Two Mushroom Risotto (crock pot style - 2 hours)

Risotto is usually such a pain in the butt since you have to stand near the stove and stir and stir and stir and stir. But this recipe, found in Robin Robertson's Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker solves that problem by transferring the cooking to the crock pot. I love my crock pot. This allowed Craig and I to play Starfarers of Catan while dinner was cooking. (he won)

I goofed when making this, though, and didn't turn the crock pot to "high" until one hour into the cooking time. The dish was still done in two hours, and I feel, that with my crock pot, cooking for a full two hours on high would have burned the dish.

Here is the recipe with my tweaks:

Ingredients:

• ¼ cup dried porcini mushrooms
• 3 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 small onion, minced
• 1 large clove of garlic, minced
  
• 1¼ c. arborio rice
• 2 c. crimini mushrooms, chopped
• 2½ c. vegetable stock
• 1/8 c. dry sherry
• 1 tsp. dried thyme (or 2 tsp. fresh)
• 1 tsp. salt
• ½ c. freshly grated parmesan cheese (or soy parm, for a vegan option)
• freshly ground black pepper

Preparation:

• Soak the porcini mushrooms in boiling water for 30 minutes. Drain, reserving soaking liquid. Chop mushrooms and set aside.
• In skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic. Cook about a minute or two, until slightly softened.
• Transfer onion mixture to crock pot. Add rice, stirring to coat rice with oil. Stir in both muchrooms, the reserved soaking liquid, stock, sherry, thyme, and salt. Cover, and cook on high until all liquid is absorbed (watch this the first time to discern the exact timing on your slow cooker).
• Stir in cheese and season with pepper.

Serve hot and enjoy.

Please leave a comment and let me know if you try this recipe.

I need a weekend to recover from my weekend...

Here are the makings of an exhausting (but fun and friendship-filled) weekend:

Friday

• ICU nurses night out (good for the chaplain to join them, eh?)

Saturday

• laundry
• farmer's market (getting there so late they were sold out of decent onions)
• search for canning jars, quart size (finally found at Canadian Tire, of all places)
• attempt to make yogurt
• game night with Lindsay and Brian
• realization one shouldn't leave the house for several hours when yogurt is in the incubation period

Sunday

• brunch (and baby fix) with Sarah, Kevin, and Colin
• conference call with the Peace, Justice, and Environment Project
• grocery shopping
• collapse, and watch a couple episodes of Battlestar Galactica (we started the series last month)

Aloha

I'm actually surprised that this was my first time. I have always wanted to do it, but have never had the opportunity until last night. Finally, I had my chance.

I donned my grass skirt, carried my new ukulele and my crock-pot full of "chicken" adobo, and headed to a murder-mystery luau (Craig carried the blended and the fixin's for pina coladas).

I love being in costume. I love playing games. I love performing. So a murder mystery dinner is just my thing.

(Mom thought it amusing that a bunch of chaplains gathered for a murder-mystery night. But you know, our work is so intense, and it's good for us to connect with each other outside of that environment. And being surrounded by the seriousness of death and dying all week long, it's good to be able to inject a little "gallows humour" into our lives.)

I didn't solve the murder (Craig did). But I did look smashing in my fabulous grass skirt.

no monopoly on morality

A few years ago, I declared that I despised the game Monopoly and refused to play it ever again. I sited its obsessive capitalistic leanings as the reason, saying I didn't approve of the value (of fanatical financial acquisition) the game promoted. In reality, it's just a crappy game. Very little strategy is needed to win. In fact, you can play as perfect a game as your rolls allow, and still lose. Badly. As was the case the last time I played Monopoly and swore I would never play again. I hadn't fully realized that my hatred of this game stems from lack of interesting game-play (because the game really does promote a rampant, capitalistic behavior which I have long despised - though only recently has it become popular to despise) until I had to confront my own inconsistency when I was introduced to the game Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico is a brilliantly designed game, which holds your interest with a fantastic balance of strategy and chance and player interaction. It's a truly fabulous game, with only one catch: the little pieces you acquire who represent the people who come to Puerto Rico to work your plantations. The game calls them "settlers". In reality, they are slaves. And slavery is not a value of mine. But the game is really good. Or at least, the game play is superb.

So, what do I do? I must confess I did a decent amount of moralizing against Monopoly in the past few years (sorry Ree!). I think this will just be the case where I name things for what they are, including my own inconsistency. I will admit that Monopoly does promote a value-system that is not my own, but that the reason I dislike the game is because it's a poorly designed game. And I will say that Puerto Rico does not promote my values, but I will admit that the game is fun to play.

And I did have fun playing the game last night over at Sharon and Eric's house.

makings of a perfect weekend

I do believe that a perfect Saturday involves:

• sleeping in


• late brunch with good friends


• trip to the farmer's market


• game night

I could have done without the congested head (knocked my equilibrium out of whack), but over all, it was pretty fantastic. The Urban Diner (blocks away from our home) lived up to the rave reviews. And I totally rocked at Wise and Otherwise.

Steeps

Our neighborhood (or rather, our neighbourhood) is fantastic. We live in a part of Edmonton called Oliver, adjacent to downtown, and filled with stores, museums, galleries, restaurants, churches, and bus stops where we can catch a ride to any other part of the city. I love this neighbourhood.

One of my favorite places here is a delightful little tea house just blocks away. Steeps is an "urban tea house" with several locations in Western Canada, but the original is the one near us. Steeps is steps from the best yarn store around and our insurance agent. It's one of those places filled with eclectic, mismatched furniture, artwork by local artists, and floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with hundreds of varieties of tea (three entire shelves dedicated to varieties of Earl Grey). Tea is served in a french press, and you must go to the sideboard to pick out which tea cup you'll drink from. While you're at the sideboard, you can pick up a scrabble board, or as we did, connect four.

On Friday nights, there is live music, of the mellow, coffee-house variety. Still recovering from my cold, I wasn't up for a wild night on the town. So Steeps was absolutely perfect. My Beloved and I played games, read the paper, talked, laughed, listened to a school teacher from Ft. McMurry sing, and drank delicious tea (mine was a fruity blend called "Creativity", and Craig chose one that smelled like a campfire).

I think this is the perfect beginning for a marvelous weekend.