Jenmenke

Road Warrior

risotto

Meatless Monday 42

Fall Barley Risotto

Mmmm. I did it! I finally made a winner. Here’s the thing. In busy times, I tend to do some version of the following for dinner:

  • around 3:30pm when the kids get home, and having lost all track of time, I get up from my computer and look in the freezer
  • I take something out and plop in in a bowl of water to defrost
  • then I forget about it until…
  • somewhere between 5:30 and 6:30 pm when one of the kids needs to be somewhere: band, soccer, robotics, yearbook…
  • at which point I usually tell Charlie to have a bowl of cereal, or
  • tell Morgan to stop eating ice cream (or macaroni and cheese or some other large dinner-type substitute)
  • then, I start driving
  • when I return around 8pm, I
  • quickly and randomly throw something together from the defrosted item in the sink and anything I can find in my fridge

It doesn’t leave a lot of room for recipe research. I does leave a lot of room for improvement.

Maybe I have been made delusional from watching Top Chef to think that I, too, can throw some interesting ingredients and flavors together to create a harmonious and delicious meal in 40 minutes or less.

Yes, delusional.

Because it hardly ever works when I wing it. But there is always the exception. And Meatless Monday 42 is just that. The bummer, of course, is that I don’t document anything. I might take one picture and then as the cooking spirals downward, I stop. I mostly laugh.

And drink red wine.

So, I can’t really relate this recipe to you verbatim. But I can tell you the basic outline and structure of the dish. It certainly wouldn’t suffer from variations in ingredients or quantities. The fact that it is a barley risotto, rather than a traditional rice risotto, is simply because after having set my sights on squash risotto, I found I did not have enough rice to make it. Nothing new there. But I did have enough pearled barley. I had tried making a barley risotto sometime last year that was rather disastrous, but I did not let that distract me! Ed on Top Chef made a risotto out of corn! So there!

Here is a comparison of the grains. As you can see, they are somewhat similar. But guess what? Pearled barley (and squash, for that matter) takes over an hour to cook! I didn’t have an hour! (It was already 8 pm at this point, mind you.) So I got out the pressure cooker and dumped the barley in with water (about 2 cups more than the basic recipe on the package called for), a bit of wine and plenty of salt and got it cooking while I put two sweet potatoes in the oven at 425 and sauteed some shallots.

In my brain stem, I felt a familiar stirring: I think I have actually heard of a risotto made entirely in the pressure cooker. Anyone else know of something like that? I know I’ve never tried it, but based on how the barley turned out, I can certainly see promise in concept. The barley was perfect, and the water had turned somewhat risotto-ish — as if I had been stirring it all along.

Anyway, I used water for the broth, rather than stock, because sweet potatoes (or squash) are rich enough. To the sauteed shallots I added a couple of cloves of garlic, then the 1/2 cup of risotto rice I had left in the container. Next, I added about 1/3 cup of white wine, stirring all the while as I normally would with risotto. When the barley was done (after about 15 minutes), I dumped half of it (I froze the other half. Do you have any idea how much two cups of dried barley actually makes? It’s INSANE!) along with it’s cooking liquid into the pot and simmered it with some slivered sage leaves.

When the sweet potatoes were done, I added those to pot, gently stirring to break them up. When everything was cooked to al dente — and barley is very forgiving in this respect, I added about 1/2 cup of finely shredded pecorino and garnished each bowl with a little more. The main spice I used was sage, but in retrospect I would choose rosemary. For whatever reason — and I normally LOVE sage — on this particular night the smell reminded me of cat pee. It seriously bummed me out.

I would also probably choose butternut squash over sweet potato if given enough time to roast it. The sweet potato was good — and very similar to squash — but had a vibrant, Tang-like color that wasn’t all that appealing. I continued to add more pecorino romano, which I have come to love more than aged parmesan, probably because I am cheap. But I really do love the flavor. It’s not quite as strong or sharp. Or something.

Of course the next day NOT being Meatless Monday, I added one small, but spectacular, topping for my lunch: Leftover pot roast!!

Sacrilege!

Meatless Monday Eighteen!

Morel Mushroom and Asparagus Risotto

If you haven’t read the Morel post from yesterday, please do. It gives background information necessary for truly understanding the nature of this very special Meatless Monday meal.

No, I’m not talking about the asparagus, that I’m ready to plow under. I’m talking, of course, about the two-year wait for morels fresh from our own woods. I liken it to the meals you eat while camping. Nothing tastes better than anything you make to eat when you are camping. And morels that you found yourself, in your own barren forest, taste better than any other.

I also — finally — made my own vegetable stock. I didn’t open any books to guide me on this journey, mind you. I just threw some veggies in a pan.

Roasted them at 450 for about 30 minutes.

Added water and simmered for an hour or two…

And just like that I had vegetable stock that tasted exactly like… water.

It was a beautiful golden brown color. It had a good aroma. But it tasted like water. And so it began, the random dumping of ingredients into the pot. I added tons of garlic, bay leaves, a sprig of rosemary, another onion, another carrot, two more stalks of celery, some wine, a splash of balsamic.

No, I’m not kidding. I really did add all that stuff. And in the end, it tasted like very weak vegetable stock. Which was actually perfect.

Because, have I written about making risotto before? How I love it so much, but when I make it it always seems so cloyingly rich? How I used to use my homemade chicken stock, but have eventually gravitated toward watered down store-bought Swanson’s broth? I think I might have, but if you didn’t read it, now you know.

So, I really was after a weak-tasting stock. Still, I was shocked at how many vegetables you actually have to use in order to get any flavor! I thought the roasting of them would combat that, but it didn’t. It just gave it a deeper color.

Anyway. Enough of that. I made it, it was delicious and I didn’t miss chicken broth one bit in this recipe. In fact, it was so good, I just might make the risotto this way always. Well, when I have the time to be farting around all day, that is.

For the four of us (and this left two servings of leftovers), I used 1 1/2 cups of arborio rice and about … I’m thinking back here…. about 8-9 cups of liquid. I could not believe how much liquid I needed. 3/4 cup of it was white wine, about 6 cups of it was the stock and the rest was water I kept adding at the end to get it the consistency we like — more soupy, less dry.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, I made the risotto to just-short of being done and finished it two hours later. If you don’t know me personally, you will think the unforeseen circumstance was something like : the dog got hurt and had to go to the vet. Or, a friend called and asked for my help with driving her kids around…

But you’d be wrong. The unforeseen circumstance was soccer practice, which has been on the calendar for weeks. It was unforeseen in my own mind only. Dave was looking at me like I had three heads when I told him we were eating before practice. Of course, he was right and I was wrong.

But things happen for a reason, I like to think. And in this case it was the marvelous discovery of risotto being ‘par cooked’, or whatever the hell those Top Chefs call it on TV. I think this is what restaurants must do, as they can’t possibly be making risotto to order from scratch at a restaurant because it would take too long. It suddenly makes risotto a viable dish to make for company if you don’t want to be standing at the stove for an hour while guests stand around saying things like “Isn’t there something I can help you with?” …As you run around like a chicken with your head cut off, plunging your dirty hands into the food they will be eating later. Always a little disconcerting…

Oh my gosh. I talk/write too much. I’m not even at the damn recipe yet… I’ll just get to it. Sorry.

Morel and Asparagus Risotto (vegetarian)
  • 6-8 cups weak or watered down vegetable stock
  • 3/4 cup white wine
  • 1 1/2 cup arborio rice
  • 2T butter or olive oil
  • 1 small onion diced (I used frozen chopped leeks)
  • 1 large clove garlic, pressed
  • large bundle of asparagus cut on the diagonal into 2″ pieces, blanched
  • 2 cups (or whatever you can manage) washed and dried morel mushrooms, cut in half and sauteed in butter till browned
  • 1 cup finely grated pecorino or parmesan cheese

I put much of the prep instructions up there in the ingredient list. I wanted the asparagus to look perfect in the rice and not be overcooked, so I opted to blanch it rather than to cook it in the risotto. I think this is worth the extra dirty pan because with fresh garden asparagus, the tips would look mutilated from the stirring.

I also wanted the morels to have as much flavor as possible. I’m often disappointed when putting morels in with other foods, because you miss them in the other flavors and then they seem wasted. It is why I far more often just saute them in butter and eat them out of the pan. So for this recipe, I sauteed them in butter until the edges started to brown and crisp, salted and peppered, ate a few and saved the rest for stirring into the almost finished risotto. When I realized I needed more liquid than the vegetable stock I had ready, I deglazed the mushroom pan with water and used that for the liquid. It worked great and I would recommend it if you find yourself in a similar situation. OR, if you use dried mushrooms, save the soaking water and add to the risotto. It has a lot of flavor. (see? I’m still talking too much)

Bring the stock to a simmer in a sauce pan. In a separate large dutch oven or pan large enough for the finished risotto, heat the butter or oil over medium heat, and saute the onion until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the rice, stirring constantly, and saute for another couple minutes. Add the wine, stirring, until mostly absorbed. Add the stock, 1 cup at a time, stirring more often than not, as the stock is absorbed and is mostly absorbed by the rice (when you stir there isn’t liquid sitting on the bottom of the pan anymore), add another cup of stock. Occasionally take a bite of rice to see what stage it is at. Mine took about 25 minutes to get to the point that I ran out of time. At that point, I had added all of my 6 cups of stock and  the mushrooms. I covered it so the cats wouldn’t eat it and left. When I came back two hours later, I heated up 2 more cups of water (I do think that par cooking the rice and finishing later uses more liquid, so if you are making it to eat right away, you will use less), and finished cooking the risotto. Stir the blanched asparagus into the rice. Stir 3/4 cup of the grated cheese into the rice. Put into a big pretty bowl and top with remaining cheese.

In retrospect, I think a squeeze of lemon juice would have been really good, but by this time, it was about 9:20pm at our house and my kids would have stabbed me in the eye with a fork if I had told them to wait. This also explains the rather horrible photo, too, which for me has now become a tradition for Meatless Monday posts.

Meatless Monday Eleven!

Make that Meatless THURSDAY, instead.

Yes, it’s been a harrowing week. I’m sick (again) and life is spinning out of control. It doesn’t help that I’m not taking it seriously.

Seriously.

Because all I really want to do is get up from my computer and go read a book.

Or go work outside.

Or go for a walk.

Or eat.

And eat.

It doesn’t bode well for clients, the blog or for soccer. I know. That soccer thing came out of left field, but the truth is — though I try to hide from it — I run the the soccer program in our small town. It is a mind numbing amount of work. I try not to complain, but complain constantly to anyone who will listen. And I seriously try not to talk about it, but the reality is, it’s my one valid excuse for everything. So, I tend to talk about it incessantly, too. Who can resist making excuses?

Not me.

Anyway, soccer is in full-out spastic mode and I do little else but fire out emails, talk to coaches, update the website and answer questions. All the live long day.

Enough of that. I’m just making excuses.

Here are the rest of them:

Monday was bookclub. Tuesday Dave was out of town, and you know how I feel about him missing our delightful Meatless Monday! Wednesday was St. Patrick’s Day and we had our traditional Corned Beef and Cabbage meal. So Meatless Thursday it had to be!

And I made it up!

I did get one idea from a cookbook I bought at Miraval Spa from a vacation long, long ago…

Before the austerity program…

Anyway, it was delicious. I’ll get right to it.

Butternut Squash Barley Risotto with Morels and Asparagus

The idea I got from the cookbook was to toast some of the barley before cooking it. To be honest, I don’t know if it made any difference. Perhaps it enhanced the flavor, but I really couldn’t tell you.

The other thing I should mention is that I do love risotto, but I often find it to be too rich. In fact, when I make it at home, I never use homemade chicken stock because I find it to be too strong. I like to use canned or boxed broth, mixed half and half with water. But since I couldn’t use chicken stock on meatless monday(!), and since I recently decided I am not a big fan of my veggie bouillon cubes, I came up with a different flavoring idea.

I sautéed the onions to just the carmelization stage

Added three cloves of garlic. (This, by the way, is still my garden garlic harvest last August. Still looks and tastes pretty good even though it is just starting to sprout)

Then added water, deglazing the pan.

I added a bit of salt, dried thyme, and then some dried morels to the liquid and used that to cook the risotto.

It worked great! Lightly flavored, but not overpowering. Well, truth be told, once you add all that butternut squash, who’s to know what the stupid broth tasted like?!

Toward the end I added pre-cooked butternut squash which I had in the freezer from another meal.

And finally, I added steamed asparagus that had been shocked in ice water at the last minute.

I was stunned to find no shredded parmesan cheese in my fridge, so I used Dubliner White Cheddar instead, which tasted delicious…

I forgot to add the pine nuts I was thinking about. They would have been good. I’ll add them to my leftovers, which I plan to have for lunch today.

The verdict? Sweet, but really good. There is no avoiding the sweet when using butternut squash. I would definitely make it again.

Butternut Squash Barley Risotto with Morels and Asparagus
  • 1 cup pearled barley
  • 4+ cups water (just use a bit more hot water if you run out of broth and need more liquid to finish cooking the barley
  • olive oil
  • 1 medium onion diced
  • 3 cloves garlic crushed
  • 10 dried morel (or other variety) mushrooms
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • 1/2 cup dry white wine
  • 2 cups cooked butternut squash
  • 1 small bundle asparagus spears, cut into 2″ long pieces
  • 1 bay leaf
  • shredded parmesan (or other) cheese for garnish
  • salt and pepper to taste

Heat a large saute pan on low, film with olive oil, add onions and slowly saute, stirring often, until lightly and uniformly browned, about 15 minutes. Add three cloves of crushed garlic and stir 30 seconds or so, until fragrant. Don’t let garlic burn. Add 4 cups of water, and stir, scraping bottom of pan to get all the caramelization into the liquid. Add dried mushrooms, 1 tsp salt and thyme. Keep over very low heat.

Add 3/4 cup of barley to heavy bottomed dutch-oven type pan. Heat on medium to medium high and stir often until barley is slightly toasted, about 5 minutes. Add remaining 1/4 cup of barley and about 1 tablespoon of olive oil, stirring to coat. Add 1/2 cup of white wine (if using) and stir until liquid is mostly absorbed.

Begin adding heated broth mixture 1/2 cup at a time, stirring often. Adding more as liquid is absorbed and gets thicker. Don’t worry about the mushrooms and onions, just add them along with the broth. Stir and add liquid, stir and add liquid. When you have only about 1 cup of broth left, add the butternut squash to the mixture in heaping spoonfuls, continuing to stir. Add the rest of the broth, taste and adjust seasoning. The whole process will take about 30 minutes.

During the cooking time, steam or boil the asparagus and shock in cold water. You want the asparagus to retain a slight crunch and be bright green. Stir the asparagus into the finished risotto until warmed thru. Serve with a drizzle of olive oil, topped with grated cheese and crusty bread on the side.