Mushroom Risotto

Mushroom Risotto By Carrie Fath

There is one food I could eat everyday and that's rice. I love it prepared all different ways but risotto is also a favorite. Today I realized I had everything I needed to make it a pan of mushroom risotto so here is what I did...

Carrie's Mushroom Risotto

1 small onion diced

1 clove garlic minced

One package of your favorite mushrooms chopped

1 cup white wine

4 cups chicken stock warm

2 cups arborio rice

Salt & pepper

1/4 c cream or milk

1/4 c Parmesan cheese

I saluted the onions, garlic and mushrooms in 1 Tblspn butter. Add the rice after approx. 5 minutes and sauté for a few more minutes. Add the wine and simmer for a minute or so. Now add one ladle of broth  and stir until the rice soaks it almost all up. Keep repeating this until the rice is done. It should take about 20 minutes. Keep stirring so it's creamy. Once the rice is done then you can add the cream and Parmesan. Salt & pepper to taste and serve. Enjoy!

Enjoy!

~Carrie

Steak Dinner 😍

Last night my boys wanted a steak dinner. So I took out a couple porterhouse steaks from our side of beef we purchased.  I sprinkled them with a little Chicago Steak seasoning from Penzey Spice (one of my all time favorite stores) and grilled them on the Green Egg at 600 degrees for a few minutes on each side. I cut up two small white onions and dropped them in a quick beer batter and fried them into onion straws...yum!!!!  Did I say yum! OMG, these are so delicious. I also whipped up some mashed potatoes. I add milk, butter and little sour cream, salt, pepper, parsley, onion powder and garlic powder. They are the best mashed potatoes. I only use three or four small potatoes for the three of us.

I took the two small pieces of meat and let the boys have the strips. What a wonderful dinner.

~carrie

Chili's On & Cornbread is Made

What a chilly day I woke to this morning. In the 50's with highs in the low 60's if we even reach 60. Sounds like a good day to make chili and cornbread. That way dinner will be ready before I have to leave for my buyer consultation this evening and the boys leave for hockey.

I had a packet with the beans and seasoning already in it so I chopped up half a large onion, on red pepper and three cloves of garlic. Added that to a pound of browned ground beef into the crockpot with a can of crushed tomatoes, beef stock, the seasoning packet and the beans that I had boiled for 5 minutes and let sit for another hour. That's in the crockpot getting all yummy for dinner. 

Now I just finished up the cornbread.  I found a great sweet recipe online and cut it in half and here is what happened...

It turned out perfect. You can find the recipe right here... Dailydishrecipes.com/moist-sweet-cornbread-recipe/

Enjoy!!!

Xoxo

~Carrie

What to do with all that basil

My garden is a little overgrown with basil so I made pesto tonight. I'll use it on pasta when I want a meatless meal. I like to say meatless so o don't scare off all the meat eaters with the word vegetarian. 

Here's my recipe:

1 cup toasted almonds

1 cup good olive oil

6 cloves of garlic

3 cups fresh basil

Dash of nutmeg

Salt & pepper to taste

1/2 c grated Parmesan

Add all ingredients into a food processor and process until it's the consistency you like. 

I'm freezing some of mine and eating some tomorrow night.

Enjoy!!!  Here is a link to 50 Things To Make With Pesto

Apples are in season

What are you cooking or baking with apples? My son loves apple pie but I hate having a whole pie around the house since most of the time there's just us three. So I bake up little pies using a cutter/mold I purchased from Williams-Sonoma a few years back. Here is the finished product. I did cheat and I used pre-made pie crust which is never as good as homemade but still good. I purchased The apples at a local apple farm this week. They are so sweet this year. I just love them. I chopped them up and sprinkled with a little flour, sugar and cinnamon. Delicious!!!

Please post what your making with apples.

My weekend is filled with work, hockey & football. So I made fajitas on the grill yesterday that we can just reheat when needed this weekend.  Here's a picture of those.

I grilled three chicken breasts while I sauté the veggies. So simple. I marinaded the chicken in some olive oil and fajita seasoning. I used the same seasoning on the peppers and onion.

 ~Carrie

Homemade Pizza Last Night

The Ohio State Buckeyes played against the only team they lost to last year, last night. We made homemade pizza for dinner to munch on while watching the game. I use a classic pizza crust recipe but I jazz it up with Penzey Spice Pizza Dough Seasonings. A few teaspoons does the trick. It makes the best crust. We also use white corn meal instead of flour when rolling out the dough. It helps make a crispy crust on the outside and soft on the inside. We grilled them on the Green Egg at 600 degrees for about 8 minutes.  Here's the finished product.

Quick Meal Between Showing Appointments

I didn't have much time tonight to make dinner so I opted for quick chicken fajitas.

I sliced up & sautéed some onions and peppers, grilled the chicken breasts and sprinkled some fajita seasoning on it and I was done.

Here's a look:

Have a great evening! I hope you're able to enjoy some family time. Always make time for the kiddo's. <3  ~Carrie

Finding Time to do What I Love

Finding time to do what I love...

When I'm not assisting buyers, sellers, and investors with homes or watching my son play football or hockey, I love to cook & bake.  Actually I'm a little obsessed with it. I'm always taking pictures of what I'm making. Just something I love to do. Unfortunately I don't get to do this as often as I would like. But I'm ok with that. I also love helping my clients buy & seller homes.  I'm also a football & hockey fan too.

So, here's what I made for dinner last night.

Beef with Broccoli

I used Ree Drummond's recipe from the food networks website. It was delicious and a big hit.  My son actually came up to me and said, "Mom, you have to make this all the time! I mean all the time! It's that good."  Of course this put a big smile on my face. I did make a few changes. I added sugar snap peas and used cooked rice instead of noodles. Here is a link to the recipe. 

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/beef-with-broccoli.html

When I get awesome compliments it just makes me what cook more. So here is what I made for lunch since I'm working from home today. Another one of my son's favorites.

Sausage, Broccoli & Pasta

 I had leftover sausage from homemade pizza's over the weekend and leftover broccoli so why not!!! Cook your pasta per the package add in some chopped up broccoli the last two minutes. (Don't forget to salt your water) Don't drain your pasta water down the sink. You'll want to save it for sauce. While the pasta & broccoli was cooking I cooked the sausage in my favorite cast iron skillet. You can add some hot pepper flakes into the sausage if you like to add a little kick. It helps with the flavor. Today I added some onion powder while the sausage was heating up.Don't worry about the little amount of grease you'll get. It helps this recipe with flavor. Leave it in the pan. Once the pasta & broccoli was done I scooped it out into the skillet with a slotted spoon. Don't worry about getting water in there either. You want the water for sauce. Put the heat on low and start grating some fresh parmesan cheese. I think I used about a cup or so. Then mixed it in. If the pasta appears dry add a little pasta water in until it gets a little creamy.  Mix up and serve. I always add a little more cheese once on the plate. It always looks nice. Now, this recipe is a bit bland but we eat so well throughout the week that sometime we like a little less flavor. 

I hope you all enjoy! Bye until next time.