Sunday Dinner: Butternut Squash Risotto

A few weeks ago I had the sudden urge to make a big Sunday dinner. Something that maybe lots of families make all across the country but due to my aversion to things like pot roast and other meat based meals have never experienced.

I like big Sunday dinners because it gives you lots of leftovers to eat throughout the week! This time I decided to go with several dishes - Butternut Squash Risotto, Sauteed Mushrooms, Kale with Garlic and Chili, Rosemary-Garlic Roasted Potatoes, and Field Roast. I'd never tried to make risotto before - in fact I'm pretty sure I'd never even eaten risotto. It did take a bit of time, but it was delicious! Who knew something could be so creamy and delicious without any cream at all? I suppose I did at a *tiny* bit of cheese at the end, but really - hardly any at all.

You should try it - I promise it is worth the little bit of time it takes to make!


Butternut Squash Risotto
Recipe adapted from The Wednesday Chef

1/2 Butternut Squash, diced (12oz if you're buying it pre-cut)
1 Large Onion, diced
8 Cups Vegetable Stock
2 Cups Arborio Rice
1/2 Cup Dry White Wine
3 Tbs Butter, unsalted
1/4 Cup Parmesan, grated
Handful of Sage leaves
Salt and Pepper

1) Combine squash, a few sage leaves, and 1 cup of stock in a pot - bring to a simmer and cook for ~10 minutes until squash is tender. Drain and reserve liquid and set squash aside.
2) In another pot heat the remaining stock and keep warm - you don't want it boiling but you want it to be hot when you add it to the rice later.
3) Chop up 6 sage leaves - saute in 2 Tbs of melted butter over medium heat for 1 minute then add the diced onion - saute for 5 minutes until onions are translucent.
4) Lower the heat on the onions and sage and add the rice and a pinch of salt  - cook for 3 minutes before turning the heat back up to medium and adding the white wine. Cook until the wine has been absorbed and then add enough of the hot vegetable stock to cover the rice.
5) Reduce heat to medium-low and continue to stir occasionally until the stock has been absorbed - continue adding 1/2 cup of stock at a time and stirring until it has been absorbed before adding more.
6) Once all of the stock has been absorbed (about 30 minutes) add the squash, Parmesan, and remaining 1 Tbs of butter and season with salt and pepper. Stir gently to combine and serve with chopped sage as a garnish.

Oregon Mushroom Class

Last weekend we went to a mushroom class here in town with a few of our friends. To be honest I was a little skeptical that the class would be worthwhile, but it was only $25 and you got to pick a mushroom variety to inoculate a log with!

The class was about what I expected - a lot of hippies gathered in a room, the mushrooms instructors speaking flowingly about the amazing healing powers of mushrooms, etc, etc. I'll give it this - the lecture portion was incredibly entertaining if not exactly educational. By far the best part was getting the chance to try to cultivate some different varieties of mushrooms for ourselves. There were four of us at the class and we all made sure to choose a different type of mushroom - I'm not sure I remember them all: While Elm, Beech, Lion's Mane, and...  nope don't remember the last one.

We were each given a packet of dowels that had been soaked in mushroom spores and a log to drill holes into. Once you've drilled the holes and hammered in the dowels you paint melted beeswax over them to help keep other microorganisms from getting into the log. Then you leave them outside and wait - about 6 months I think. We'll see if we actually end up with any mushrooms this fall, but it would be kind of neat!

This is high on my list of the most Oregonian things I have ever done. (I'm not sure what else is on that list actually - but this one definitely is).

-C

Oregon Truffle Hunting - Rd. 2

Jonathan is at the Trail Blazer's game tonight - sitting behind the coach's bench nonetheless (is that what it's called?)! I tried to find the game on tv so I could see him, but I don't think anyone actually cares about basketball and I was unsuccessful. Instead I get to watch Wipeout and drink wine... and tell you about the awesome truffles we found today!

I didn't tell you before, but those truffles we found the other week? They were no good. I'm pretty sure they ended up in the trash. Or maybe in the compost. They were indeed truffles, just not the good kind. After going out today with people who knew what they were doing it seems so obvious - but at the time we had no idea.

So today we went to another coworker's property - one where they had found many (good) truffles before! (This is where the first truffles came from that Jonathan looked at under the microscope and we made the truffle butter out of.) Today was absolutely beautiful out, which made looking for truffles even better! There were about a dozen of us who showed up, and I'm pretty sure everyone found truffles. It's so much more fun when you are consistently finding them! Here is our loot:

Not very appetizing, are they? They look a little better when you clean them off (although not much really - sorry truffles). Here is one of the larger ones that we found - we were pretty excited about how big most of these ones were!

 I'm not sure what we will do with the actual truffles this time, but we got an idea from Sue (our coworkers mom, owner of the property) to flavor some oil and rice with the truffles while we store them! We got some arborio rice so that eventually we can make a mushroom risotto. See how much better they look now that they are cleaned? You can pretend with me.

You know, I never thought I would actually say this - but I love Corvallis. I love Oregon (but that was less surprising). How neat is it that we can drive 10 minutes from our house and have these kinds of adventures? I have tons more wild edibles to learn about so that I can start using that Vegan Wild Edibles cookbook that Julie and Elliot got us for Christmas!

-C

Oregon Truffle Hunting

mFirst off - I hope you'll bear with me as I fumble my way through designing my blog. You may notice a lot of changes over the next few weeks as I play with making new templates and banners and try to get things a bit more personalized. Hopefully it doesn't look too awful in the mean time!

There has been a recent peak in interest in mushroom hunting at work. A few weeks ago a coworker had brought in some Oregon White Truffles he had found. The good news is that no truffles are known to be poisonous, but apparently there are a few look-alike varieties that don't taste so great. Jonathan was able to convince this guy to cut up one of the truffles and look at it under a scope to identify the spores. Turns out - they were the good kind! We were given a few and made truffle butter with them (Tasty, but worth the price they go for in stores? I don't really think so).

This weekend we headed out to Lebanon with some friends from work to search for truffles at another coworkers property. Apparently he had just the right trees at just the right age to make finding truffles likely. The only problem was, none of us really knew what we were looking for. We'd heard things and read things, sure, but no one in our group had actually ventured out and searched for them before.

The first hour proved rather unsuccessful - a few "almosts" and "maybe that's one... just a really small one!" and we were about ready to give up. That was when we heard shouts of excitement through the trees - Carrie had found them! We had been going about it all wrong - all you need for finding truffles is your hands, not tools and digging utensils!

We spent the next half hour or so pawing at the ground and found a few handfuls of various size truffles. Nothing super impressive, but we were at least happy the trip had yielded some success!

Here's us with our loot minus Jonathan since he was taking the photo (I know you can't see it, but trust me - there are truffles in there)!

-C

P.S. Don't worry - no one has eaten any of the mushrooms yet. We are waiting to verify that we definitely know what they are before we do that!