Roasted Butternut Risotto

      Saturday was the first day of Autumn.  I have to admit I want to go run around dancing and yelling "It's Fall! It's Fall! It's Fall!!!"  For me fall isn't just about crisp mornings, the leaves changing and nights curled up by the fire.  Of course, it's about food: Pumpkin, squash, apples, pears, warm spices, and nuts.  I want pies with warm spiced apples and pears, fruit tarts with fig and plums.   The smell of roasting squashes with ginger, clove, nutmeg and allspice fill up the room and make it feel welcoming and comforting. Autumn is about coming home.  Preparing for the holidays when you can share with family and friends is one of the simple joys in life.  Because of this, I "fall" in love every year. 
      I was supposed to have some friends over to cook this evening, but that fell through, but no worries, I'm decided to cook anyway, because the more I got to thinking about it the more I wanted to make this dish.  Risotto is a little bit of work, but it's totally worth it.  The trick to it is all about the slow release of the starches in the grain.  Traditionally the Italians use a rice called Arborio (often you can find it as risotto rice).  Arborio is a short grain rice with a high starch content which makes it perfect for this project, but I have made risotto with brown rice, barley, and farrow before.  They aren't quite as creamy, but they are still delicious. 
      Risotto is best if you start with a good stock.  You could buy it if you like, but that's cheating, and they put salt in these things, so it's not really the best choice.  You could make a chicken stock, but I like to keep vegetarian dishes just that.  So I tend to make a veggie stock.  Basically I'll put into it whatever vegetable scraps I have hanging around, but here is a good recipe. 
2 large onion, rough chopped
3 carrots
3 stocks celery
greens from 1 fennel bulb
5 cloves garlic
3 Bay leaves
10 peppercorns
6 sprigs thyme
10, or so, parsley stems
1 clove (you know like the spice) whole
1/2 cup white wine
1 gal water
     Pretty much you will just put everything in a pot, bring it to a boil, and reduce to a simmer.  Let simmer for at least an hour.  This will make more stock than you need, but it's one of those things that's just nice to have around.  Use it for soup,  to cook rice, in some mashed potatoes or just substitute it for any recipe with water. 
      Now for the risotto.  Start by tossing in a bit of oil and roasting at 450 degrees
3 cups small diced butternut squash for 15-20 minutes until it begins to brown.  At the same time lightly roast
1 cup shaved fennel.  It should only take about 6-8 min to get color on the fennel.  Next in a medium heavy bottom pot saute
1 shallot, minced and
2 cloves garlic, minced and sautee them in
2 TBS Olive Oil then lightly toast
1 cup arborio in the oil.  Then deglaze with
1/4 cup white wine. Next is the really important part.   You will very slowly add your warm stock, 1/4 to 1/2 of a cup at a time.  Add a little bit, stir and let it cook until almost all of the liquid is absorbed, then add a little more and repeat.  You want to cook the rice slowly, this is what creates the wonderful creamy texture of the risotto. To finish it you will fold in
1 TSP Chopped fresh thyme, 
1 TBS butter, 
2 oz micro-planed Parmesan (or another kind of hard, nutty, Italian cheese).  When the butter and cheese are fully melted and incorporated gently fold in the butternut and fennel.  The squash will break up a bit, but most of it will hold up so you will have little bites of squash mixed into the risotto. 

Curry Peanut Chicken Skewers

      These skewers are something I started making a year or so ago to be an easy cheap freezer food.  They are meant to be like a Thai chicken Satay, but to be honest I never really did any research to make them traditional, but they are darn good.  I usually use chicken thighs because it stays juicy even when I forget about them and overcook them a bit.  The cheap boneless, skinless chicken thighs come in a big package, so I just buy the whole thing, clean the extra fat off and cut them into about one inch square pieces.  Then I make my marinade/sauce
1/2 Cup peanut butter
3 TBS red Curry Paste
1 TBS fresh grated ginger
3 cloves garlic
1 cup coconut milk
1/4 Cup soy sauce
All of this goes into the food processor and is blended until smooth.  This makes a medium spicy sauce, if you want it milder decrease the amount of curry paste, and if you like it really hot add some sambal or sirachia.
      Take your sauce and mix it a little bit at a time into the diced chicken so that it covers the chicken.  Don't use up all of your sauce, you will want it for a dipping sauce after the chicken is cooked.  I usually like to have at least 1/2 a cup left over, then add more of the coconut milk (like the rest of the can) to thin it out a little bit for a dipping sauce.  Let the chicken marinade for at least 2 hours, and up to 2 days then skewer it onto small 6 inch skewers.  Be sure as you are skewering them to not pack them too tightly, you really only want to have 3 or 4 pieces per skewer.  Then too the grill!!! Grill them for approximately 5-7 minutes on each side (you know, make sure they are cooked through).  Warm up your sauce a bit, brush it over the skewers, and then serve with any extra sauce for dipping. 

      These are great for a fun hors douvres, or with some ginger rice and vegetables for a yummy dinner with friends. Mark and I tend to make a bunch of them and then only cook enough for the project at hand, the rest of the skewers get laid out flat and put into the freezer.  Then we take them and wrap them up with 8-10 pieces a package so that we can thaw them for an easy week night dinner. 
     

Rotisserie Chicken Salad

      On Sundays at my grocery store they have rotisserie chickens for $5.  If I'm in the store I almost always buy one, but you know I don't always need dinner.  Often it ends up in a pot for soup, shredded to go into enchiladas, a pasta or rice dish the next day. Honestly even if Mark and I do eat some of it there is plenty left over for other projects.  My favorite thing to make though is chicken salad.  I make lots of different versions of chicken salad depending on my mood, but this one seems to be the one I end up with the most (mainly because these are the ingredients I almost always just have sitting around the apartment).
        Start by cleaning your chicken, taking most of the skin off and pulling the meat from the bones.  (Please don't throw the bones away, put them in the pot and make a stock! Stock is good for you.) Chop the meat then mix in
5 Green Onions, thinly sliced
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1/2 cup toasted slivered almonds
1 apple, small diced before you put it in your salad soak it in some water with a little lemon juice (or any acid, I like cider vinegar, or just straight apple juice) this will keep them from turning brown. 
1 tsp fresh thyme, chopped
1/4 cup mayonaise
1 TBS Dijon
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper
      And done! Simple, but it's delicious and does the trick.  Using the whole rotisserie makes it super moist and gives a very rich flavor.  A nice thing to have around for a quick lunch or snack. 

Vanilla scented Seared Plums

      It's restaurant week in Charleston this week.  At the restaurant I've been making some special desserts, among them bread pudding with peaches mascerated in mint syrup.  We've been running peaches like this all summer, but our last batch of peaches just wern't good anymore.  They were hard nd tasteless, really not like peaches at all.  So when we put the order in I asked for some of the nice plums I've been seeing around the last couple of weeks.  This was a good plan!
      I wanted something a little different, and something that screamed fall.  So I took the plums and cut them into 8 pieces then seared them in a very hot pan with just a little bit of butter.  When you are searing the plums be sure that you don't over crowd the pan.  Put them in the pan, try to get as many as you can on the flesh side and give them a good hard sear without moving them around much.  Patience is the key.  Let them get nice and dark and carmelly, then transfer them to a pan with just a bit of liquid in the bottom.  Water will work, but imagine what a nice wine or liquor might add to the flavor:  Just think about your finished product and use something that will enhance not detract from your dish.  You will sear them in small batches and continue adding them to the other pan.
      Now I am lucky enough at work to have whole vanilla beans to get to play with.  I use them to make my creme brulee, but I just scrape the insides and you are still left with the pod itself, which will impart a good bit of flavor.  I take the emptied pods and store them in sugar which gives me vanilla sugar to use as I see fit.  So in this case I take the vanilla sugar and use it to cover the plums.  Use about a quarter of the volume of sugar to the volume of plums you started out with before you started to cook them.  Just sprinkle it over (maybe add one of the leftover pods for a little extra flavor) and cook over low heat gently stirring occasionally.  Only cook until the sugar is just disolved.  The plums will still be firm enough to hold their shape, but will develop a very rich flavor along with a deep red color.  That's it! You are done.
      Now use them as you like.  As I said, I was serving them along with some bread pudding, but they are wonderful over ice cream, or to top a New York style cheesecake.  They would be really delicious used for a sauce to go with lamb or pork, or put them in a plum pie.  I used some of the juice to make a ginger plum soda that was just to die for, and honestly just found myself eating plums all night.  As they sit in the juice they become darker and the flavor becomes richer.  I think this is a definately a better the next day kind of food.  Hope you enjoy!
     

Leeky Clam Chowder

      I'm a chowder person, well a soup person in general, buy my favorite is and has always been clam chowder.  When I was young we had condensed chowder which is really quite horrible when you think about it, but still I got hooked pretty early, always looking for something better.  Now you notice pretty quickly (even at age 10) that restaurant soups are better, and among those some are better than others, so I would always order the clam chowder at restaurants if they had it, and I had a pretty large spectrum of different kinds, and I learned what I like and what I don't.  A lot of clam chowder is really thick, pasty even.  I know people who will say that they want their spoon to be able to stand up in their soup.  Me I like it fairly thin, but still with good body.  I like lots of vegetables and herbs, they give it a richer flavor than those soups with just onion, celery, potatoes.  The leek gives a smother, creamier flavor than onion, and the sherry and corn add a sweetness that makes this chowder a delight.  This recipe has gone through a lot of changes over the past couple of years, but I think it has been worth the wait.
      Start with (and please don't laugh, because you know bacon is a superfood)
6 strips Bacon, raw, chopped- it's easier to dice up if it is mostly frozen
in a large heavy bottomed pot render the bacon down so it's just beginning to get crispy then add
2 leeks, the white part, split, cleaned and thinly sliced
2 ribs celery, small diced
2 carrots, small diced
1/2 cup sweet corn kernels and
sweat until the  leeks and celery become translucent.  Deglaze with
1/4 cup sherry
next you will strain and save the liquid from
2, 10 oz cans whole baby clams
that juice along with 1 bottle of clam juice should give you about 2 1/2 cups of clam juice this juice goes in the pot followed by
2 cups small diced red potatoes and
2 bay leaves and
a small pinch red chili flakes

bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. (If you cut corn off the cob for your corn throw the cobs into the liquid while you are cooking the potatoes, it will add more flavor and sweetness)  Cook for about 10 to 15 min, until the potatoes are soft , but not mushy.



While that is cooking in a second pot make a blonde roux with
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup flour
a blonde roux is cooked until it just begins to get a nutty scent, but doesn't really darken.  Once the potatoes are cooked go ahead and mix in the roux followed by
1 cup cream
3 cups milk
1 TBS chopped fresh Thyme
1 TBS chopped parsley
2 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh ground pepper
return to a boil and make sure everything is well mixed then remove from the heat and add the reserved clams.  Check for seasoning.  Serve immediately or like me, put in small containers and freeze for an easy lunch that is far more delicious than any canned soup could ever be.