Foody post and other things

[rhiannon76]

Right now, I'm experimenting with making a brown risotto. I've wanted to try this for a while, and I finally had an open evening.

It went something like this....

~2 Tbsp ghee

3-4 small garlic cloves, minced

1/2 a small red onion, chopped

5-6 cherry tomatoes, quartered

3-4 dried figs, chopped with stem removed

somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 cup chopped pecans

1 cup short-grain brown rice

~2 Tbsp white shiraz

a bunch of vegetable broth

1-2 Tbsp fresh sage, cut in chiffonade

Melt the ghee over medium heat. Toss in the garlic and onion, and cook, stirring frequently, till soft. Toss in the tomatoes, figs, and pecans, stir, and cook a bit more. Add in the rice, stir to coat with the ghee, and cook for about a minute or until the rice starts to get fragrant. Add in the wine and stir till it has been absorbed by the rice. Add salt and pepper to taste. Start to add the broth in 1/2 cup increments, stirring frequently and allowing each 1/2 cup to be absorbed before adding the next. (It's taking a while for this, since it's brown rice, but I've put in about 3 cups and think it might be almost done, as the rice is now toothy rather than crunchy. I've used all my broth now, but if I find that I need more liquid, I'll start adding warm water.) Once it's cooked enough, I'll toss in the sage and any additional salt and pepper that might be needed, and maybe a touch more ghee to round it off.

The rice still needs a bit of time, but oh my god does it smell and taste divine-- rich, sweet/savory in a nice hearty autumnal way. I can't wait till it's done. At some point, I want to try a similar thing, but with a dry red wine, some rich mushrooms, currants, and some kind of game meat, maybe duck. Yum.

Other recent occurrances, in bullet format:

Saturday:

didn't go to Indy PPD, as it was postponed on account of severe thunderstorms. Sleeping in = heavenly

attempted to cut left thumb off, but mostly failed.

danced with hecubuscathead in the Durga tour show-- our performance went really well, and it was a fun, short show with other good performances. meddevi thoroughly ate all of our souls.

went out to the Lion for drinks/nosh afterwards, which was lovely until we left and found that my car had been towed. RAGE!!! Fucking tow companies and fucking home football weekends. 45 minutes and a small fortune in cash later, I had my car again and was able to transport hecubuscathead and wynkyn back to where they wished to be.

came home to montanamax and a bouquet of flowers the size of Texas. omg. Max also cleaned up my horrible messy kitchen for me, even after a ridiculously long day of cooking for the football game. He's a good one, my cowboy.

Sunday:

went to the Durga tour workshops taught by meddevi. I wasn't feeling great during the veil workshop, so I was having a hard time concentrating, but the Strange Presence workshop was awesome and challenging and interesting.

failed to finish grading my students' exam essays, and had to beg off a meeting with other AIs to swap essays.

hung out for a while with meddevi, mr. meddevi, their kitty Mischief, prosewitch, and hecubuscathead. Drank wine, snarked at a bad Tarantino flick, and generally had fun. It was awesome. Mr. meddevi gave us a Cthulhu-themed CD, which was really nice of him.

failed again to finish grading exams

Monday:

saw a Cooper's hawk having a fight with an angry hoosier squirrel in the graveyard behind Beck Chapel. Whoah.

finished grading exams! students did overall a lot better than anticipated-- I was proud of them.

Tuesday:

gave a presentation on Gypsy narratives in Buffy the Vampire Slayer for my Roma class. It was a lot more disjointed than I'd planned (I hadn't had time to write out what I wanted to say, so it was all jumbled in my brain). But I got to show clips from seasons 1 and 2, and possibly got one of my classmates hooked (I lent her my season 1 box set to watch this weekend.)

...And puppies.