Risotto as a food item probably gets a bad rap from novice cooks because it seems fancy. Really, it's just boiling rice, but you have to stand there and watch it instead of putting the lid on the pan and leaving.   I've made it once before, from a Barefoot Contessa recipe.  Hers was as strict as Jamie's is loosey-goosey.  Cook for two minutes, cook for five minutes, cook for three minutes.  I set my timer so much I thought I was going to break it.  I was relieved to see that this recipe was a little more laid back (as I've come to expect).  

However, the way risotto recipes are written in this book can be a little confusing.  There's a section about how to make them ahead the way restaurants do (cook it three-quarters of the way and then spread it on a greased cookie sheet), which is fine, if you want to make one for a party and don't want to feed your guests mushy rice.  But all the recipes start out with this three-quarter business and then have you finish it and add the titular ingredients.  What if I'm just making the whole thing start to finish?  If I'm making dinner, I'm going to make the whole thing in one shot, not half now and half later.  Also, the quantities are huge -- each recipe serves 8.  So I cut this down a great deal, by using one cup of rice for 2 people, and that made leftovers.

I made the spinach mixture first, and left it to cool.  I'm not coordinated enough to cook down spinach and make sure I'm not burning rice at the same time.  And since I was going to have to cut it up and stir it into hot rice anyway, it wouldn't matter if it cooled a little.  You could just make spinach this was as a stand-alone.  I never would have thought of using nutmeg, but it is a very tasty addition.  

I'm sure a proper chef would smack me upside the head with their All-Clad pan if they saw the lazy way I make risotto.  The first part I do as prescribed (cook onion, add rice, add wine).  But there's no way I'm going to dirty another pan with a bunch of chicken stock that I may or may not use, just so I can scoop it from one place to another.  Nope.  I pour it right out of the box into my 1/2 c measuring cup (a standard ladle holds 1/2 cup, so that's fair).  Just make sure it's a fresh box at room temperature and not out of the fridge.  I've never heard the exact reason why the stock is supposed to be warm, but the rice can take it.  I've done this twice, and it comes out fine.  Shhh.  Don't rat me out.  

The somewhat difficult part about risotto is that you need to actually stand there and watch it.  If you have attention span problems, this is probably not the dish for you.  Add stock, stir, stir, look, stir, stir.  It takes a couple minutes between each addition of stock for the rice to absorb it.  I look for the mixture to develop the kind of bubbles that you see in a pancake that's ready to flip -- the ones that stay, like little holes.  I think I added stock 5 or 6 times, so that's 2 1/2  to 3 cups, until the rice was no longer crunchy.  This takes about 30 minutes, so wear comfy shoes.

I cut up my now-cooled spinach (by hand, not in a processor, which is why my dish isn't quite so green) and added.  You could serve the risotto like this, without the cheese.  I actually liked it more than after I added the cheese -- it had a sharper flavor and wasn't so creamy.  The cheese was a nice addition, but I think next time I would add less, or find a sharper goat cheese.  Lemon really helps to add back the brightness.

The finished product was fantastic.  If all the other risotto recipes taste this good, I'm going to have a whole new arsenal in my dinner repertoire.  Creamy, a little tart, the earthy green from the spinach.  All good.  Leftovers were also great.   Apart from the recipe being a little confusing to read with the make now/make later stuff, this was very easy to do.

This week I'll be going a little easier, since we'll be having guests at the weekend. I don't want to stress myself out with things that are too complicated (but as I've already seen, the recipes in this book look deceptively difficult, but it's just that the look great while being easy to make). The recipes:

Spinach and Goat's Cheese Risotto (I've made risotto before, and it's dead easy if you've got the right rice, and the idea of eating a big green plate of mush is appealing on a childish level);

Pan-fried Sirloin Steak with Simple Chianti Butter Sauce and Olive Oil Mash (who doesn't love a steak-and-potato dinner?); and

The Best Shortbread in the World (as I mentioned, we'll be having guests, so having a nice homemade nibble distracts from my less-than-stellar housecleaning, and with a title like that, how can I not try it?).

I had these leftover egg whites from the ravioli, and I was going to make this in a couple days. But we just got back from a trip and there was nothing sweet left in the house, so I decided to throw this together. After having made ravioli, this was a breeze. Toss egg whites in stand mixer and turn on, making astronomical noise. Beat until firm, then add sugar, turning up mixer so it sounds like a rocket is launching in my kitchen. Jamie's instructions say 7 minutes, but my meringue was glassy and smooth in more like 2. I added my cocoa (I used Ghirardelli -- I don't cook with cheap chocolate) and had a bowl full of chocolatey goodness.

I had a baking sheet lined with wax paper, but forgot the handy trick of putting a dab of meringue underneath so the paper doesn't slide, so my little blobs of meringue ended up becoming one big blog. Which was ok, since I like the gooey middle part more anyway. I baked it for the prescribed hour, and took it out to cool. It promptly sunk into the flatness you see in the photo. I am wondering if this is because I forgot the other classic rule of meringue, which is not to make them on rainy days or in high humidity (it had been pouring all day). I had attempted a Pavlova from Nigella Lawson once, while living in Miami Beach, and the same thing happened: my beautiful fluffy base quickly sunk to a flat chewy disk. There are more recipes with meringue in this book, so I'll keep trying in my quest for a proper meringue that stays fluffy and doesn't sink.

Which isn't to say that it doesn't taste fabulous. Sweet chocolatey gooey nothingness. Mmmmm. I had hoped to get some raspberries and cream to toss this together with, but I don't think it's going to make it past today's trip to the grocery store. This was so easy to make, and all you need to have in the house is eggs and sugar. Jamie gives the proportion of egg white to sugar in case you don't have exactly 6 egg whites sitting around. Fancy looking dessert with very little effort.

I made pasta for dinner.  No, literally.  It couldn't have been easier, and I couldn't be more proud. And I thought I picked the difficult one.  You'd think, looking at it.  So let me get this straight:  you want me to make my own pasta dough, roll it out (without a machine), cut it into little rectangles, fill them with ricotta cheese and then an egg yolk, and then fold them up and seal them, put them into boiling water, cook and then take them out, all without breaking the egg yolk?  Picking this recipe either makes me brave or in for a really big mess.

The dough itself (see last post) was actually rather easy.  So was the ricotta filling -- just cheese, salt, pepper and nutmeg -- so I made that ahead of time.  Rolling out the pasta without a machine?  Not so easy, but doable.  It probably wasn't as thin as it needed to be, but there was only so long my puny little arms could keep that up.  I got out my trusty plastic ruler and cut my 3x6 inch rectangles.  My half-recipe of dough made way more than was called for -- I only rolled out half again for the ravioli, so I threw the rest in the freezer.  (I hope pasta dough keeps!)  The half-quantity of ricotta was exactly right, and filled the 7 ravioli I accidentally made (I was so busy rolling and cutting I didn't realize I made one too many, so I got a plain cheese one as well).  

Now what appeared to be the tricky part:  separating eggs without breaking the yolks and getting them to stay put.  It wasn't as hard as it seemed.  Take care in cracking the egg, and have a container underneath to catch the white for later use.  Transfer the yolk back and forth between the shell sides until all the white has fallen.  Take yolk, and gently nestle into cheese.  It's not as impossible as it sounds, I promise.

I was worried about sealing them up without squishing the yolk, but this wasn't that difficult either.  I don't have a fancy ravioli sealer, so I just used a pizza cutter.  Dab water on ravioli, fold dough gently over filling, press edges together.  It helped to pick up the ravioli once I had sealed two sides and let the filling slide over so I could get the last side without damaging the egg.  Then I cut the edges with the pizza cutter, to make them neat and help with the seal.

I then attempted to place them into boiling water, which was a little difficult because I forgot to flour the piece of waxed paper I had them sitting on, so they wanted to stick.  But I pried them off and put them into the water using a slotted spatula.  I wasn't sure how long to leave them, and I wanted to make sure my slightly-thicker dough got cooked.  This was probably too long, because they were rather firm by the time I took them out to toss them in the butter.  

As I cut one open and nothing oozed out as promised, this confirmed my suspicions of overcooking.  They still tasted great, though.  I am shocked at how little time this took to make.  And with a machine, I could have done it with much less effort in even less time.  It took longer to make those cakes, and I've made cake until it comes out my ears.  The only noodle experience I have is making noodles with my grandmother for soup when I was 9.  This was so easy to make I can't possibly imagine paying too much money for that fresh stuff at the store.  Mine was just as good, and the satisfaction you get from making your own pasta (!) is immense.  I can't wait to make more fresh pasta recipes.

This was a prerequisite to making the egg ravioli.  I again made a half size recipe, since we didn't need to be eating an entire dozen eggs.  I used semolina flour, since that's what I could get my hands on (and I always thought that's what pasta flour was, since that's what it says on the outside of the box).  I started it in the food processor, and it came together in a big lump rather quickly.  I then put it onto my floured board (lots of flour -- it was really sticky) and attempted to knead.  Which wasn't so easy, being your typical knowledge worker with various carpal tunnel/repetitive stress issues in the wrists.  I gave it my best shot, and came up with the lump shown above.  I tossed it in the fridge as instructed, and waited.  This whole process was rather quick.  

There's an ingredient you really need for this recipe to be successful that's not listed in the book.  That ingredient would be hand soap.  In quantity.  Let's see:  trim chicken, wash hands.  Cut leeks, put in bowl, add chicken, wash hands.  Add other seasonings (I used Big House White Wine, because I like the label -- and it has a screw cap! -- and it's pretty good to drink), toss, wash hands.  Cut open bacon package (I used regular bacon, since my store didn't have pancetta and that's what it looks like in his photo, anyway), wrap chicken in bacon, wash hands.  Cut bacon and put in plastic freezer bags (I, like Nigella Lawson, am never without bacon in my freezer), wash hands.   Might need to add hand lotion to that ingredient list after all that hand washing.

The pieces of chicken I got from Whole Foods were the Biggest Chicken Breasts Ever, so I was prepared to bake them a little longer than the instructions allowed for.  I got out my trusty meat thermometer, and after 30 minutes, the insides hadn't reached 170 degrees yet.  So I cranked up my oven to 450 and left them in for another 10 minutes.  That crisped up the bacon a little more and finished cooking everything. 

If you compare the photo to the one in the book, the colors are certainly brighter before you cook things.  That doesn't mean it doesn't taste good, though.  It was a little chicken-y for us. That might have been a function of the size of the chicken pieces I had, but I think this might be more successful with less chicken in relation to everything else.  There's also a nice little sauce left in the pan, so it would be good to have a starch of some sort to serve it over (potatoes would be really tasty).  I can imagine this page could come in handy for those folks who like to cook chicken and have run out of ways to prepare it.  Since we each only ate half of each (really big) serving, I had leftovers.  Which I used to make a rather good chicken pasta carbonara-type dish.  Of which I now also have leftovers.  Not sure what I'm going to make with that...