Fancy Pants Foodie

Foodie news, reviews and how-tos from Arkansas and beyond.

Carbing Up After #AWBU: BLT Risotto (with recipe)

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Two photos of BLT Risotto with bacon, basil and baby yellow and red tomatoes

BLT Risotto, in the fab VersaGlass Ziploc containers we got at #AWBU. Another thing I learned: How to make these pretty collages and put them on Pinterest! 

Yes, more risotto. I’m kinda addicted.

I just got back yesterday from a whirlwind weekend at Arkansas Women Bloggers Unplugged. After sleeping for like 20 hours, I regained strength today with about a dozen cups of coffee and a healthy load of carbs.

The flow of awesome home-grown produce continues from my husband’s co-workers, with another (probably last-of-the-season) recent delivery of beautiful baby tomatoes. I mention this to explain why two risotto photos in a row have them. I don’t even care if it’s redundant, because they’re so darn delicious this way.

Inspired by a video I watched today by the luscious (at least, during his Top Chef days) Fabio Viviani, I decided it was a good day to make risotto again. I already had the rice and broth, and even some decent parmesan and a lemon. And I do NOT plan on going to the grocery store this week.

What I didn’t have was pancetta, which Fabio used in his version. I did, however, have a crap-ton of bacon in the freezer, a remnant of the last time I let the husband buy groceries on his own.

After the fresh basil went in my version, I remembered the tomatoes. There was already bacon. The fresh basil kinda represented lettuce. Clever recipe nirvana: BLT Risotto!

Over the next few days, I’ll tell you more about what went down at #AWBU, especially the stuff from Foodie Friday. We did an Iron Chef competition with herbs. It was awesome. Our team won “Best Use of Herbs.” Recipe later.

For now, carb up with me and recover from whatever mayhem you encountered this weekend!

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BLT Risotto
Serves 4 hungry peoples
(Inspired ever-so-slightly by Fabio Viviani’s Pancetta Risotto)

  • 6 slices bacon (Petit Jean would be fab)
  • 2 T. extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 1/2 cups arborio rice
  • 2 qts. (8 cups) chicken broth
  • One lemon, zested and juiced
  • 1 T. Italian seasoning blend
    and/or chili flakes (optional)
  • 1/2 cup freshly-shredded parmesan
  • 10 large leaves fresh sweet basil
  • 10 baby tomatoes, quartered

Cut the bacon into narrow strips. Heat up a large sauté pan and add the bacon. Add the olive oil to help the bacon brown without burning or sticking (at least, not terribly bad). Cook the bacon until crispy, giving it a little stir every so often.

Remove the bacon, leaving the grease behind. I used the slotted spoon from an old Fry Daddy. Carefully pour off all but about 4 T. of the grease.

Over medium-high heat, place the rice into the grease, then stir to coat. Toast the rice in the pan for a couple minutes, then start adding the broth, a ladle or two at a time. (Honestly, this time I just poured it right from a can. I usually make my own and have it hot on the stove while making risotto. Here’s proof it works the lazy way.) Add the juice from your lemon here, but I suggest you zest it first and hang on to the zest for later.

Stir constantly, making sure the rice doesn’t stick to the bottom. Don’t answer the phone, rescue kids from disasters or otherwise remove your attention. It will burn. And if you turn off the heat, the outside will turn mushy before the inside is cooked. You’ve been warned.

When the rice is pretty dry, add another ladle or two of broth. Stir. Repeat. When the rice starts to look soft and pillowy, start tasting it to see if it’s done. Some folks like it “al dente” like pasta (still a little firm). I like it super soft. Your call.

When the rice is maybe halfway done, stir in the seasoning blend and/or chili flakes, if you’re using them. I don’t use dry herbs very much anymore, but I am currently hooked on a mix my mother-in-law gave me. It’s a combination of dried tomatoes, red bell pepper and other veggies, as well as thyme, basil, oregano and chili flakes.

When the rice is done to your liking, turn off the heat and fold in the cheese. Be sure to work it in so you don’t have clumps. Now, chiffonade (roll up and cut into ribbons) the basil leaves. Fold in most of them, leaving a few for garnish. Stir in the bacon, again leaving a bit for garnish. And at the very end, so the heat doesn’t turn them to mush, fold in the tomatoes…you guessed it…saving a few for garnish.

Enjoy!

P.S. Here’s an old post with some basics on how to make risotto, from the day we made it in culinary school.

P.P.S. I’m still offering cooking classes in your home or other meeting place, and I start with risotto. Interested? Let me know below.

P.P.P.S. AWBU ladies, what food did you crave/make/etc. when you got home?

Seeking Hosts for Fancy Pants Foodie Culinary Classes

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My last batch of risotto, with a summer twist: sun-dried tomatoes, toasted pine nuts, and fresh Arkansas heirloom tomatoes.

I’m probably not completely prepared to put this all out there, but I’ll never be ready unless I start sometime. So here goes.

My awesome hubs and I have been remodeling our house in a way that would allow me to teach cooking classes. But, it’s not ready yet, and I’ve got some teaching to get out of my system!

Therefore, I’m currently seeking hosts for some classes to help me get this part of my vision for Fancy Pants Foodie off the ground. Classes will start very small and in the Little Rock metro while we figure out possible capacities, maybe four or five people.

A couple questions for you:

  1. Would you be interested in classes in your home or mine? In your church, activity center or the like?
  2. What kind of skills would you like to learn? What kind of dishes? (I’ll work to incorporate knife skills and other basics into each dish.)

Leave me a comment below with your thoughts. If you’re seriously interested in hosting a class, say so in the message and I’ll get back to you. I understand that not everyone will have the space to be able to host something like this, so instead, you may want to find out more about cooking classes which you can attend until mine are sorted. I’m planning on my first classes being about risotto, depending on burner capacity at each location. Yummmm!

Seasonal Eating at the Farmers’ Market

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A market customer visits a booth with flowers and lots of yummy greens.

Last Saturday, a friend and I visited the Argenta Certified Arkansas Farmers’ Market (CAFM). She is young, newly married, and wanting to learn more about fresh, local foods. It was the first official day of the market for the season, although they did a kickoff the week before.

We arrived around 9, and the crowd was just starting to buzz. (Oh, heck, what do I know…I can’t see straight before that time, anyways.) We looked over booths of produce that were nothing short of spectacular, especially considering that much of it is grown organically. Not many bug munches to be seen on those greens.

At first, I was a bit bothered by the fact there wasn’t a huge variety of items available. There were gobs of early strawberries, lots of leafy greens, flowers, some herbs and the like, but I found myself wanting more.

Soon, however, I came to myself realizing that this isn’t Kroger, and eating in season means waiting for some stuff to make its way out of the ground.

I was specifically looking for asparagus. It is early spring, after all. My guest was coming back to my house for a quick cooking lesson, and I planned to help her make asparagus risotto. One booth said they had a little, but sold out early. Some others said they won’t have any.

I did have a good conversation with Kelley Carney, owner of North Pulaski Farms. He said his booth had better selection earlier in the morning, and much of it had already sold. (Note to self.) He also told me about his plans for the future to offer even more varieties, such as my coveted asparagus, even during cooler months.

I’m not knocking anyone else there, though. A good number of them specialize in just one or a handful of things (cheese, meat, peppers, etc.) and do them very well. The others may just have things they like to grow, and that’s what they grow. And others still, like Hardin Farms, grow a bazillion things that just aren’t available yet.

Okay, so I’ll keep coming back and see what crops up. (See what I did there?) And maybe I’ll get there when they open, at (gulp) 7 a.m. Or not.

I still love them. Meet you there!

Argenta Certified Arkansas Farmers’ Market
6th and Main, North Little Rock
7 a.m. – noon, Saturdays during growing season 

P.S. I’m really into P.S.’s now, so I’ll add one. I’m totally not knocking off the Pioneer Woman.

P.P.S. This is where I get really sad the CAFM is no longer doing online ordering. I could pick what I wanted and schlep by there before noon to pick it up!

My friend/student's asparagus risotto. Turned out nice, huh? Great job, Jenna!

P.P.P.S. Whatever happened of the asparagus risotto, you ask? Well, I bought the asparagus elsewhere and helped my awesome student make it. Yummers!

P.P.P.P.S. Consider this another random plug for the Food Blogger Bake Sale next Saturday, April 28, benefiting Share Our Strength. It’s gonna be right next to Argenta CAFM, so you know I still love them!

 

 

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Food Production 3 Menu

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In my Food Production 3 class at Pulaski Tech’s Arkansas Culinary School, each day we have a menu to produce. In groups of three, we spend four or five hours making a menu for the chef to taste and evaluate. The menus are given to us a few days in advance, so we can write them onto notecards for easy kitchen-reading.

I’m pretty much blogging this so I can avoid finishing writing out my cards for tomorrow (yes, I waited until the last minute). But, I thought you might be interested in what we do. Here’s the menu, and one of the recipes. Risotto is my fave!!!

Food Production 3 Menu for Monday, July 11, 2011

-Potato Soup a la Suisse
-Flounder Poached in Brown Butter
-Lemon and Goat Cheese Risotto
-Broccoli Rabe
-Kentucky Pecan Tart

Lemon and Goat Cheese Risotto (4 servings): 

  • 2 T. Butter
  • 1/2 oz. shallots, minced
  • 8 oz. Aborio rice
  • 1/2 lemon, juiced and zested
  • 1/2 c. white wine
  • 3 c. chicken stock, hot
  • 1 T. butter
  • 4 oz. goat cheese
  • Salt and black pepper to taste
  1. Heat the butter in a large saute pan.
  2. Add the shallots and sweat over medium heat; do not brown. Add more butter if necessary.
  3. Add the rice and saute for about 2 minutes. Make sure the rice is well coated with fat.
  4. Add the wine, lemon juice, and enough stock to cover the rice  by about 1/4″. Add the zest and cook the rice, stirring constantly, until the liquid is completely absorbed.
  5. Add more stock to just cover the rice and repeat the procedure. Stop adding stock when the rice is tender, but firm. When done, the risotto should be very moist and creamy, but not runny. Cooking time should be 20-30 minutes.
  6. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter and goat cheese. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.

The Little Chicken that Could (A Finals Story)

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My final dish: Roasted chicken breast, mushroom risotto, steamed carrots and broccoli, with mushroom and fried parsley garnish and cream pan sauce.

Some of the most demanding classes we take at Pulaski Technical College’s Arkansas Culinary School are the Food Production classes, which we presumably take each semester (hence FP1, 2, 3 and 4). These classes develop all the basic techniques needed to cook and present professional-quality food.

I just completed Food Production 2, which was terribly exhausting (especially at 8:30 a.m., 30 minutes from where I live) but equally rewarding. The practical final was like a little capsule of the whole experience: terrifying and exciting.

Did I mention I made an A in the course? By some combination of miracle and loving a challenge, I pulled it off!

For our practical final (as opposed to the written final, which was a week later), we were going to have a “black box,” kinda like what you see on Chopped. (Turns out it wasn’t nearly that glamourous, as the ingredients were just hidden in the fridge, but same difference.) We’d get a few minutes to plan a menu after hearing the ingredients, which had to demonstrate at least two different cooking techniques (i.e. roasting, boiling, steaming).

The ingredients:

  • A whole chicken
  • Arborio rice
  • Carrots
  • Broccoli

All the other students in the class proceeded to cut up their chicken to use the quick-cooking breast or other smaller pieces. As I am severely deficient in butchering (that’s a class next semester) and I rather like whole roasted chicken anyway, that’s what I went for. Risky, considering we only had a little over an hour. But doable.

We had roasted whole chickens just a week or two earlier, and you’d think none of us had ever cooked before. We took nearly an hour just to get our birds prepped, trussed and in the ovens. This time, I had it down in under 10 minutes, stuffed with rosemary, garlic and onion and drizzled with oil, S&P. And it was bee-u-ti-ful.

Of course, the arborio rice had to become risotto for all of us. But I may have had a slight edge because I scoped out the dry storage the day before and found dried mushrooms. (Hey, the chef said we could go look!) I reconstituted these in some hot water, used that water while cooking the rice, then added the mushrooms at the end. I have to say this was the best risotto I’ve ever made!

For the veggies, I wanted to do a simple steam, but with finesse. So I cut the carrots down into large dice (something we haven’t had to do since “boot camp” Food Production I) and trimmed the broccoli down into small florets.

The chicken came out just before the done temp of 165, letting it catch up with carryover cooking. I cut out a small (6 oz-ish) breast portion, trying to not load up a big, heavy plate. But then I got worried it wasn’t enough, so I cut two!

We also had to make a sauce for the chicken. Although I chose a simple cream pan sauce, it took too long and put me past my assigned presentation time! Ughhh.

But when my next time came up, I had it together. Frazzled, not sure the chicken was really done, but still fairly proud of what I had done, I turned in my plate.

Usually, we get immediate feedback, but this time we had to wait until the next class (a whole week!) for a response. Mine: The sauce was runny. The chicken was fine. Top marks on veg and rice. Yay!

I was supposed to take Food Production 3 next semester, but as much as I loved this class, I need a break. My kids need some attention, and my poor body needs some rest! I’m prone to illness if I get stretched too thin, and I’ve gone there too much lately. But I’m sure I’ll love my other classes just as much. More later on my next schedule and the *surprise twist*!

Risotto 101 in Food Production I

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The final product. YUMMM!!!

In last week’s Food Production I class, we made one of my favorites: Italian risotto. I was glad we had the chance to make it, not only because I love it, but also because the last batch I made at home was kinda awful.

Reason being, you just can’t leave it. Once you start, you stay with it. Which can be kinda impossible with a two-year-old in the house. I had to turn off the heat and avert some sort of disaster (can’t remember what), and the rice got soggy on the outside before cooking through.

Properly cooked, risotto is creamy, rich and savory, without a bit of cream added. This is due to the particular kind of rice used, arborio, which is short-grained and very starchy.

Wanna give it a shot? Sure you do. It’s fairly easy once you get the procedure down.

1. Sweat it out. I mean, your aromatics. By aromatics, I mean veggies and such that will infuse the rice with flavor, smell and overall yumminess. And by sweat, I mean sauté in a bit of oil without browning, just enough to release some of the liquid in the veggies. This usually includes a mirepoix (carrots, celery and onion), as did ours at a precise 1/8″ dice, but can also include garlic and mushrooms (we added the mushrooms). Use about 1/2 to 3/4 cup veggies of your choosing, pre-diced before you start heating the pan.

2. Get toasty. Add one cup of arborio rice to the pan with no liquid to toast it a bit. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon or heat-resistant spatula and wait. This essential risotto step adds depth of flavor and a bit of color. But don’t burn it, for heaven’s sake…more work to be done.

3. Ladle it on. While some cooks swear that the stock you add to a risotto has to be hot, our chef instructor said it wasn’t necessary. He was right; ours turned out fine. Your call. Either way, you’ll need about a quart of stock for one cup of dry rice. Homemade would be great, but canned/boxed works.

The trick: don’t add it all at once. Add just one ladle-full at a time, and stir gently until it’s absorbed, a few minutes. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Somewhere in here, you can add in a 1/2 cup of dry white wine, if you want. Also, if you have some fresh or dried herbs, add ’em now, closer to the end of the process so they don’t get bitter. I used some fresh rosemary and lemon zest.

This section can take 30 minutes or more, so be patient.

4. Get cheesy. When all the liquid is absorbed, fold in 1/2 cup (or more!) of freshly grated parmesan or asiago cheese. Please, for the love of all things holy, don’t use the stuff in a can.

5. Meet the meat. If you choose to have any proteins (read: meat) in your risotto (we didn’t), have it already diced/shredded/whatever before you start. Then, when all the liquid is absorbed and the rice is cooked through, gently fold in the meat. Trust me, it’s fine without it. You could also fold in leftover meat and/or veggies for a lovely second-round stretch of a previous meal.

6. Consume rapidly. We bought some take-home cups from the school restaurant and carried it home for later noms. That is, after snarfing about half of it on the spot. Totally delish!

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