With a bunch of seemingly random things in the fridge - mascarpone cheese, crimini mushrooms, spinach & cherry tomatoes, I figured a hearty risotto would find a way to bind them all together. Thankfully I have ridiculous quantities of arborio rice in the cupboard (who, me, a hoarder?).
It's been awhile since I made a proper risotto - the one where you add broth in half-cup quantities and stir it in until the liquid evaporates. It's hard on the wrists, especially after said wrists have had a 20 some odd mile mountain bike ride (including falling off said bike). My initial inclination was to call it 'carpal tunnel risotto', but I figured that wouldn't be very enticing. Not that kitchen sink is any better, but at least this moniker allows for a lot of creativity.
And this particular version was creamy and flavorful - just the kind of 'nearly autumn' dinner that I crave this time of year.
It takes a special performer to encourage me to leave the mountains during the winter to see his show. Lucky for Eddie Izzard, we're heading to the Bay Area in January to catch one of his live performances.
Hopefully he'll have recovered from his marathon of marathons by then.
pies, that is (this is a family friendly blog after all!).
With the overabundance of zucchini at the farmer's market, I decided to experiment with a Gourmet recipe for whoopie pies that had caught my eye. Since I still had a small vat of chocolate powdered sugar frosting left over from a friend's birthday cake, I used that instead of cream cheese frosting. Call it the whoopie pie equivalent of zucchini chocolate chip cake.
Despite accidentally overlooking the baking soda, they were really tasty. The zucchini was noticeable in a good way, as I used the food processor to grate them, thus resulting in larger pieces than I think the recipe originally called for. I omitted the nuts this time, but would definitely include them in the future, as I think that'll add to the texture.
