The Yum Yum Factor

One of my favourite things to make in my Instant Pot is risotto, which surprises nobody more than me. I have always railed against any recipes that claim to result in a creamy, rich risotto that ditches the need to stand in front of the stove, glass of wine in hand, and stir for 20 solid minutes. BAH! I said as I laughed in the face of the no stir, oven baked, microwaved risotto methods that were going to change my life. BAH! Bah, indeed because pressure cooker risotto is that recipe. I remained doubtful until I got my pressure cooker cookbook from America's Test Kitchen. Cook's Illustrated is like my bible and I use it to reference everything from recipes, methods and ingredients to products. They test the hell out of everything so we don't have to and they explain why what they did works so well so when they assure me that risotto cooked in the pressure cooker is amazing, I am pretty much obligated to try it. So, fast forward to today and I haven't ...

I love sausages. The only thing I DON'T love about sausages is that they can be a bugger to cook. When you grill them, you can end up with half of them burnt on the outside but still underdone on the inside and then the other ones are overcooked and dried out. Don't even get me started about them busting open before they are done and losing all of their delicious juices. In the winter, I poach them, which works well, but I couldn't help but think that sous vide might be the answer to all of my sausage dreams. As always, I read a hundred articles about sous vide pork sausages before I started and the general consensus was to cook them at 60C or 140F for anywhere from 1 to 2 hours. I had three types of pork sausage and, as you can see down there, I sealed some of them in my Food Saver bags and I left the two Italian sweet sausages for the zip lock bag. I used my Anova Precision Cooker with my polycarbonate bin and I watched House of Cards while they cooked. I...

If you do a search of my blog, you will see that we appear to eat a lot of risotto. As soon as the weather turns colder, risotto gets bumped up to the regular weekly rotation. If you have some stock, a glass of white wine or a bottle of beer laying around, a handful of leftover meat or seafood, some vegetables or maybe some dried mushrooms, a little chunk of parmesan and a pat of butter lying around, you have dinner.

Sometimes things can just be simple, you know? It isn't all Risotto al Nero di Seppia  around here, although it is often all risotto. I saw a video of Merill from Food52 whipping up a corn risotto and despite the fact that we won't see local corn until the end of the summer that will seemingly never occur, I can think of little else. I just made a plain risotto the way I always do but took her technique of adding the raw kernels to the finished rice and covering the pot for five minutes to just cook the corn. I had never thought of doing that before and the result in just tender corn and, therefore, a beautiful, crisp texture in that sea of creamy rice. I think the only real change I made was to add fresh thyme to the stock because, to me, corn and butter must also have some thyme in there. I also topped it with some sherried mushrooms because mushrooms are always a good idea but it was delicious all on it's own. I am counting the days until August when I can make ...

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love making risotto and to me, it's something I often resort to when I am out of food, have no ideas and if dinner isn't served within the hour, I am going to have children's services knocking at my door. I know that to some people it is an intimidating, special occasion dish but to me, it's cooking for dummies. At it's most desperate - I mean simple, it's just a cup or so of arborio rice, whatever vegetable I find lying at the bottom of the crisper, scrape the ice off of a handful of frozen shrimp or the last dregs from the bag of peas that I found when I was scrounging around in the freezer for the shrimp, a carton of low sodium chicken broth, a bit of butter and fresh parmesan and dinner is on the table in half an hour. Out of white wine? Use some beer or port or sherry or skip that part altogether.  Sure, you are chained to the stove for 20 minutes of constant stirring but that also means you are forced to drink the wh...

We really don't like to go out on New Years Eve anymore. Just the thought of getting all dressed up, putting on makeup, getting a cab in the cold, being squished into a space with lots of really drunk people who are trying to have the BEST NIGHT OF THE YEAR is just exhausting to me. Back in the day we used to joke that NYE was for amateurs and that every night was NYE to us. We were young ,worked in the film business and we worked very hard but we also played very hard. Honestly, I think we were both secretly thrilled when we had a baby and could lay the blame on him for declining all the invitations until they just stopped coming and I was fine with that because I am just partied out. Now, the most exciting thing to happen on NYE around here is a rousing game of prosecco fuelled euchre with The Neighbours in our pjs and if everyone is actually still awake when the ball drops, it's a New Year's miracle. It's also a night for rich, decadent food because we ha...