Lazy Man's Risotto

Naming this dish any kind of risotto is somewhat pretentious, but there it is. This is more of a technique than a recipe, and it makes a great side-dish for fall - savory, rich, and warm. Flavor to your taste! I'll provide the details of my recent concoction using these steps.

1. Cook rice in a standard rice cooker,* with your model's recommended amount of water for the amount you choose to make.

2. Optimally, you would eat the fresh rice with one meal and allow the leftovers to rest in the fridge overnight. I'll experiment with preparing the "risotto" with fresh rice and update accordingly.

3. Next day, break up the rice, which is likely to be dried slightly. Pour enough chicken broth (low sodium) to cover the rice evenly with about 1/2 inch of liquid atop the rice.

4. Season to taste. I added 1 small bay leaf and 2 tsp. fines herbes. Stir the mixture.

5. Cut 2 TB of unsalted butter into cubes and add them throughout the midture.

6. Place lid on rice cooker and hit the button. When it's done, it should be a soft and creamy rice. Top each warm serving with pepper and finely grated Romano or other dry, salty cheese.

Notes: This dish would thrive in endless variation of its ingredients. Try using fresh herbs instead of dried, onion broth instead of chicken, or including sauteed onions, mushrooms, etc.

Enjoy!

*Making this on the stove would be less lazy. Rice cookers are cheap, especially a small one. Mine can prepare up to 2.25 cups of dry rice, which equates 9 servings of 1/2 cup cooked rice. It cost $20 at Sears a few years ago.

Not so sure that the proceedings from Curtis Vance's evidenciary hearings should have been released. I feel wrong for reading such intimate details. This comes after I had eagerly clicked three links to read it all.

Yes, Nanc, how would it feel to see this about someone I loved, in the daily news? Not so great.

I think the openness of information during such a media-driven age in America (and beyond) is a very powerful human expression. How or why would I be writing this, uh, blog if this hyper-communication did not exist? But there are surely limits to the benefit of such expression. Perhaps the families of both Pressly and Vance are sitting on that fence.

Creepy peeper.

Okay, this isn't food, but again with the procrastination.

I was reading a few reviews on google to check out a place I'm going soon, and I stumbled across this one guy on Yelp. He's local, had his full name on there, and wow... just... wow. I hope I never receive the scrutiny he applies to the patrons and servers in the restaurants he reviews. He doesn't even talk about the food! This guy is straight up cray cray. After 11 paragraphs about Big Whiskey's, covering everything from annoying diners to hot servers, he ended his review with a toast. Let me share.

To all of those who Yelp
May your reviews be true with depth.
No personal feelings of anger
Towards those who follow your departure.
Let us all gather
And show our favor
To the place of our choice
Lets here the sounds of this voice.
Cheers to the beer.
To all that are near.
Bottoms up to who-eva.
Where is my hot server Cara?

Who does that? What is he, a fucking bard? Seriously, check out his yelp page. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll never want to go out in public again.

Salt is a menace.

First post of my first food blog. Let's get retarded in here!!!

I made some basil pesto today, using basil from the farmer's market, sea salt (unfortunately too much), freshly grated romano, toasted pecans, garlic and olive oil.

Also, I'm a complete procrastinator. The above text was generated Saturday afternoon. Now it's Tuesday night. Still want to kill time rehashing my dinner though! There is always more schoolwork to put off.

The pesto was too salty so next time, remember not to salt it until the end! (Note: I'm going to write this whole thing like I'm talking to myself, except for when I explain things like this... or do I do that sometimes? Yeah, okay, I do talk to myself like this. Carry on.)

I fixed the salt issue by making a cream sauce to dilute it. Mmm. Fats. We ate it with vermicelli and sweet basil Italian sausage (that was on sale, my favorite flavor!) The end.

Tonight, we dined on breaded & fried bone-in pork chops, new potatoes, and baby herb salad. Props to Joy of Cooking for the chop recipe. Just what I was looking for... that's what I like about Joy, she's on point. Ask the internet for a recipe and it will tell you lots of weird shit, probably all lies. Why do I keep asking? I'm dumb.

Why am I keeping such a silly blog? Does the world really need to know how food-obsessed and inane I can be? Maybe I will take my name off. Because posting anonymously is less creepy.