Chicken and Corn Risotto

I love making risotto. It's become one of my go-to meals. I  first learned about it in college, when Sarah taught me how to make it a couple times. Then, on a vacation in New Hampshire I had this really awesome mushroom risotto, but when I told my mom about it she had no idea what I was talking about. What kind of Italian doesn't know about risotto (ignore the fact that I had only recently learned about it as well)? So I planned on making some. We had butternut squash growing in our garden, so I made a butternut squash risotto. It was fantastic! (Recipe will be up when it grows again this summer!) Realizing it was my mom's new favorite, I made it again on different occasions, such as her birthday or a random Tuesday. Sometimes it's mushroom and beef, sometimes it's chicken and corn. Today was the random Tuesday chicken and corn version. It was pretty spectacular.

Usually I make it with those boxes of tasty broth, but we didn't have any and it's gross out so we didn't feel like going to the store. So it turns out that risotto works well with bouillon cubes! Lucky us! Plus we had leftover corn on the cob since I bought some yesterday to make a black bean, corn and mango salsa (which will also be posted eventually) as well as some parsley for that same recipe.

And don't forget, making risotto is always a good excuse to open a new bottle of wine! Both for the recipe, and for you to enjoy while endlessly stirring the rice. Comfort food and wine on a rainy day, it doesn't get much better than that!

FYI: Arborio is the best kind of rice to use for risotto, in fact the bags or containers usually say "risotto' on them. But if you don't  feel like buying fantastic risotto rice, you can always use medium grain instead, it just won't be as glamorous.

Click here for the recipe!

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Simple Mozzarella-Steak Pinwheel

Using pizza dough the way it's used in this recipe is a very simple, yet very impressive, technique. It's the most basic stuffed bread, but when your guests have a piece they'll think you spent forever making it because it is just that awesome.

Once again my parents had their friends over and I agreed to make a few snacks for them. These are good opportunities for me to practice cooking since I can pick whatever I want to make and then have them pay for the ingredients! I have made pinwheels before; I used a recipe out of one of Giada's cookbooks and have since altered it a little. Her recipe had the bread stuffed with mozzarella, spinach, and prosciutto. I made it that way, and it was fantastic. When I made it again this time, I took out the prosciutto since my mom's friend is a vegetarian. And it was still fantastic.

But then I was thinking, what about everyone else? Surely they would like a stuffed bread with meat in it too (mostly I was thinking of me). So I decided to make an entirely different recipe, using steak. And what goes with steak and bread better than pepper, onions, mushrooms, and cheese? That's right, nothing. And so this recipe was born. And then devoured.

Seriously, it was delicious. And so easy to make. Especially if you just buy the pizza dough like I do. You can make it from scratch, but the would negate the point of this recipe being quick and easy. It's also very versatile, so it's easy to substitute whatever you want. But you'll want to try this one, trust me.

Remember, the thinner the cut of steak you can buy, the better it will roll in the bread! So try your best, ok?
Also, props to Mark for seasoning the steak and helping me make this.

Click here for the recipe!

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Tips! Keeping parsley and researching recipes

I decided to be charitable today and share my genius with you all. Or, to be more honest, I was kind of bored and thought this is as good a time as any to share some of my little tips with the world.

#1
One such tip is the importance of researching recipes. I always always always go through cookbooks and websites to see what's out there and tasty looking. And I try many of the recipes I see. The first time I make a recipe I follow it exactly. From that I can usually play around with it the next time and turn it into something of my own. But it's important to see what other people are making in order to come up with your own ideas and use them to greatly impress everyone who knows you. When you want to do things and learn how food works, I suggest you research, cook the recipe exactly, and then experiment the next time you make it. When you get used to recipes through this method then you should do what I do whenever I want to try something different: research, pick parts of recipes you like, and make your own dish.

My research today for appetizers and snacks:

I'll give you an example. One day I decided that I absolutely had to make corn chowder. The only problem was, I had no idea how to do that. So I went online and found several of my trustworthy go-to cooking websites and looked over many different chowder recipes. Some were overly complicated, some had ingredients that I despise, and some were too simple. But the important thing was that they all had certain similar aspects to them. Many had a roux to start off with. A few had creamed corn, and some had just frozen kernels. And so on and so forth. So I took the common aspects and applied them to my own recipe, and then took the bits and pieces that sounded good and used those too, like using creamed corn and corn kernels and adding bacon fat (it isn't the healthiest of recipes!). I've learned by experimenting like this that you can just find a bunch of recipes for the same food and just take from them what you want to. Chances are that it'll come out spectacular and you will feel like a Culinary God.

Don't worry, I'll eventually post that recipe! It's just a little hard to do because I make it slightly different each time :)

#2
The next bit of advice is more directly linked to herbs. My herbs still aren't useful yet so I rely on grocery stores. The problem is that buying those little plastic containers of herbs tends to be a huge rip-off. So I buy the bundles that are dripping wet and always 5x more than what you actually need. But won't all that go to waste?!? Um...no. Chill out. I told you there was some advice here, didn't I?

The best example I can give you is with parsley, since that's what I always like to have on hand. That stuff lasts forever! It's awesome like that. I can buy a huge bundle, use what I want, and then I take the rest and put it in a cup full of cold water and put it in the fridge. Every once in a while I check the water and add more, or dispose of stalks that become unappealing. The parsley can last quite a few weeks like this and having it around will help you figure out how to use it. Here's a pic of my parsley after I've had it for about 3 weeks:

 Yea, it's a little sad looking, but it's still good and remember, it has been sitting in my fridge for 3 weeks! I find this system to be much cheaper and way more convenient than buying just a little bunch for an outrageous price whenever I need a tablespoon of parsley in a recipe. And I know there are tube containers you can also buy to keep it more compact in the fridge to save space, but i haven't gotten around to that yet, so this works just fine.

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