on the package to semi-sweet chocolate chips to a T.

My Librarian and I prefer chewy to crunchy cookies and I found that the trick to ending up with entirely chewy cookies is to bake them through, closely monitoring the time and to pull them just after the very tops have baked from gooey cookie dough into, well, cookie. The result of my neurotic time keeping and toothpick poking in the end was pure success - we had over two dozen chewy chocolate chip cookies that were neither crunchy, hardened, nor burnt and were baked all the way through.

Herbed Chicken Parmigiana over Spagetti, with Garlic Bread

This is a dish that is simple enough to make and that can result in mouth-watering taste bud satisfying traditional comfort meals, however, it can also go terribly wrong and end up no better than an imposter at highway rest stop buffet table.

Hey, paison! I won't let you down and leave you with a gummy, greasy plate. What follows is my recipe for a great dish that is a delicious, no-fail take on the traditional plate that should immediately take you back to your grandmother's kitchen. You're not Italian, let alone have never had an Italian grandmother? I'm sure you have some sort of imagination; work it out. Just whatever you do, please don't think of those Olive Garden commercials, mmkay?

You'll need:
3-4 chicken breasts
2 eggs, lightly beaten
Salt and Pepper
Panko Bread Crumbs
Fresh Minced Parsley
Fresh Minced Basil
8oz Mozzarella
Grated Parmesan Cheese

There are a few important things to note that will come up as I outline the recipe. The first is that instead of using any old breadcrumb, get yourself Panko Breadcrumbs. These are lighter and airier, generally associated with Japanese cuisine. These are important to use because if you think back to all of the not-so-great chicken parm dishes, I bet you found it to be gummy and chewy. This was probably in part due to the breadcrumb selection. Buy some plain panko and I promise you won't regret it because you won't end up with a gummy cutlet.

In a bowl combine the breadcrumbs ( about 3/4 cup), parsley, basil (about 1 tablespoon of each) salt and pepper (about a 1/4 to 1 teaspoon of each) and about three tablespoons of parmesan cheese. It's all an approximation to what you like. While you're getting this ready and lightly tossing it with your fingers, get a skillet nice and hot on the stove. After dipping each breast in the eggs, dredge them through the breadcrumb mixture. On the skillet, brown each side of each breast, setting aside once done.

This is the second important detail to note. The breadcrumb-herb-parmesan mixture before browning is what I have found to be pretty key in the overall completeness of the dish. The chicken needs to be browned, clearly, but the crispy panko crumbs embedded with fresh herbs are sealed in with a crispy parmesan crust before being baked.

Once your chicken breasts are ready, place them in a dish and cover them with sauce, and the mozzarella and parmesan cheeses. Clearly a homemade Italian Sauce would be eccellente, but sometimes we don't always have the time on hand to create it. I suggest taking your favorite marinara - I actually prefer a Basil Marinara and an Arrabiata Sauce blended 1:1; this gives the dish the smooth marinara with a spicy kick.

Bake the dish uncovered at 375 degrees until the chicken is cooked through and the cheese is bubbling. At this point, get your garlic bread ready. Personally, I like to take two small loaves of baked ficelle and slice them down the middle. Slather on butter, generously sprinkle garlic bread seasoning from The Spice Terminal at Reading Terminal Market and top it with fresh grated parmesan cheese. Toss it in oven alongside your dish.

Allow the dish to sit and cool for about ten minutes before serving it on top of Spagetti along with that delicious fresh garlic bread, and Voila! un pasto perfetto!

A New Year, New Recipes

Some of you may have noticed it's been about a month since my last post. True that, however due to some, well, computer-based viral issues, I am unable to access those mouth-watering photos to accompany recipes and general food adventures. This should be resolved this weekend, however, so stay tuned. Thanks everyone!

Shrimp Scampi over Pasta

I love me some shrimps, though unfortunately My Librarian, having grown up in a surfer town, does not like the shrimp, nor other family members of what she calls "sand bugs." Though she implores me to cook my "sand bug" food whenever I get a hankering, I don't when we eat together as I would feel guilty and am perfectly content to cook my shellfish when she is absent at the dinner hour. I made this dish last night while she was at work and for the duration of the meal, was in shrimpy heaven.

I used cooked frozen shrimp since I think the blue uncooked shrimp are gross looking. Using some olive oil and two cloves of garlic, I heated the skillet before adding my shrimp, which, by the way, I had marinated in the juice of one lemon for about thirty minutes beforehand.

As the shrimp were heating, I added 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes, 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper, and 1 teaspoon of sea salt, stirring everything occasionally. While the shrimp were cooking, I started the water to boil my spaghetti. Once the shrimp were turned for even cooking, I added about three tablespoons of butter to the skillet, stirring as it melted down. Then I added some dry white wine and the juice of one more lemon to taste. (The wine and butter combination is tweak-able to taste; just keep dipping your finger in the sauce as you stir to achieve the flavor you desire.)

Once the dish was complete, I tossed the spaghetti and the shrimp with the pan sauce in a medium sized bowl. After plating my dish, I topped it with fresh chopped parsley.

Chicken Gorgonzola over Red Potatoes and Fire Roasted Vegetables

Trader Joe's has a frozen meal that is "chicken gorgonzola" but I'm not really a fan of the meal-in-a-box, so I decided to recreate the dish. I stuffed the chicken with some gorgonzola cheese and then melted down some gorgonzola with butter and lemon and poured that over the potatoes and fire roasted onions, green peppers, and red peppers. Once the chicken was ready to cook with the other components, I chopped fresh parsley and rosemary and sprinkled the herbs across the top along with a dash of salt.

The dish cooked for about forty five minutes at 350 degrees and came out incredibly well. The gorgonzola that I stuffed into the chicken melted and was absorbed by the breast to give it a lovely tenderness that complimented the rest of the dish.