Tomato Basil Risotto

I love risotto.  I love all kinds of risotto.  It's probably my favorite dish.  However, it's not very healthy because most risotto dishes use heavy cream.  As a result, I try not to eat it too much.  It also is one of the more expensive dishes at a restaurant.

I found this Tomato and Basil Risotto recipe that doesn't use heavy cream.  It looked amazing in the picture, and I had all of the ingredients, so I figured why not.

It was amazingly delicious.  I would definitely make this again.  I didn't put any sugar in it since it said to put in just a pinch of sugar, and I figured that if it was too tart I could add that in at the end.

I also used canned, diced tomatoes instead of grated fresh tomatoes since I didn't have fresh tomatoes.

Rotini bolognese

I've seen Bolognese sauce at restaurants before and usually just associate them with being a ground meat sauce.  I've never really had cravings for them.  I just thought they were tomato sauce with ground meat.

This recipe had much more flavor, even without the anchovy and porcini mushrooms.  The recipe called for these, but I didn't have any mushrooms since Mike hates mushrooms.  I also didn't know where to buy anchovy and didn't think Mike would touch this dish if it had anchovies in it.

I also have pancetta, so I used about 10 small pieces of thinly sliced ham that I had in the freezer.  I don't remember why I bought this ham.  Perhaps it was for Mike to make himself sandwiches for lunch?  It had been in the freezer for a while, so I wanted to use it.  I figured that pancetta is often described as being similar to ham, so why not sub ham for pancetta?

I was supposed to chop the carrots separately from the pancetta, mushrooms and anchovies, but since I was only going to process the carrots and ham, I just made them at the same time in the Vitamix.  Most of the carrots were finely chopped, but some did turn out a little big.  When I put the mixture in the Dutch oven, I just put the 2 or so pieces of carrots back in the Vitamix and chopped them up with the tomato sauce.

The dish was delicious, and a great way to cook carrots, since you really can't taste them!  I wasn't sure how long to cook the pasta, since I used Rotini instead of Linguini (which I didn't have).

Chicken Parmesan

Mike loves Chicken Parmesan, so I've been looking for some good recipes.  We found a pretty good one online, but the recipe calls for lightly frying it before finishing it in the oven.  There is also quite a lot of cheese on the chicken.  The meal was pretty good, but felt pretty unhealthy.

I found a recipe in the Comfort Food Makeovers book where the chicken is baked.  I figured I would give it a try since this book is supposed to make healthier versions of regular dishes.

The recipe called for 6 boneless skinless chicken breasts, which are then pounded until they are about 1/2 inch thick.  I didn't have any, so I used 3 boneless skinless chicken thighs and cut them in half.  I didn't pound the chicken, but I figured that they were pretty thin already.

I "over toasted" the Panko, so it was quite dark.  Next time I will toast it less, or just try to make the toasted Panko in the toaster oven.  I think there was a lot of extra Panko and other breading since I made 6 much smaller pieces of chicken.

The chicken was also a little dry since I cooked it too long.  I would definitely cook it for a shorter amount of time next time.  I was afraid of changing the cooking time since my chicken was probably thicker than 1/2 inch, even if their other dimensions were smaller.

I also made Roasted Garlic Creamy Tomato Sauce using the Vitamix instead of making the Tomato Sauce from the recipe book.

Angel hair and meatballs

This was really supposed to be Spaghetti and Meatballs, but I didn't have any spaghetti.  I asked Mike if he wanted Angel Hair or Fettuccine and he said "Angel Hair".  All of these long, thin pastas are the same to me anyway.

I've always wanted to try to make my own meatballs.  The ones in the package from Costco are OK, but I've never really liked them that much.  The ones that I've had at restaurants are usually really good.  The Aidells brand meatballs that are at Costco sometimes are good, but there are only so many meatballs you can eat...  Most of the meatball recipes which I found online use a mix of ground beef, pork and lamb.  I didn't really want to buy that much meat just to make meatballs, especially since I don't know how the dish will turn out.

Comfort Food Makeovers (this is starting to become one of my favorite cookbooks!) had a recipe for Spaghetti and Meatballs that uses ground turkey.  I like to use ground turkey because it's healthier, and I don't mind buying lots of it since it can use it in various dishes.  It's much healthier than ground beef, and for some reason ground pork just seems to be more expensive, though ground turkey can be expensive when not on sale.

Mike actually helped make the meatballs, but then he had to do something else, so I had to do the rest of the recipe.  It actually wasn't hard to make.  The only problem is that I need bigger pots and pans.  I didn't have a 12 inch skillet and somehow Mike made more than the 12 meatballs which the recipe said to make, so I had to cook the meatball in batches.  I'm not sure if he used more meat than the recipe called for, or if he just made them the wrong size.  The first meatball he made was definitely not 1 1/2 inches.

Also, the recipe uses 3 cans of diced tomatoes.  2 cans are pureed in a food processor so that there are no tomato chunks (I used my Vitamix of course) and one is left alone so that the sauce will have tomato chunks.  When Mike brought home his lunch container, I noticed that he had picked out all of the tomato chunks.  Sigh.  If I'd known, I would've just pureed all 3 cans instead of wasting all of those good tomatoes!