ducky's culinary school: post 2

The culinary school has been busy, but we've failed to post. We are bad, bad homosexuals. No biscuit. There was even a double layer carrot cake, which was so exciting I forgot to take pictures.

Spanky likes beets. I likes beets. The veg box this week has beets. You can see how this dinner was inevitable. We give you.... (drum roll please) beet risotto. One of the best kept secrets in the culinary world is that risotto is actually really really easy to make. Ducky is withholding his conclusions until he's tried this unsupervised. So, you take your short-grain rice. We used brown, because I'm a freak. I like brown rice. And frankly, white rice is too wimpy for the sheer number of beets in this dinner. You take the rice (1 cup) and saute it in a little bit of good olive oil along with a bit of dried basil until it becomes translucent and smells nutty. Then you add 1 cup of red wine. We used Peter Lehmann Wildcard Shiraz, which was perfect for this. Simmer until the wine is gone, then add broth plus a little marmite and keep doing that (adding warm broth) until the rice is done. Stir as much as you like. I am a lazy ass, and stir my risotto so infrequently that Italian grandmothers would probably claim it's not even really risotto. However, I have fed this to actual Italians, from Florence even, who made little sex noises upon tasting it. So there.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, pour yourself a glass of the wine. Then chop beets. 3 beets. Maybe chop then drink. Not drink them chop. Spanky was drinking coffee because he's an addict. Also, chop an onion. Fry the onion up, then add the beets, then cover them, drop the heat, and let everything caramelize. If it starts to weld itself to the pan (as it did tonight) throw in a splash of wine and/or apple cider vinegar. While everything cooks, drink and talk about gay cheetahs. Drinking optional.

When the rice is done and the beets are done, mix them together in the beet pan. We then added all the roasted garlic we could lay hands on, which was just under a head, and some nutritional yeast. And toasted walnuts. Yum. We also had salad, mostly for colour contrast. Beet rissoto is yummy, and PURPLE. So much fun.

There was no music. We had the cheetahs and some fairly surreal conversation. Spanky, however, went out on the town dressed as Seymour last night. I think that takes care of the musical component of the weekend.