Although I said I don't want to keep posting about the same things my post tonight will include chicken and risotto. However, I did do something a little different to my chicken. I am excited to keep trying new things, especially new things I come up with on my own, rather than things I find in books or online(although I do still use those recipes a lot).
As a lot of you know my husband has become a home brewer and has made some pretty great beer since January. He has made a light beer, a strawberry light beer, a wheat beer(especially for me, with my favorite tea ever as one of the ingredients), and some others. I used the light beer today to make a cheddar beer bread. The bread tasted great but something happened in the machine and the bread did not form properly. We salvaged it and ate what we could for tonight and will continue to hack away at the loaf.
I also made chicken and risotto for dinner. The chicken, I used a little something different to bind the breadcrumbs to the chicken. I was going to use mayo which I use fairly often and then I thought I would use miracle whip, which I also use fairly often. And then, it hit me I could mix the mayo and miracle whip together to get a sweet tangy taste, and then it hit me again, to add Dijon mustard. It was incredible. The combination of the three was perfect and the breadcrumbs just made the chicken fantastic. The chicken was moist and flavorful.
I made risotto as our side dish. The process can be long and drawn out but if you do it right you can get a creamy delicious risotto. I always make mine a cheese risotto but you could make it anyway you want, as long as you get the creaminess from your cooking you don't need the cheese to do it for you. Tonight's risotto was probably my creamiest yet without the cheese. I used white wine and chicken broth as my liquid to slowly steam and cook the arborio rice. This made for a great flavor as well as a great texture. Walt and I did this together tonight, as I cooked the rice and slowly stirred it Walt added the liquid as I would ask for it. We worked well as a team and it was a great way to spend my Sunday evening.
Although our plates looked very bland the flavors in the bread, risotto, and chicken were far from bland. It was great night of eating and exploring new cooking techniques.
I will try to post more, especially this summer as I explore light, cool, eating for the rapidly increasing heat of Soda City.
Have a great week, especially to all those teachers I know out there that are so close to end. You can make it!
-Jamie
P.S. I made cupcakes a couple weeks ago for Relay for Life and as much as I don't want to toot my own horn I am going to toot my own horn. The icing for them was spot on as far as taste and texture. I made the cupcakes with different color cancer awareness ribbons in honor or in memory of family and friends who Walt and I have lost or have and will be fighting side by side with in this great battle against ALL cancer. Here is a picture of the cupcakes:
