On my first grocery outing at the beginning of my 28 days, I grabbed a Carnival squash, unfortunately I don’t have any “before” pictures of the squash.

I needed about half the squash for the risotto, which meant I had the other half to use for something else. With plenty of sage left that was starting to go bad, I decided to make some carnival squash chips with sage. After cutting the squash in half and removing the seeds, I thinly sliced the squash with a peeler. I placed the chips on a tray with a baking sheet and brushed them all lightly with some olive oil and sprinkled finely chopped sage and salt on top. I let the squash slices bake until they were dry (probably left them in a little too long). Regardless, the chips were great and I finished them all while I was preparing the squash risotto.

Baked Carnival Squash Chips

I sliced the other half of the squash, removed all the seeds, placed it face down in pan filled with 2 cm of water and baked it at 190°C for about 20 minutes. Once the squash is soft and tender, I cut it up into 1.5 cm cubes and started to make the risotto. I prepared my risotto differently from my usual recipe by sauteing half an onion (diced) and the squash and putting it to the side once the onions have turned clear. I then followed the recipe and added the onions and squash back in when I started to add the broth to the risotto.

Carnival Squash Risotto

This made the risotto flavour much more intense. With the addition of the squash, it made the risotto extremely creamy and buttery and so much more irresistable. I’m definitely making both these dishes again.

So my mother usually cooks all 3 meals for me, but she just left this morning on a vacation around asia: A cruise in Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong and probably a few more places inbetween. Since usually, the only chance I get to cook for myself is when I’m on residence, when I’m far too stressed out to cook anything nice I figured this was a great opportunity for me to do some cooking!

Today’s after work ritual included a visit to the gym, so I wanted a quick dinner and this was the first thing I thought of, a three mushroom risotto.  I checked the fridge and grabbed the 3 different types of mushroom we had in the fridge: button, king trumpet and enoki (we also had shiitake, but it was in leftovers).  I also threw in some yellow pepper’s from my mom’s garden just for some colour.  Following my standard risotto recipe, I made this in under half an hour and had just enough left over for tomorrow’s lunch!

Mushroom and Sweet Pepper Risotto

Thinking of making some pumpkin gnocchi tomorrow…

After settling back into the university residence, I felt that I should take up the challenge of making some of my own risotto.  Apparently it’s quite hard to get right so I just wanted to see just how hard.

Here’s the modified recipe that I used, based on a Lemon Asparagus recipe I found.  I find that this fills 2 people.

Asparagus and Mushroom

• 7 stalks of asparagus
• 1 portobello mushroom
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp butter
• 2 garlic cloves

Risotto

• vegetable stock (or chicken stock if you’re not a vegetarian)
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1 cup arborio rice
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1/3 cup shredded parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Bring stock to a simmer and set aside
2. heat oil and butter in a pan
3. sauté garlic until almost golden and add asparagus
4. once the asparagus is almost ready, add the mushrooms
5. once the mushrooms have cooked, set aside
6. for the risotto, heat 2 tbsps butter in another pan on medium
7. add the arborio rice and stir until translucent
8. add the wine and reduce until almost dry, continuously stirring
9. add half a cup of stock and reduce until almost dry, continuously stirring
10. repeat step 9 until rice is tender and creamy, this takes about 20 minutes
11. stir in the asparagus, mushroom, remaining butter and half the cheese
12. scoop in bowls and sprinkle remaining cheese on top
    

Asparagus & Portobello Mushroom Risotto

Since I was the one cooking it, it was pretty easy to match the consistency of how I liked the rice.  Using vegetable stock instead of the usual chicken stock may have reduced some of the flavour, so perhaps a little salt or more butter could have been added to enhance the taste.  I sautéed the asparagus and mushrooms before I even started cooking the risotto, which was an obvious mistake that left the asparagus slightly dry.  Overall though, I think this was a pretty successful first attempt at making risotto.  There are creamier recipes that require table cream and more cheese that I’ll probably try next.  Also, I understand the effort that is spent looking over the pot and constantly stirring for almost half an hour, really gives a lot to think about the value of the dish the next time I order it somewhere.

And I have  few restaurant reviews I still have yet to write about which I’ll get to soon =).