The Cooking Critic

My mother likes to send me forwards. Some of them are adorable (like the old tortoise that adopted the baby hippo left motherless after the tsunami), some addictive (pictures of celebrities as children), some occasionally pointless (sorry, Mom, I still love you!) and some completely invaluable and amazing. Ziploc Omelets fall into the final category.

She timed the omelet forward well since I was looking for something to fulfill my monthly breakfast recipe promise to the world. I’m sure the world would have noticed and been very angry with me if the promise went unfilled….

Ziploc Omelets may sound a little baffling, so a quick explanation: they consist of an egg mixture zipped up in a Ziploc bag then cooked in boiling water for thirteen minutes. And this may lead you to wonder, as I did, why would anyone make omelets that take thirteen minutes when you can make omelets in less amount of time the normal way? My short answer: the novelty of it! Also, maybe you can make omelets the normal human way, but I cannot. I can’t flip them without them falling apart. Inevitably, I give up and make a scramble.

I decided to make a Spinach, Tomato, and Feta Omelet, as described in The Foster’s Market Cookbook, substituting Trader Joe’s Artichoke Jalapeno Dip for the artichoke aioli mentioned in the recipe. Then I fretted about how much spinach to include because I am astounded every. Single. Time. When I see spinach cook and shrink to ridiculously tiny quantities. I threw a large handful (or thereabouts) of chopped spinach into the Ziploc bag along with the ingredients and wrote my name on the bag as instructed. This is recommended if you have a Ziploc Omelet party, as people are apt do sometimes (people are so crazy), so everyone can keep track of their personalized omelets. No one else was at my Ziploc Omelet party, but I wrote my name on my bag anyways:

(Bear with me as my omelet goes through its awkward, ugly stage.) Next, I put it in boiling water and worried about whether or not it would cook through since it was floating. I think I didn’t push all the air out of the bag as instructed.

But it did indeed cook. And as promised, the omelet rolled out of the bag just like the instructions said it would. As a bonus, I was please to see I accidentally used the perfect amount of spinach.

You may notice it resembles a small log. No matter. I slathered on some artichoke dip, topped it with sautéed tomatoes, and had myself a substantial little omelet log.

And here’s the inside:

Color me impressed.

Assessment: Despite my doubts, thirteen minutes in boiling water makes for a perfectly cooked omelet, and Ziploc Omelets get my seal of amazement—they’d be a great activity/conversation piece for a brunch. And I also liked the suggested omelet combination from Foster’s Market as well as Trader Joe’s artichoke dip on this, even if it was a bit of an intense flavor fight between the dip and the feta in the places where the feta had grouped together in the Ziploc bag.

Overall, I highly recommend this. Please let me know what you think of the Ziploc technique if you try it (or even if you don’t.)

Maggie wants the world to know she isn’t a mooch. If you look over my posts in the last couple of months, it may look like she’s constantly stopping by on the off chance that something just came out of the oven, and why doesn’t she join me for dinner? But I must set the record straight. Not only did Maggie have Shahan and I over for a meal recently, she, in fact, had me over for dinner long before I ever returned the favor.

Maggie planned the meal, set the date and I said I’d bring an appetizer—the Vegetable-Avocado Salsa I made was an easy choice. I’d been eyeing the recipe for a while; the small picture of it in the upper left-hand corner of my Complete Outdoor Living Cookbook has been beckoning to me for a long time what with its festive colors and all. I even tried once to convince my non-avocado
-enamored mother to make it and bring it to a gathering because I wanted her to report back to me on how it tasted. On top of all this, I also had some Trader Joe’s avocados—despite my love for the avocado, I always have a hard time using up the four that come in a bag, and this salsa was a way to check one of my list. The dish required no oven either, a major bonus due to a recent heat wave and lack of air-conditioning in my apartment.

So I chopped and chopped and chopped the vegetables into fine little bits but left out the avocado initially because it makes the dip soupy if it joins the party but then sits around too long. I called Maggie and told her I’d be a little late because I needed to pick up a jicama on the way to her place. Maggie responded, “A jigga-what?” And I said, “It’s a bulbous, root vegetable that has the crunch of an apple but is mostly flavorless.” “Oh,” she replied.

I picked up my jicama and added both it and the avocado to the dip at Maggie’s place. And we happily munched on the dip then happily ate up Maggie’s red wine-themed meal. I’m not sure how I only just recently discovered intimate dinner parties are a great way to spend an evening, but I did. First we had cocktails with the appetizer, next we had wine with our meal served al fresco on the patio—it included a salad topped with blue-cheese stuffed mushrooms, eggplant parmesan and strawberries soaked in red wine sauce served over ice cream. As far as I can tell, the latter is the perfect summer dessert: wonderful, unusual and no stove or oven required (the heat has made me obsessed with the last criteria of late). After the meal, Maggie read our Tarot cards, which determined Shahan will never ever find love or happiness. I fared slightly better, though the multiple reference to “moving houses” made me nervous since there’s a For Sale sign in front of my apartment complex right now that I’m not pleased about at all. But the tarot cards predicted that in the end I’d be happy with the move. Perhaps my new place will have air-conditioning?

Adjustments: I used a jalapeño instead of a serrano chile but will try the spicier latter next time. And I used frozen corn instead of fresh since I’m on a freezer initiative right now. I ignored the instructions to make your own baked tortilla chips and instead bought some blue corn Tostitos.

Assessment: Shahan called this dip “a winner” and declared it a great fancy alternative to traditional salsa or guacamole. The different textures are wonderful: soft avocados, crunchy carrots and crisp jicama (of course, now I’m looking for recipes to help me use up the rest of the jicama). Be sure to salt and pepper the salsa appropriately since the seasonings help the flavors meld. Also, Vegetable-Avocado Dip is very beautiful. And while this dish wasn’t difficult to make, there is a lot of chopping, so I’m going to say it’s relatively easy with an emphasis on the “relatively.”

I have come to an important conclusion: people are hungry for brunch recipes. What first tipped me off (actually, what solely tipped me off) was the amount of hits my various brunch recipes received from my Easter brunch post. I knew that brunch was a popular activity for many, but I didn’t realize that making brunch was also popular. Far be it for me to deny the public what they want. If they want brunch recipes, goshdarnit, they’ll get them.

While I’m a big fan of brunch myself, I’m not a big fan of cooking in the mornings, or even mid-mornings for that matter, which perhaps led me to my earlier erroneous assumption that everybody preferred dining out for brunch instead of dining in—everybody’s like me, right? I’m exceedingly slow out of the gate when I wake up, and often I can’t be bothered with anything more than eating a piece of fruit. My other staples include: yogurt, banana smoothies (before my blender abruptly died and left me very lonely) and oatmeal with brown sugar, dried cranberries and flaxseed mixed in. The latter is about as labor-intensive as I get for breakfast, until now. Since I’ve determined the world wants brunch recipes, I’ll attempt at least one a month. Yes, I’m doing this for you.

My first once-a-month-public-brunch-promise selection wasn’t difficult. I had some goat cheese in the refrigerator, and I came across a Savory Bread Pudding with Goat Cheese and Ham recipe. It was sufficiently different from the usual brunch recipes, and I was intrigued by the idea of a savory bread pudding, having only had sweet ones before. I’m sure you’re intrigued too. And I hope you’re not scrunching your nose at the thought of goat cheese or bread pudding because I’ve known people to do that before. But I certainly wouldn’t expect that of you. (You’re my favorite by the way. Shhh, don’t tell the others.)

Of course, there was still the can’t-think-in-the- mornings-much-less-cook issue to deal with it, which was solved easily enough by making this a dinner entrée. In fact, it became an impromptu dinner party, very similar to my last dinner party. Savory Bread Pudding with Goat Cheese and Ham was substituted for the Green Beans and Saffron Pasta, and all the other elements remained the same: Trader Joe’s Dips for appetizers, Hearts of Palm Salad as an accompaniment and Raspberry Brownies for dessert. Why mess with a formula that works? And I suspect the reason this dish isn’t pictured in the cookbook is because it doesn’t photograph so well, as I’ve learned. Try not to hold this against it. And don’t laugh at my pathetic attempt to scatter ham evenly. You would think I’d try a little harder knowing I’m going to photograph the evidence later….

Adjustments: As you can see above, I separated the ham and olives into different sections to satisfy dueling palates: vegetarians vs olive haters. Also, I found the recipe could use more goat cheese, ham and olives, but maybe this was because I used a long dish, instead of the deep one called for and this spread out the flavors of the fixins more than usual.

Assessment: Maggie dubbed this sophisticated comfort food, and I thought the olives, goat cheese and ham were a nice sharp/salty/tangy combination. Also, since I get bored easily with the regular brunch fare at restaurants (sometimes I want more options than pancakes and omelets), this dish gets major bonus points for originality. But while not difficult, it is a time commitment with an hour baking time in the oven. If I were to make this again, and I certainly would if I found myself with a log of goat cheese in the refrigerator, I would see how it works cooked up like a French toast sandwich, which would take a lot less time and is basically what it tasted like.

When I invited Maggie over for dinner, I mentioned very coolly in passing, “Saffron will be there.” “Saffron?” she said, just as coolly back, pretending she didn’t care. Then I mentioned green beans, and her cool veneer slipped just a little because, frankly, nobody worries about being cool in front of green beans, and she admitted that she’s on a green bean kick where she likes to cook them up and then salt the hell out of them. Then the conversation turned back to saffron, and she got all blasé since that’s the thing you do when it comes to the most sought-after spice around and said, “Well, maybe I’ll stop by.” And so she did.

Saffron is effortlessly cool, and he thinks he’s pretty special because, well, he is. According to The New Food Lover’s Companion, he’s the most expensive spice in the world. And unlike some items where the high price seems arbitrary, saffron actually has a good reason for being so expensive. Saffron comes from a flower that produces only three saffron stigmas per flower. On top of this, these stigmas are handpicked. Can you imagine handpicking saffron? I’ve always maintained that the worst job I ever had was a soccer referee—this claim is questionable since I’ve had my share of bad jobs, but between the fact it was my very first job and everybody loves to yell at you when you’re a referee, it doesn’t seem like such an outrageous notion. Still, I imagine being a stigma-picker is worse. At the very least, it sounds extremely tedious.

But we’ll move away from the plight of the stigma-picker, which I have no knowledge of, and on to meals containing said stigmas, of which I have a little more knowledge but not a lot since I can count the number of times I’ve used saffron on one hand. That number is two.

Basically, saffron is an easy way to impress guests since it’s familiar enough not to be scary but still has some exotic shimmer to it. Sure enough, with saffron mixed in, a dish becomes vibrant, and the taste of saffron is its very own and hard to describe. I’d like to think it has a slightly buttery/faintly floral taste. Of course, I like to think all sorts of things—for instance, that eventually I’ll live in one of those gorgeous houses in Los Feliz and not have to fret over purchasing things such as saffron—so who knows how accurate my description is.

For something not terribly planned out, Maggie and I had a nice little feast with our Trader Joe’s appetizer dips, Hearts of Palm Salad, Green Beans and Saffron Pasta and Raspberry Brownies. As a bonus for any host, none of these dishes were labor-intensive, and the meal as a whole was completely feasible to pull off. Yea feasibility!

Adjustments: Instead of garganelli pasta (a ribbed penne, more or less), I used bowtie because I just can’t justify buying other pastas when I have such an assortment (if an incomplete one) in my house.

Assessment: This dish had a nice flavor heigtened by the kicky pecorinio cheese, and I liked it even better the second day, but overall it was subtler than I would have liked. I also didn’t love the instruction to include “2 pinches of saffron threads”; it wasn’t nearly exact enough for me, a Virgo, obviously. I found myself wondering if my pinch would be more or less than the average pinch. At first I blamed my stingy pinches for the low-key flavor, but I have since read that you need to use saffron within six months for optimum flavor, and saffron had been hanging out at my place for far longer than that. What can I say? I enjoy his company.

I’m going to call this dish “relatively easy” though I have some doubts. It’s not hard, but it took longer than 30 minutes. Still, I think the time might have more to do with the fact I haven’t quite mastered the art of chatting with guests while cooking rather than how long the dish actually takes. As for recommending this dish: I think it’s a good base for exploring saffron but feel free to freestyle cook with this one—no need to be a slave to the recipe. And use fresher saffron than I did.

There are some recipes that you will glance at and consider every time you thumb through a cookbook, yet they will never make it to your kitchen table. Honestly, I thought that would be the fate of Hearts of Palm Salad. It was interesting, but didn’t seem interesting enough to purchase ingredients I normally don’t. While I like to try new foods, I’m also keenly aware that I don’t know what I’m doing when I work with them, nor do I really know what to expect.

Then came a five-day stint with my family in Mississippi where a kind neighbor with a poultry farm (yes, I know someone who owns a poultry farm) treated us to chicken ‘n dumpling, chicken Tetrazzini and chicken salad sandwiches. I loved indulging in the heavy Southern foods, but by the time I came back to California, I was ready for something light and leafy. Once more, Hearts of Palm Salad caught my eye. Since I bore easily when it comes to salads, the idea of adding of an unusual ingredient like hearts of palm was actually appealing, and really only more so because I wasn’t entirely sure what it was. Strangely, it is what it says it is, which is the heart of cabbage palm tree—its edible core that looks not unlike a bamboo shoot. They come canned since fresh is nearly impossible to find, and since they’re soft and perfectly straight, it’s hard not to feel like a pro when chopping them up.

The flavor of hearts of palm is much like an artichoke. In fact, if you can’t find or don’t want to pay for the sometimes pricey hearts of palm, a marinated artichoke makes a good substitute. Still, I prefer the palm’s heart because it’s not as pungent. It’s got the tang without the overkill, and the texture is nice and soft with no worries about chewiness that the marinated artichoke sometimes troubles me with. Not to say the artichoke is generally troublesome. Normally I find him quite sophisticated and charming. But you don’t have to work as hard with hearts of palm who’s always laid back and never fussy. You get all the class but none of the stress of feeling like you’re socializing outside of your bracket.

Adjustments: The recipe calls for “salad herbs,” and I’m not sure if this was a vague suggestion to use whatever herbs you feel go with a salad or if there were a specific set of herbs designated for salads or maybe even a product, like jarred fines herbes. A quick Internet search provided no conclusive evidence, so I used fresh dill, which tasted good.

Assessment: This is a flavorful, spunky salad that’s not substantial enough to be a main dish but is a great accompaniment to just about anything because of both its taste and the ease in assembling it.

The pizza craving is a difficult urge to resist, as I have documented before. On one particular day, visions of pizza danced in my head and then visions of me eating a few slices at Hard Times Pizza soon followed. This didn’t seem like such an unreasonable thought but was a little excessive when my refrigerator was chock-full of goods from a recent grocery store run. So I figured I’d sensibly use what I had on hand while simultaneously fulfilling my pizza craving as best I could. The result? Turkish Pizza Turnover.

Turkish Pizza Turnover is very cleverly named since it really resembles a quesadilla more than a pizza. As much as I like quesadillas, pizza has some sort of primal pull on me—sometimes nothing in the world will do except a big cheesy slice of pizza. Turkish Pizza Turnovers aren’t that cheesy and don’t have an ounce of red sauce. Some might even describe them as healthy. Actually, I don’t know if some would, but I would—my standards for healthy are pretty loose. Still, when the primary ingredient for a dish is a vegetable—in this case spinach—I think I have something resembling a solid argument.

Adjustments: I’m sure the homemade dough described in this recipe is delicious, and it doesn’t look hard. But I was on a quest to use up my lavash, and since the resulting homemade bread in the picture next to the Turkish Pizza Turnover recipe looked identical to the lavash in my refrigerator, there’s was really no question about what to do. So lavash was used and mascarpone cheese omitted since I didn’t have any. In retrospect, I wish I would have thrown in a little mozzarella or Monterey Jack since cheesy pizza was what I was craving, but oh well.

Assessment: This was a nice change from my typical lunch fare. It reminded me of a flat spanakopita. But unlike the other spanakopita taste-alike I made recently–Greek Chicken Strudel, which was so time-consuming that in the end it just wasn’t worth the effort–this dish was an easy thrown-together meal, and so, gets my endorsement. But it’s something more for yourself than a crowd. Stick to the puffy store-bought spanakopita for the latter.

My idea for an Easter brunch started out harmless enough. I saw the Weekend Cookbook Challenge was having a bloggers’ brunch round-up, and I thought something along the lines of “Brunch! What a lovely idea. Perhaps I will have a few friends over, and I will serve them brunch.” Between this original small-scale notion and sending out an Evite less than a week before Easter, the idea had ballooned into inviting nearly everyone I know in the Los Angeles area. And while I generally think I’m capable of fitting more tasks into a day than is humanly possible, I had no delusions about being the sole supplier of a meal for thirty people, which was a pleasantly surprising showing for a last-minute shindig. So I described the brunch as “potluck-ish” and at the risk of sounding bossy, told people exactly what we needed for a diverse spread (egg dishes, fruit dishes, salads, etc.) since I was afraid otherwise, most would just stop by a bakery beforehand, and all we’d have was a diverse array of muffins.

I think it turned out well:

The day before the brunch, I whipped together this ridiculously simple Fruit Dip (cream cheese, marshmallow fluff, orange juice and orange zest) that I’ve made countless times. It was sweeter than I remembered, and I might use lemon juice instead of orange juice to cut the sweetness next time or try out one of the other many fruit dip recipes I have lying around. (Yes, I am in possession of multiple fruit dip recipes. No, I do not think this is strange.) But the crowd said nice things. Then again, it was a nice crowd. Alie thought the dip was a great summery addition, and Audrey described it as dipping fruit into a creamsicle.

Next I mixed and rolled Sausage Balls, another easy one. It’s possible that the term “Sausage Balls” doesn’t sound particularly pleasant or edible to you, but they are “a surprising animal” according to David Friedman, the biggest Sausage Ball cheerleader I know. Here’s another way to think of it: a little round biscuit with sausage and cheese baked in. Doesn’t that sound infinitely better? And despite the fact that the crowd kept giggling at Sausage Balls’ ridiculous name, they ate them and proclaimed their love for them. And here’s a tip: my mother was talking to a woman about her Sausage Balls (this is a perfectly normal conversation in the South since everyone makes Sausage Balls there) and how they can cook up dry. The woman said she rolls her balls more loosely to keep them moist, and I found this works. And on that note, we now move on to Orange Chocolate Salad but not without a giant picture of a Sausage Ball first:

I first noticed Clementine Chocolate Salad when Running with Tweezers posted it for the last Weekend Cookbook Challenge. Though I was drawn to it and had half-heartedly considered making it, I couldn’t commit. But when Adam showed up on my doorstep with a sack full of oranges as a thank you for my feeding Pants the cat while he was away, I determined the oranges were a sign from God telling me to make Clementine Chocolate Salad but with navel oranges.

This dish looks simple, but I encountered one problem after another with it—sometimes that happens when you feel pushed for time. I doubled the dish and spent 20 minutes grating chocolate, which is very very boring, and still had only half as much chocolate as I needed. As it turns out, I hate grating chocolate. I will never grate 3.5 ounces of chocolate again. I will either buy it pre-grated (if this product exists) or hire someone to do the grating for me (anyone want that job?—it doesn’t pay, but there’s free Orange Chocolate Salad in it for you.) Then I made the vanilla bean syrup, which was only three ingredients but more trouble than I imagined. On my first try, I cooked it too long trying to get it golden as instructed and ended up with basically Vanilla Bean Jolly Ranchers. So I tossed my creation and made the syrup again, taking it off the burner soon after the sugar dissolved instead of attempting anything golden for fear of wasting more vanilla beans.

Despite the hassle, it was a wonderfully elegant dish that would be especially good at a bridal shower, and people loved the fact that the words “chocolate” and “salad” were used together. But next time, I think I’ll try the version with the fresh mint instead of the chocolate (though the crowd loved the taste of chocolate and oranges together) since I prefer whacking at mint with scissors to grating chocolate.

Next I made a Caramel Coffee Cake, something that sounds far more complicated than it is. All you do is throw yeast rolls in a greased pan, mix together some dry butterscotch pudding and spices, throw them on top of the rolls, then top with melted butter. If you ever make this, you will look at what I just described and think that I must be crazy for insisting that it will turn into a gooey Caramel Coffee Cake. You have to let it rise overnight, and in case you have any reservations about letting the butter that it’s topped with sit out unrefrigerated for hours, Real Simple, one of the premier butter authorities in the world, says it’s okay in their discussion of food myths here (click the link and scroll down.) Evidently, there’s enough salt in salted butter that you can always leave it out, and it will still be fine. As for the coffee cake, when the yeast rolls have risen the next day (appropriate for an Easter meal, no?) into a doughy mass, you will still think I’m crazy for claiming you will have coffee cake after it is cooked. But trust me and put the pan in the oven, let it cook, take it out, flip it out on a plate, ooh and aah, then thank me. I will not hold it against you that you thought I was crazy. Here it is half-eaten, slightly blurry, poorly lit and not nearly as pretty as it is in person (sadly, pictures were an after-thought). But by the end of the party it was gone except for one slice. An excellent sign. Sarah Kate described Caramel Coffee Cake and Orange Chocolate Salad as “can’t-go-wrongs.” I’m thinking about adding that as a category to my blog….

All the day-before prep work complete (sorry for all the jumping around in time), I rested on the seventh day, meaning I tried to sleep around midnight but could not, thinking of all the cleaning and additional food prep work I had to do before 11 a.m. At least I got the coffee and tea station (a transformed IKEA bookshelf) set up in the living room, which I am very proud of because it prevented overflow in the kitchen area and kept the guests happy and caffeinated:

The morning of brunch, the show got under way with minimal sleep and the much-appreciated help of Melissa and Trixie, who assisted me with everything from moving furniture to peeling oranges–somehow the latter turned out to be more difficult than the former. Proof:

As it turns out, Melissa, though a gifted writer and quite adorable, cannot peel an orange to save her life. The above is an example of an orange peeled by Melissa. I had to fire Melissa from her orange-peeling duties and give that job to Trixie who went about scoring them first and making them look more uniform than I thought possible.

However, Melissa was able to redeem herself by expertly opening a bottle of champagne, and she was an immense help with our last-minute assembly of Gorgonzola Grits (another quick dish, but it requires nearly constant attention during its ten-minute prep lifespan), a recipe I got from a Junior League cookbook. I made one with chicken broth, as the recipe told me to, and another version with No-Chicken Broth (the name of the brand) for the vegetarians. I had used the actual chicken broth to poach a chicken earlier in the week, and so, it was an extra-chickeny chicken broth. The grits made with this broth had a very powerful, salty flavor. It made for robust grits—perhaps too robust. But flavorful and unusual in the best sort of way—I’ll just go with a tamer chicken broth next time. The vegetarians loved their less-salty version, one claiming they had converted her to gritsdom and another describing them as “half city/half country—the Donny and Marie of breakfast.” (The No-Chicken Broth made much yellower grits than the real-chicken broth, in case you were wondering about the color difference.)

Soon Mike and Meghann arrived, then Tim, Danielle and Kysa with coffee pot in tow, and it became a rockin’ party from there with people enjoying their mimosas:

and bringing more delicious brunch foods than I knew existed. To give you a sense of what was present, I’ll describe my leftovers. For dinner that night, I had Marissa’s French toast casserole, Sarah Kate’s deviled eggs (with caviar!), Melissa’s spinach salad and a puff pastry stuffed with mushrooms and cheese that magically appeared near the end of brunch. (I have no idea who brought it). For breakfast I had Meghann’s egg casserole and Maggie’s cheddar dill scones. Lunch was Christiane’s quiche, my grits and Shayna’s stuffed cream cheese French toast. For a dessert break I’ll have chocolate cake (Sarah’s?) and/or Leslie’s peach cobbler. And already I’m eyeing the leftovers and imagining what I can create with them—some sort of tart with the fruit dip and strawberries? A cake with a layer of those vanilla meringues? Lucky for the people playing poker at my house later this week….

>>Buy Open House: A Culinary Tour by The Junior League of Murfreesboro.

Being able to make Risotto Pancakes is one of the great joys of making risotto in the first place. You get to eat leftovers with minimal prep time, but you don’t feel like you’re eating leftovers. In fact, it seems like you’re eating something completely new and wonderful. It’s a great trick to play on yourself.

I’m sure there are some restaurants in the world that have risotto pancakes on the menu, but I’ve never encountered them. I’ve encountered some supplì before (essentially, fried risotto balls with cheese and maybe some sort of veggies stuffed in the middle), and I’ve promised myself over and over that I will take on the labor-intensive task of supplì, but when I have leftover risotto in the fridge, I always end up doing the much easier and quite tasty Risotto Pancakes. It’s hard not to love something that you get to flatten with a spatula and crisps up on the outside.

Assessment: I love Risotto Pancakes, but these weren’t as spectacular the ones I’ve made before. I think it’s my fault because I used half the risotto called for in the recipe but all the egg. These were still good, just a little egg-y. This time, too, I shaped the pancakes from the Easy Risotto I made a few days before (an excellent use of Easy Risotto if ever there was one), and I served Avocado Salad, which I have become completely addicted to, as the accompaniment.

You’ve probably heard the rumors about risotto. It’s high-maintenance and constantly needs attention. Just like a woman. You’re always stirring stirring stirring to make risotto, 20 minutes worth of non-stop stirring while you ladle in warm broth intermittingly to get that creamy but al dente texture. Risotto is, indeed, a commitment. Some people will try to make you think it’s not a difficult dish, and there’s truth to this claim since a basic risotto requires few ingredients. But if you aren’t into stirring for 20 minutes (plus additional sautéing and chopping) then you couldn’t possibly be into making risotto.

While I don’t mind all the stirring myself, I had always wondered how necessary it really was. I’ve looked far and wide for an explanation about the necessity of non-stop risotto-stirring (okay, I looked once, and that was today, but I’ve wondered a lot), and while I keep coming across promising websites that insist on the stirring and even acknowledge that you may want to dump all the broth in at once and not stir, no one explains why we stir. My guess? Nobody knows. That’s right—no one in the whole world knows.

Actually, the Home and Garden TV website claims the stirring is required so the risotto doesn’t stick to the pan. But this seems suspect to me. Occasional (and not constant) stirring would prevent sticking. Anyhow, all this is a long way of saying I have found a risotto recipe that doesn’t require stirring and tastes good to me. It’s not as creamy as your average risotto (I believe the stirring is a texture issue, though I can’t find any source to back me up on this), but once I added the Parmesan at the end, I was surprised by how creamy and flavorful this non-stirring version was. With Easy Risotto, you do some initial chopping and sautéing, then pour all the broth into the risotto just as you’ve always been told not to, put a lid on the thing and let it simmer while you do other things for twenty minutes (the freedom!), and you return to cooked risotto.

Adjustments: The most significant adjustment was the addition of more liquid because when I made this once before, the risotto cooked up kind of dry. And if I’m going to add more liquid, I might as well add an interesting liquid, so ¼ cup of white wine got thrown into the pot. Instead of water and chicken bouillon, I used canned chicken stock. Also diced regular onions replaced green onions.

Assessment: As I’ve been typing this entry, I’ve debated, would I recommend this for company? No doubt, I will make this for myself again, but others? Here’s the answer: if you are making risotto as an entrée, then get to stirring because it’s the centerpiece of your meal and you need to do it right. If you’re offering risotto as a side (and especially if you have other more important dishes that require last-minute attention before dinner is served) make Easy Risotto. I suspect no one will know the difference. Even my friends who cook are not risotto snobs (to my knowledge, well, maybe Meghann Barloewen is a risotto snob–she always seems to be making risotto anyways), so I think they would be fine with this and may very well not notice the difference.

>>Buy the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook.

Corn Soup is not a chowder. And don’t call it a chowder. That’s like calling a “Christine,” “Kristin.” Two different words, two different connotations. I’ve actually asked around about chowders before (these are the sort of conversations people are forced to have with me), and I’ve never been able to come up with a clear definition for chowder. My own observations have led me to deduce chowders include a puréed potato to give them a denser consistency. Then I received Food Lover’s Companion (basically, the ultimate dictionary for foodies) as a gift, which does not confirm my made-up definition for chowder. Hmph. Here’s how Food Lover’s Companion describes chowder: “a thick, chunky seafood soup.” See, it’s already gotten itself in a hole because we’ve all heard of corn chowder, and corn chowder doesn’t have seafood in it. But later it says, “The term [chowder] is also used to describe any thick, rich soup containing chunks of food (for instance, corn chowder.)” And that seems really broad and sweeping to me.

This Corn Soup is more like a bisque because it has cream and flour for thickening. Here I shall describe this corn soup bisque: smooth, well-seasoned, complex, and rich without being too rich. I think this is a good description. Food Lover’s Companion describes bisques this way: “a thick, rich soup usually consisting of puréed seafood and cream.” Clearly, Food Lover’s Companion is in cahoots with the seafood industry. Tomato bisque doesn’t include seafood. Corn soup bisque doesn’t include seafood. At least they hedged themselves by using the word “usually” this time.

My family likes to call this “Cron Soup” because of a misspelled sign for corn we once saw in Ohio. I made my mother email me this recipe because I suddenly wanted it and don’t own the cookbook it came from. Thanks, Mom! I know what a pain typing up recipes can be. Lately, I feel like I spend half of my life typing up recipes. The other half is devoted to Karaoke.

Adjustments: Half and half for the light cream, and I just sprinkled a little bit of nutmeg in rather than use the full ¼ teaspoon. I know nutmeg in soups is all the rage right now, but I’m wary of this rage. For reheating, add a little milk or cream to thin it out if it overly thickens in the refrigerator. And pardon my picture. I accidentally caramelized the onions (it happens!), and I cut up the chives in a manner that might be best described as haphazard.

Assessment: You will be amazed at how easy yet tasty this soup is. You will be sad to learn the cookbook I got this from is out-of-print, yet you will be happy to hear you can buy a previously owned edition for $.52.

>> Buy Easy Cooking for Today by Pol Martin or Food Lover’s Companion by Sharon Tyler Herbst.