Mushroom, Pea and Leek Risotto

Hi, remember us? Yeah, I know it's been awhile. It's been a heck of a month or so at Chez A Good Appetite. I'm still having a hard time doing much cooking due to an injured wrist, but hopefully surgery in two weeks will take care of the problem. That will be just in time for farmers market season to start and reinvigorate our kitchen creativity. So, give us a bit more time and we'll be back with more recipes.

In the meantime, here's a take on mushroom risotto Matt came up with. Usually, I slice the mushrooms for risotto, but he wanted to finely chop them to infuse the flavor throughout. It makes for a dish that is full of umami. The peas add the perfect contrast of sweetness.

Mushroom, Pea and Leek Risotto

6 mushrooms
1/2 T olive oil
salt and pepper
1 - 1 1/2 c frozen peas
4 c chicken or vegetable stock
1/2 T unsalted butter
1/2 T olive oil
2 leeks, white parts only sliced and cleaned
3/4 c aborio rice
1/2 c white wine
1/3 c grated parmesan

Pulse the mushrooms in a food processor until they are roughly chopped.

Heat 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms. Season with a pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper. Sauté until the mushrooms are tender and have released most of their liquid. Add the peas and sauté until they are warm.

Put the stock in a pot and bring to a simmer. Keep simmering throughout the cooking process.

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat. Add the leeks and sauté until tender. Add the rice and stir for about 1 minute. Stir in the wine. Let it cook, stirring occasionally, until absorbed. If it appears to be cooking above a simmer turn the heat down. Add the stock about 1/2 cup at a time, adding each addition as the one before is absorbed. You don't need to stir constantly, but keep a good eye on it.

The rice should be tender and creamy, but with just a little bite, by the time you have one addition of the stock left. Add the final addition of stock and the mushroom and pea mixture to the rice. Heat until warmed through. Stir in the cheese. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed.

2 hearty servings.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2012 Kathy Lewinski

Our 15 seconds of fame

If you missed last nights episode of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives featuring our favorite pizza place, Pizzeria Lola, here it is complete with cameos from Matt and I.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2012 Kathy Lewinski

Diners, Drive-ins and Dives Tonight

Hey folks, just a reminder that tonight's episode of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives will feature our favorite local pizzeria, Pizzeria Lola.

(Andrew Zimmern of Bizarre Foods, Guy Fieri and Ann Kim of Pizzeria Lola. Photo from Pizzeria Lola)

Matt and I were thrilled to be asked to be part of the taping. (You can read about it here.) There is no guarantee they'll use any of our interviews or we'll be on screen at all, but it'll be fun to see a place we frequent on the show. The episode airs tonight at 9pm central time.

By the way, I have to apologize again for our absence here with new recipes for you. I am still dealing with wrist issues that ended up being a little more than tendonitis. Matt has had to pick up all the cooking and cleaning duties, so we been having a lot of easy old favorites and eating out ;) Hope to be back to normal soon.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2012 Kathy Lewinski

Chocolate Whisky Cake

Continuing in this week's St. Patrick's Day theme, I give you our dessert for Saturday night.

This cake is rich and slightly fudgy, almost but not quite a brownie. It is my favorite dark chocolate cake recipe taken to a higher level with a good shot of Irish Whiskey. The nice thing is you can really taste the whiskey in this cake and oh man, is it every good. Matt and I ate every scrap that was leftover from cutting it into shamrocks. I was afraid the whiskey would be harsh in it (especially as I am not a huge whiskey fan), but it is quite mellow. It goes well with the bittersweetness of the chocolate and oakiness of the vanilla.

To make it even more fun, I cut the cake into small shamrock cakes using a heart cookie cutter I had in my collection.

Chocolate Whiskey Cake

1/2 c (4 oz) unsalted butter
1/4 c Hersey's Special Dark Cocoa (or other Dutch processed cocoa)
6 T Irish Whiskey
1 c white sugar
1 egg
1 T vanilla
1/4 c buttermilk (or if you don't have buttermilk, mix a little lemon juice into regular milk)
1 c all-purpose flour
1/4 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1/8 t salt

whipped cream
green food coloring

Preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare a round 8" cake pan by greasing and flouring it well. (If you are picky about this type of thing you can dust it with cocoa instead of flour.)

In a saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Whisk in the cocoa until smooth. Whisk in the whiskey, again until smooth. Remove from heat. Then one at a time whisk in the sugar, egg, vanilla and buttermilk. Stir in the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt, it will be slightly lumpy.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 20 - 25 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out relatively clean. Cool on a rack before flipping out of the pan.

Served with whipped cream that has been dyed green.

Makes a single layer 8" cake.

How to make the cake into shamrocks:

8" round single layer chocolate cake (brownies would work good too)
long serrated knife
2" heart cookie cutter

Trim the cake so it is flat and not much thicker than your cookie cutter. A long serrated knife works well for this.

Using the cookie cutter cut out eight hearts along the outer edge of the cake and one in the center. Make sure you are pressing the cutter all the way through the cake so the hearts don't get stuck an break. Save three of the little triangle pieces between the hearts for stems. Eat the scraps.

Arrange the hearts into a shamrock shape.


Before serving top with the green whipped cream.

You will get three shamrocks out of one 8" cake. Matt says each shamrock is one serving and I say they could easily be two.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2012 Kathy Lewinski

St. Pat's Beer Tasting

Saturday, we'll be having a sort of low-key St. Patrick's Day celebration with our cousins. There will be home-cured corned beef, colcannon and whiskey cake. For a little entertainment, we'll be tasting Irish and Irish-style beers.

It was tricky to put the selection of beers we'll be tasting together. We really wanted to avoid Guinness and Harp, things we've all tasted before. We would have like to get all beers from Ireland, but there is a real lack of them in the store and we were at a really good beer store. That's why we added Irish-style to the mix. Here's what we'll be tasting...

Finnegan's Blonde Ale and Irish Amber - Finnegan's is brewed locally and 100% of the proceeds got to charity, so we are doing a good thing by drinking it.

Great Lakes Brewing Conway's Irish Ale - Out of Cleveland, OH

Sprecher Irish Stout - From Glendale, WI.

Porterhouse Brewing Red, Wrasslers Full Stout and Oyster Stout - These were the only beers we could find from Ireland that were not Guinness or Harp. Porterhouse is based in Dublin and is apparently the largest independent brewery in Ireland.

Other than the Finnegan's Irish Amber these will all be new beers for all of us. So, what do you think, have you ever tried any of the beers we're having? Do you know of any other Irish beers that are available in the US?

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2012 Kathy Lewinski