Sausage Risotto with Spring Greens

I got this recipe from Bon Appetit magazine. My attention was caught when it mentioned swiss chard, which I've dabbled with before. I'd never made risotto and was a smidge scared to try it. All I can think of is Top Chef when they're all "omg it's SO hard to make a perfect risotto". I might be making that up. But it sounds about right. This recipe looked doable, though, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Ingredients

• 1 bunch dandelion greens, Swiss chard, or mustard greens (12 ounces), tough bottom stems removed, leaves cut into 3/4-inch pieces (I didn't see any of those other greens at the farmer's market, so I stuck with the chard)
• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, divided
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 large garlic clove, finely chopped
• 6 ounces mild Italian sausage (about 1 1/2 links), casings removed
• 2 cups arborio rice (13 to 14 ounces)
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 5 cups low-salt chicken broth
• 3/4 cup (packed) freshly grated Parmesan cheese plus additional for serving

Preparation

• Cook greens in boiling salted water just until wilted, about 1 minute. Drain; cool.
• Melt 1 tablespoon butter in large saucepan over medium heat; add onion and garlic. Sauté until onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add sausage; sauté until brown, breaking up with spoon, about 3 minutes. Add rice; stir 1 minute. Add wine; reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer until wine is almost absorbed. Add 1 cup broth. Stir until broth is almost absorbed. Add remaining 4 cups broth by 1/2 cupfuls, allowing broth to be absorbed before adding more. Mix in greens after 10 minutes. Cook until rice is tender and mixture is creamy, 25 minutes total. Mix in cheese and remaining 3 tablespoons butter. Season with salt and pepper.
• Serve risotto, passing additional cheese.

Couple things:
1-I would swear on my LIFE that I had parm in my fridge. I didn't. Just smelling this dish cooking, I knew it would be effing fantastic with the cheese. Damn it. I think I left it at a friends house...? boo.
2-My risotto came out a tad undercooked, but not too much. Totally delish and creamy!
3-I halved the recipe, but kept the full amount of greens. Can't have too many veggies.
4-Definitely use the low sodium broth. It's super salty and I have no idea why. Maybe from the sausage?
5-SUCCESS!! Super good! And totally easy!
6-Don't have my camera cord, so pics to come.

Teriyaki Beef Stir Fry

I was super craving something teriyaki-y today and, since I bought some veggies at the farmer's market on Sunday, thought a stir-fry type thing would be good. I snagged some sauce from Target and some beef fajita strip things from Whole Foods and the rest is history...




1 packaged (1-ish lb's) of fajita cut beef
1/2 bottle of Kikkoman Teriyaki baste and glaze
1 med yellow onion
4 large chard leaves
3 weird orange radish/beet type things (no clue. I bought them at the farmer's market because they're pretty! I'm eating it right now and still have no idea what they are)
1 med green bell pepper
rice



Put 2T of olive oil in a frying pan. Over med heat, cook the beef, flipping once when half done. After you flip it, pour in the teriyaki sauce and simmer until cooked. Maybe 5 mins total. Ish. Take the meat out and set aside on a dish, keeping the sauce in the pan. Add the mystery veggie, bell peppers, onion, and the chopped stem of the chard and cook until slightly soft. When it's almost done, add in the chard leaves. Add the meat back in and serve with rice.

Success!! My meat was a little overcooked (as usual. damn it!), and I put a little too much sauce in mine, but overall it was pretty good. I managed to get the veggies just right. Cooked but still a little crispy.

Coconut Rice

Author's note: I don't have the actual recipe on me at this exact moment, but I'll add it soon. The rest includes some of the story from some of the other recipes. Copy and paste from my blog. Deal with it.


Not only did I make a main dish and two sides at the same time last night, but it turned out awesome!! I started with making the coconut rice. As soon as I dump all the stuff together in the pan, I notice little dark things popping up in the water. "oh CRAP, there's bugs in the rice (one of joys of living in the mountains: bugs everywhere)!! What the hell am I supposed to do with the uncooked rice!". To which Nicole responds with a shrug and "meh. Extra protein, who cares. They're tiny". Oh...umm...well, ok. "I guess if they can eat live spiders and pigs rectum on Fear Factor a couple of cooked rice bugs won't kill us". I scooped out pretty much all the ones I could see and continued on. A little gross, but then again, so are we.

I cooked the salmon with "soy joy" sauce that I made (soy sauce, garlic, oil, red pepper flakes), and simultaneously made the broccolini/red bell pepper goodness. At the same time, people. This is seriously rare for me. I usually need to focus all of my attention on one thing at a time and end up with something mouth blistering hot and something ice cold by the time it makes it to the table. The end result: EFFING GREAT!! Woot!! Major success. I may just never cook again. Ever. Quit while I'm on top, you know? Coconut rice, Salmon with mango salsa (alright FINE, I bought pre-made mango salso instead of making it myself. The recipe called for jalapeno's in the salsa and that freaks me out. I'm too white for that crap, so I just bought some), and broccolini red pepper saute. Throw a glass of wine on the side of that and we were good to go! So feast your eyes on that, ya'll. And yeah, the lighting in our house sucks and the pics are with my little phone, so perhaps not the best quality. I'm pretty much over it. Here's the link to the cookbook. I highly suggest it.