A treat in November

How's this for a treat on November 13th? It made it into the 60s during the afternoon!

And I enjoyed a perfectly lovely ride with L. Lungeing her on Friday helped. She had a lot of energy on Friday and I lunged her before going off to the Equine Affaire. She charged around like a complete nutbag. So much so she even landed in a heap on one lap. Pretty funny stuff. She gets this "whoa what the hell?" look on her face when she does that. It's especially funny when she's trying to be cool.

Saturday afternoon she was just sensational.

Which was nice. My paint mare G had a case of thrush in her right front foot that needed to be trimmed out and I spent a good hour soaking and wrapping that. I felt pretty bad about that. She's chronically lame on that right foot otherwise I would have been on it much sooner. She's a perfect stinker but she's a good patient. And then...she colics late on Wednesday and I swear that one makes me feel like I'm paying for my sins sometimes.

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This is not hard to do! Porcini risotto. This was just *delicious*!

I soaked some dried porcini mushrooms in boiling water for 5 or 10 minutes.

Dry the mushrooms on some paper towel. Reserve the liquid. I like to splash some of the mushroom water into the risotto. I chopped up the mushrooms.

Typically you'll want to use one part rice to 3 parts liquid. I usually have 4 parts liquid going in case I need more liquid. For a half a cup of rice I got about 2 cups of water going in a saucepan with a chicken bouillon cube. Yes. A chicken bouillon cube. It's important your liquid is hot! Your rice will stop cooking if you add liquid that isn't hot. It doesn't have to be boiling.

Now this is all about technique and while it looks hard and complicated, it isn't, and I really don't know why people are so intimidated by risotto. This is Italian home cooking.

• Put a tablespoon of olive oil in a hot skillet
  
• Add the rice to the skillet. Now, think Rice-A-Roni here. Scatter it around, I let it get a little brown and toasty.
  
• Add a third of a cup of finely chopped yellow onion
  
• When the onion starts to get soft and translucent splash in a half a cup of white wine. I used chardonnay.
  
• When the wine if just about gone, ladle in some liquid from the saucepan
  
• Stir and shake, leave it be. Repeat.
  
• As the liquid cooks off and is absorbed by the rice, ladle in more, stir and shake. Adjust the heat if you need to - if the liquid seems to cook off really fast, turn down the heat, if it's going too slowly, turn the heat up. There's a lot of feels right and looks right to the technique here. I think that's what some people find hard. It's kind of like that "cook it until it's done" way of cooking.
  
• By the time you get to that 3 parts liquid to one part rice you're almost done
  
• Splash in some of the liquid that you used for soaking the mushrooms
  
• Start giving it a taste, might need the tiniest pinch of salt, remember, it's going to be finished with parmesan cheese so go light on the salt. The bouillon is salty too and it might not need any at all.
  
• Put the mushrooms in
  
• Add some broth, very small amounts at a time, stir and shake until the rice is done to your liking
  
• Finish with some grated parmesan cheese. Not a lot. Third of a cup maybe.
  

This whole thing took maybe 20 minutes. I wasn't paying much attention.

To a large extent risotto is a personal thing. I had some risotto once at a Michelin Star restaurant and I thought it was just awful. I like my rice to be a little bit al dente against a nice creamy background.

I serve it with a little parsley and the only thing that disappointed me about this one was the fact I finished my wine while I was making it and didn't have any left to go with it. I couldn't help myself!

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