Simple Asparagus, Mushroom and Chicken Risotto

Wow. It's been awhile. We had our son, Elliot, on July 15th! He came in at a whopping 11 pounds 2 ounces and 22.5 inches long. :) He's now a big ol' 4 month old with 2 teeth (that he's had for two months!). He keeps us on our toes, so we haven't had as much time to document our cooking adventures. Sorry about that!

I've got a quick little recipe today that serves 3-4 people. No pretty pictures for this one. Jacob is a slow poke when it comes to taking photos and I was too hungry to wait. Hehe! Again, I must emphasize the importance of fresh, local, and preferably organic ingredients. Treat yourself. It's worth it to spend a little extra dough (wah wah, bad food joke) on your food. This is the stuff that fuels you and you deserve PREMIUM! :D Okay, enough jokes. Seriously though, buy local, buy fresh, and buy organic. Reduce your carbon footprint and help yourself be healthier and eat tastier food. I'd also like to add a special shout out to Healthy Family Farms, our favorite place to get chicken and pork products from. We get one of their pasture fed (no corn/no soy) birds every week and it never disappoints. This recipe uses leftovers from our weekly roasted chicken in two ways - the shredded chicken itself and the deliciously potent stock we make from the carcass. Yay Healthy Family Farms!

Here's the recipe...

Simple Asparagus, Mushroom, and Chicken Risotto
- Chicken Stock - 3 cups of stock - we make ours from our chicken leftovers. If you don't have enough, just use a cup of water and add extra herbs
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1-2 tablespoons butter
- 1 cup Arborio rice
- 1 small red onion, chopped into 1 inch pieces
- 1 bunch of asparagus, fresh. Chop into little 1/2 inch to 1 inch pieces.
- 6-8 small brown mushrooms, fresh. Slice 'em!
- Left over roasted pasture fed chicken, shredded. (This is leftover from our regular Roasted Chicken & Veggies on Sundays.. a recipe will be coming in the next few days for that!)
- Thyme, Garlic, Pepper, Salt to flavor as you prefer. :)

1. Saute onion with butter and oil for 2-3 minutes
2. Still in rice and cook for 1-2 minutes
3. Add water, simmer until moisture is almost completely cooked off. Then, do the same, about a cup at a time for the stock. Be sure to keep on stirring this. Stirring is important to get the texture correct!
4. When you add the last cup of stock, be sure to add the mushrooms, asparagus and leftover roasted chicken. :)
5. Once it is creamy instead of "wet", you're done! Serve warm. Feel free to sprinkle some parmesan cheese on there.

Takes about 30-45 minutes, depending on how slow you simmer. :) I usually chop the veggies while the first two cups of liquid simmer to save on prep time.

Boozy Brownies

Back in September 2007, I wrote this entry over in the LiveJournal Community “coeliac_recipes”. I thought I’d share it with you today as it is one of my favorite recipes to make when we have a group of friends over for a game night. Alcohol + chocolate = crazy delicious! :) Sorry, no pictures! I haven't made these since being pregnant since the alcohol doesn't cook off.

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So recently I glutened myself on purpose. It is the first time I've ever done it and of course, I regretted it immediately afterward. I had two bites of "boozy brownies" at a party. They just were too amazing to resist.

I decided to create my own version of the boozy brownies based on my friend's recipe, some internet influence, and my own creativity.

For the brownies, I used the Pamela's basic brownie recipe then got boozin'!
Here is the recipe from Pamela’s Products.

Brownies - dense and deep chocolate
1/2 cup melted butter
4 ounces melted unsweetened chocolate (I personally always add one extra ounce, making it 5 ounces of chocolate. Yum!)
1 cup sugar (I use vanilla sugar)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I always add a little extra)
1 cup Pamela's Baking & Pancake Mix
Nuts or chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°. Melt chocolate and mix with melted butter. Add eggs, vanilla and sugar, and beat. Add Pamela's Baking & Pancake Mix and combine. Add optional nuts and/or chocolate chips. Bake in a lightly greased 8-inch square pan for 20 to 25 minutes, done when a toothpick inserted comes out with crumbs. Do not overbake!

Now…it’s my turn!
After removing brownies from the oven, pour on top anywhere between 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup spiced rum or bourbon (depending on your alcohol dependence ;)). Let sit for 5-10 minutes then put in fridge until cool.

While the boozy chocolaty goodness is cooling, make frosting!

1/2 cup butter softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla or a partial vanilla bean (to taste – I’m a bit of a vanilla nut!)
3-4 tablespoons Spiced Rum

Blend until smooth! Put in the refrigerator to help thicken. If still too runny due to too much booze, use a little Pamela’s Baking Mix to thicken up the frosting.

Once everything is cool, spread on brownies, re-refrigerate to thicken again and then ENJOY!! :)

Aw heck, why not one more? Cup pies!

I was going to hold off and post this later this week, but the picture is just too delicious not to share right away.  Something I forgot to mention is that Jacob and I are ardent supporters of local and organic produce. We shop the local farmers markets, primarily the one in Burbank. Many of our ingredients come from the local farmers (from the honey to the produce). It makes a huge difference in flavor!

So what is this yummy recipe that just could not wait? Why, it's Cherry Strawberry Honey Cup Pies (gluten free, of course!).

To kick this off, you have to make the cup pie crusts. I use the pie crust recipe over on Pamela's Products' website titled "Pie Crust". It yields one 9" pie crust OR in this case, 10 delicious little cup pie crusts with just a pinch leftover. I sprayed a little olive oil into the muffin pan and then pressed the crusts into each cup. It takes a little while, but it is well worth the effort. Just follow the directions over on Pamela's website. I think it is important to mention that this crust is a very buttery, cookie like crust. It is NOT flaky like your traditional pie crust. So, if you are making these with a regular ol' pie crust recipe, you may want to take that into consideration.

The filling is where I come in. 

Cherry Strawberry Honey Filling

2 cups fruit - in this case, 1 1/4 cup pitted cherries and 3/4 cup strawberries

1/2 cup water

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/4 cup vanilla sugar (I make mine with bourbon beans & sugar)

1/4 cup wildflower honey

2 tablespoons corn starch

Cook the fruit and half cup water for 7 minutes. Add lemon juice and continue cooking for another 3 minutes.  Toss in the sugar and honey and blend.  Now, the key with the corn starch is to SLOWLY put the starch in, gradually thickening the filling.  If you go too fast, you'll end up with corn starch globs. It's not a huge deal, but it isn't as pretty and the filling will end up being a little thin.  Once this is done, turn off heat. Let cool 5 minutes then transfer to a bowl and let it finish cooling off in the fridge.  Voila! You now have pie filling that is delicious.

I fill the pies up as we're ready to eat them to avoid a soggy crust. It makes a delicious, well contained dessert that isn't quite as messy as conventional pie.

Enjoy!

Welcome to the inaugural post of Tasty Bytes!

Hey everyone. Welcome to the first posting from Tasty Bytes - a husband/wife team of geeky cooks. We're happy to have you here. This blog will be the place we share our original recipes or recipe modifications. We are by no means professional chefs and to be honest, we're not the best about measuring things, but we'll do our best here to keep our recipes clear, concise, and measured so that you can recreate them in your own homes.

Just a heads up that everything we make is GLUTEN FREE. This means that it is free of wheat, barley or rye. At the moment, we don't make our own flour blend, but use the awesome baking mix by Pamela's Products. I highly recommend Pamela's to anyone who is baking or cooking gluten free.

I guess the best way to kick this off would be to introduce "the team".

That's me, Michelle, currently knocked up (35 and a half weeks) with our first child. I'm a voice actor here in Los Angeles. It's a pretty sweet gig. I get paid to play pretend which is FANTASTIC since I never truly grew up. I've always loved to cook and bake. The first time I went "off recipe" was by accident when I was 13. I was baking zucchini bread to enter in the county fair. I accidentally grabbed corn syrup instead of the oil! I realized my mistake and just kind of improvised the rest of the recipe trying to compensate. It ended up turning out to be an amazing loaf of bread and I got a blue ribbon! I was hooked with being creative in the kitchen from then on.

This is my husband Jacob. He's a software engineer for a major company. He also likes to play around with photography, is a talented musician, and is a great cook. He's quite the guy, right? Jacob wasn't much of a cook until after we got married our sophomore year of college. One night, Jacob decided to surprise me by making orange chicken with homemade sauce. It was then he discovered that not only did he LIKE to cook, but he was quite good at it too!

Well that's enough rambling about us! Let's get on to a recipe or two.

The first recipe we're going to share is Vanilla Lemon-Limeade. This is based off of a vanilla lemonade recipe I found when I first discovered how awesome vanilla is when it's straight from the bean. I can't find the source anymore as I've had it handwritten on a post it note for awhile now.

Vanilla Lemon-Limeade

2 lemons & 2 limes
3/4 cup turbinado "raw" sugar
1 vanilla bean
6 cups cold water

Throw 2 cups of water in a blender with 3/4 cup raw sugar. Wash the fruit well and slice in half. Juice the fruit and scrap the pulp into the blender. Toss in half the rinds (making it half lemon/half lime). Take a knife, and split the vanilla bean length wise. Scrap out the vanilla caviar into the blender. Then toss in the scraped beans as well. Let stand in blender in refrigerator for 24 hours. Remove vanilla bean and rinds. Add the remaining 4 cups water and blend on low. If you'd like, you can strain it, but I just toss in a glass with some ice and it is good to go! Ahh, refreshing.

Well, I hope you enjoy this recipe! We'll have more coming later this week including Cup Pies and Cheesy Garlic Mashed Potatoes.