BLT Risotto

Mmmm...risotto. That creamy, delightful marriage of melty onions and garlic, firm but not too firm arborio rice and cheese. Melty, melty cheese.

As I've said in my first post, I was not always the most adventurous eater. There was a very long period of time when I had a very deep and profound distrust of rice. For whatever reason. Then Italy came along and blew my fricken mind and I've been obsessed ever since. Generally speaking, risotto is my favorite vehicle for leeks, peas, spinach and roasted chicken. But tonight is a night for bacon. I've been assured by my [insanely talented] friend that "you only live once", erego I'm not going to apologize for the amount of bacon I've consumed today. Don't wanna. Not gonna.

So yes, bacon, roasted tomatoes and arugula together make my BLT Risotto one of my new favorites. And I promise, if you try it - it will be yours as well!

BLT Risotto

5 strips of thick cut bacon
1 medium onion
2 large cloves of garlic
1 cup arborio rice
3 cups chicken stock
About 20 cherry tomatoes
1 cup arugula
2-3 tbsp goat cheese


Start with the bacon. Because it's the best part. Also because it's necessary. So crisp those magical strips up in you pan.


Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Quarter up your tomatoes, and toss those on a pan with some olive oil and salt and pepper. You want to let those roast until they look like this:

While those are cooking up, dice one medium onion and mince your garlic. By this time, your bacon should be done cooking. Remove them from the pan, and drain on some paper towels.

In a separate saucepan, heat your chicken stock.

Now that you've removed your bacon, you're going to want to drain most of the fat from the pan, while leaving enough to cook the onions and garlic. Cook them over medium heat, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste until the onions are translucent and soft. To the pan, add the rice in with the onions and garlic, and let them get all friendly like.



Here's where the magic happens. This is where "rice" becomes "risotto". Make sure that your heat is medium-low. Any hotter and it'll dry up, and any lower and your rice will NEVER cook through. Ever. Add a ladle of stock at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon until the liquid becomes absorbed into the rice. (Also, maybe check on your tomatoes. They're probably perfect by now. Set those babies aside - you'll add them later). So, keep adding ladles of stock at a time, only adding more when the previous ladle has been absorbed.



Stop, obviously, once you run out of stock. If it looks too dry or too wet, or if your rice needs to get cooked a little more - feel free to add more. The world will not end.

When it's all cooked up, you have the basis of your soon-to-be-eaten yumminess. Now is the time to add the bacon you cooked up earlier - crumbled - like so:



Chopped arugula. A-like so:



And then those tomatoes that you roasted earlier. Finish it off by crumbling your goat cheese in (or, if you don't like goat cheese like some people I know - it's equally good to grate some high quality parmesan cheese, you'll just get a gooier, nuttier kind of creaminess)



Sorry about the picture quality! But, I promise you it tastes much better than it looks!

Fear not the risotto, my friends! If you're brave enough to attempt it, you will definitely reap the delicious benefits.

Soupy Sales

Today a friend of mine approached me with an interesting problem. "Speaking of bland," she said, "Help me. I made chicken vegetable soup last night and its so gross and bland. Help!" Seeing as how I'm in Boston and she's in New York City and there's not that much that I can do to physically help her, I thought I'd do my best to lend what little I actually know about cooking to my friend (who is a wonderful little cook in her own right) as I could. So I asked her to tell me everything she had done, to walk me through the process.

As soon as her description started with the phrase "I dumped chicken stock into a pot", I knew that this should be the subject of my next post. "How to Get the Most From Your Ingredients" or something like that. Flavorama. Yumsville: Population 10,000. Yes, that's how many taste buds you have. Yes, I'm a nerd. Whatever, the name doesn't matter.


.....Chicken Soup for the Blogger's Soul? Ok. I'm done.



As a practice, whenever I make soup - be it Tomato, Butternut Squash or Lentil in nature - I never (keep in mind I rarely use such definitive language. But I mean it) never, start with the broth. I'm not quite sure why, but I'm sure it has something to do with my aversion to most things cooked in liquid. Poached anything gives me the heebies AND the jeebies. Maybe it's from working one too many Sunday Brunches, and seeing those ghostly little eggs hover in their creepy, gelatinous ice bath. Blech. Anywho. But for once, my weird food phobias (which include mayonnaise and pre-shaped egg-like substances (egg mcmuffins, I'm looking at you.)) actually have panned out for the tastier! In the case of raw onion, celery and garlic v. chicken stock, no one wins. All that delicious flavor gets washed away when what you really want to do is concentrate the flavors of the individual ingredients - make each one as delicious as it can be - before letting them mellow and blend together in you stock (or water, whathaveyou).

It's like a chorus. A bunch of people just singing random notes will not sound good - but, if you teach them how to harmonize, you'll have a wonderful, ear-pleasing blend. And that's what you should aim to do when making anything, never mind soups. Ok. I'm off the soupbox.


Vegetable Lentil Soup

3 Medium Carrots
1 Large Onion
2 Stalks of Celery
1 Large Potato
3 Cloves of Garlic (minced)
1 tbsp of curry powder
1 1/2 tbsp tomato paste
1 lb of French Lentils*
32 oz of Low Sodium chicken broth

Ah, the majestic bounty of a pantry. As taken by my Blackberry's camera...


Silly dogs in sweaters wait patiently for carrots

In a large pot, sautee the diced vegetables in a few tablespoons of oil. Salt and pepper to taste. Cook them on medium heat until the onions have melted and the potatoes and carrots are soft. Push the vegetables to one side of the pan and sprinkle the curry powder and the tomato paste on the bottom of the pan. Let the spices get all toasty and aromatic. I took a photo of that phase...but it didn't look as deliriously delicious as it smelled.

Look at all those veggies. Getting all friendly and snuggly and whatnot.

Add in your lentils, and let those get all familiar with each other. Finally, add in your broth. Be sure to get a wooden spoon and really scrape up the bottom of the pan. It's that whole deglazing thing I talked about here. Taste for seasoning - add more if you think it needs it. Let that come up to temp et voila! Soup's up!

Garnish with some scallions and maybe a dash of some seriously extra-virgin olive oil and enjoy!

* I used Trader Joe's Steamed French Lentils - it's important not to use the regular lentils you find in most grocery stores, as they're bigger and waxier and are just sooo wrong