ALMOST THE WEEKEND 🙂
Work is actually going well this week, but that doesn’t mean I’m any less excited for a few days off to relax and have fun with friends and family.
So. This week I have been really intentional about cooking. I really felt like I was in a rut for a while, with only cooking the same meals (roasted fish, a green veggie, and sweet potatoes) or going out way more than necessary. I really like to look at going out as a treat and want to save the simple meals for nights when I don’t feel like thinking. I also think this newfound fascination with cooking is partly due to the fact that Chris and I have been big on watching Chef’s Table lately and it has totally been inspiring me to be more adventurous with food.
Anyway, I sat down at the beginning of the week with some cookbooks and decided on four new recipes to try throughout this week. I have already made two (an orzo/feta/spinach salad and turkey burgers with apples, celery, and a bunch of other good stuff), but this one that I just have to tell you about today came from Chrissy Teigen’s cookbook Cravings – parmesan risotto with mushrooms and peas.
I first learned how to make risotto when I was studying abroad in Italy when I was 19. It seemed super intimidating but after making it a few times, it became a staple meal for us broke college students to make during our time there. Since then I have only made it a few times, but have never really found a recipe that I felt was perfect, but I think I might have finally found it.
The ingredient list is super simple: arborio rice, butter, onion, white wine, chicken broth, parmesan cheese, mushrooms, peas, salt, and pepper. I love when there aren’t a million things that are needed for a recipe and even more when I already have most of the ingredients in my house.
The first thing you do is warm up the chicken broth and sauté the onion in some butter. It makes your house smell INSANE. In the best way.
Once those are cooked through and super soft, you add the wine, cook it off a little, and then add the broth little by little until it is all soaked up and the rice is tender, but a tiny bit hard in the center.
And while all that is going on you chop up the mushrooms real tiny and sauté them in a little olive oil until soft (the recipe actually called to do something totally different, but I didn’t have the right kind of mushrooms so I just skipped that part), defrost the peas if they were frozen, and grate a bunch of fresh parmesan cheese.
After the rice is all done cooking you stir in the mushrooms, peas, cheese, and a little extra butter. Top with some more parmesan (if you like cheese, this is the recipe for you) and fresh cracked pepper and that’s it!
This tasted SO good. The super sharp parmesan was delicious, and even though the wine was mostly cooked off, I still felt like you could totally taste it. The peas and mushrooms have such different tastes, so it almost made this recipe seem different with every bite. I am a big pepper fan, so I loved that addition on top, too.
Chrissy did such a good job at pulling all these different flavors together in one dish that is very filling, fairly simple to make, and a quick, different dinner on a weeknight. But it would also totally be something that you could make if you were having people over for dinner. And I also think it would be good with really almost any other green vegetable – maybe some broccoli chopped up really tiny, pieces of asparagus, or even just some spinach sautéed with garlic.
If you don’t have Chrissy’s cookbook, order it on Amazon immediately. The short stories she tells before every recipe are seriously hysterical, and the recipes are freaking amazing. I used to be a really picky eater and have gotten much better lately, but her cookbook has really helped me to branch out even more than I previously had. I used to read her food blog a while ago and always watch her Snapchat stories on what she is making in her kitchen, so I 100% trust her judgment when it comes to food. I want to cook my way through her entire cookbook, a`la Julia Child style. And my friend told me a rumor that she is in the process of writing a second one? Fingers crossed!
To wrap all that up, this recipe is wonderful and you should get Chrissy’s cookbook so you can make this and a bunch of other delicious things (my other personal favorite is the garlic roasted brussels sprouts with balsamic reduction – we make those all the time).
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On a completely different note, I’m well overdue for a wedding recap post, but to briefly sum it up, things are going well. All the planning is really coming together, and there are only really a few big things left to handle – finalizing the menu/the arrangements with the ceremony/reception location, deciding on bridesmaid dresses, and mailing out the invitations. The rest is little, fun stuff – deciding on my shoes/accessories, working on decorations, figuring out outfits for all the little wedding events leading up to the day, and all other minor details.
I can’t believe our wedding is less than three months away! We had a short engagement to begin with, but the time is really flying. And I am just getting progessively more and more excited to marry Chris and start the next phase of our lives together.
What is the best recipe you have made lately?
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