The Turkey Trials (Episode 1)

Apparently I'm not very good at this blogging thing.  Well, at least at the blogging consistently thing.  Have no fear, I haven't had any culinary breakthroughs in the time that I've been away.  A few disasters (spaghetti squash...I need to practice that some more) but nothing huge.

I did make some adorable and delicious hurricane cookies the day that Hurricane Sandy rolled through.

I found the idea and recipe for these cute little things here.

There is one important thing that happened while I was being too lazy to blog....

NOVEMBER arrived.

I love November.  Mostly, I love gorging myself at Thanksgiving.  I have been hosting Turkey Day for a few years now (since hubby and I have been married).  I thoroughly enjoy hosting, despite my mother's premonitions that this won't always be the case (advice from a woman who hosted Thanksgiving for over 20 years...I love you, mom!).

I spend most of November planning and prepping for Thanksgiving.  Planning the menu, testing various new recipes, cleaning the house, and spending way too much time on Pinterest looking for ideas.

One of the most important parts of this November nutty-ness is testing new recipes.  I'm slowly pinning down favorite turkey day staples but I also love changing things up every year.  Today I attempted my first Turkey Day trial (thus it's officially Thanksgiving season!)

What recipe did I choose for this momentous occasion?  A highly rated little gem by none other than my favorite celebrity chef, Ms. Ina Garten.

Saffron Risotto with Butternut Squash

I know what you're thinking...holy ambitious, Batman!  Well, you're right.  This recipe was a crazy jump for me for the following reasons:

1. I've never made risotto before.
2. I've never cooked with butternut squash before.
3. I've never used saffron in cooking before.
4. I've never had or cooked with pancetta (an ingredient in this risotto).

Are we noticing a pattern here, people?

In an effort to channel Ina's spirit as good luck for this recipe, I took a trip to my local fancy cheese shop.  I pretended to know what I was doing and walked away with a hunk of pancetta and some stinky Parmesan cheese.

Back at home, I turned on some tunes, went for it and started risotto-ing.

I peeled and chopped up the butternut squash (so what if I had to Google how to peel a butternut squash...it's a learning process, people).  I threw all that golden goodness into a pan, tossed it with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and into the oven at 400 it went.

While the squash was roasting away for about 30 minutes, I diced up my pancetta and onion.  The recipe calls for shallots but I couldn't find any at the store (I didn't look very hard...) so I substituted in some onion.

After perusing reviews of this recipe online, I decided to make a few tweaks, such as using less butter in the next step.  I melted about 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter in my trusty dutch oven and added the pancetta and onion over medium low heat.

While that was sizzling away, I began to warm up my chicken broth (not homemade, sorry Ina) on a back burner. 

On a side note...pancetta smells so ridiculously amazing while cooking.  Why have I never used this stuff before??

About 10 minutes later, my onions were translucent and my pancetta appeared to be cooked through.
Time to add the rice!  Can we just talk about how adorable Arborio rice is?  It's so little and squat and ovalish.  Super cute.  Have I mentioned that rice is my favorite food?  Anyway, in went the rice and saffron.  I didn't have any white wine (a sin, I know) so I used a little bit of my warmed up chicken broth instead.

As a saffron virgin, I totally expected the entire dish to turn saffrony golden yellow instantly when the saffron was added.  Alas, I was disappointed to see no such miraculous color change.  As per reviews of this recipe, I only added about half a teaspoon of saffron instead of the full teaspoon in the ingredient list.

After a few minutes, it was time to start the intimidating part.  If you've watched food shows half as much as I have, you probably have a healthy fear of the risotto process, just as I do.  Facing my fear and putting my trust in Ina's recipe, I slowly added two ladles of my simmering chicken broth and held my breath....

I stirred and watched and waited.

A little more than 5 minutes later, when the broth appeared to be soaked up, I did it all over again.  It seemed to be coming along nicely.  I still held my breath.

There's that pretty saffron yellow I was looking for!  It was being shy and took a while to warm up to me.

While this wild risotto dance was taking place, my butternut squash finished roasting and it came out to cool.

Hello, beautiful.

After adding ladles of broth, stirring, and waiting about 3 times, I added the squash, one more ladle of broth, and my fancy cheese.

 
I let all of that golden deliciousness sit over low heat for a few minutes, still going stir-crazy (haha get it?) and gently breaking up the chunks of squash with my spoon.

A few minutes later, I couldn't stand it anymore and licking the spoon wasn't cutting it so I let out my held breath and declared my risotto experiment finished.

DO YOU SEE THAT COLOR?  That bowl is screaming, "It's Autumn, eat me!".  I had to listen to it.

Two bowls later, I called my first turkey trial a success.

HOLY CRAP, I MADE RISOTTO. 

This stuff is seriously delicious.  Is all risotto like this??  I've only had risotto a few times in my life but oh man, I've been missing out.  What did I take away from this experiment of mine?

• risotto is not as scary as I thought
• maybe a tad less saffron next time, I couldn't taste the butternut squash as much as I wanted to
• empty your bladder and turn off your phone before embarking on a risotto journey, you'll be way too paranoid to leave that sizzling pot for even a second 

 I would love to add this dish officially to my Thanksgiving 2012 menu but I have some worries...I'm all about making anything I can ahead of time to cut down on the craziness of turkey day and I'm concerned about this recipe being a bit too time consuming for the big day.  I'm typically juggling a dozen different last minute foods half an hour before Thanksgiving dinner, will I really have the time to dedicate to risotto making?

I'll have to ponder this quandary.

For now, happy November and I'll try to be better about posting :)