Pumpkin & Mushroom Risotto (recipe)

Hey guys :) 

Today, I went to Langham Hotel with Farn and his family for a lunch buffet - it was really really good! But more on that later... Because I'm teaching you guys how to make Pumpkin & Mushroom Risotto tonight :D 

To serve two very hungry/three normal people:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

2. Chop up a quarter of a pumpkin, lots of mushrooms and broccoli 

3. Dice 1.5 large/2 small onions and place in a separate bowl. 

4. Place the chopped pumpkin and mushroom on a tray and season them with salt, pepper, herbs (eg - thyme, rosemary) and olive oil. Roast for about 20 minutes until golden and tender but make sure it does not turn soft and mushy because you will be cooking it again with the risotto in the end. 

5. To prepare the actual risotto, heat up ~750mL of vegetable stock (and water) in a saucepan until it boils. Make sure you keep this warm throughout the entire process and you can always heat up more as you go. 

6.  Meanwhile, pour some oil and a knob of butter in a large pot. Sweat the diced onions in it and then add a few sploshes of good quality red or white wine and keep stirring until you cook the alcohol off (optional).

7. Now pour one cup of arborio rice and coat it in the oil for 30 seconds before adding one ladle of heated stock. 

 

Notice how grainy the rice appears at first in the picture above. Let the mixture simmer on low heat and make sure you always stir it.



When the rice has absorbed the stock and water, pour in another ladle and repeat this for around 25 minutes until you can see and feel the rice getting plumper and all the starch oozing out.

 

8. Taste the risotto as you go and season with salt if needed. When the rice grains are nearly cooked, add the chopped broccoli in. 

We also added in some lemon zest and juice to lift up the risotto but this is optional (don't let any lemon seeds fall in...yuck)

9. Keep adding stock if needed and now add in the roasted pumpkin and mushrooms.    

10. Grate some parmesan cheese and serve up the risotto immediately :)

If you have any questions, just ask Laura or me :) 

Enjoy :)  

she said, hello mister

When you enter the gate to my house, you will be greeted with a pumpkin patch. So if anyone wants a pumpkin... i can give you one. But only if you drive to my house or live really close. Because i'm expecting you to eat it (roast the seeds too!)

Thursday: Was the beginning of the end of my social life my holidays. My parents are away in Canada and mum purposely scheduled things (tuition & eisteddfords) for Laura nearly everyday during my break... add to that our own individual outings, going to mum's clinic to do paperwork, gym, household chores, dogs and cooking dinner..... oh god. They're lucky i can drive..

Took Laura to violin and went over to friend's house for dinner and catch up :) 

Friday: I can't remember what i did anymore. I think i walked the dogs for 1.5 hours with Tom. And Laura and i developed a system of looking after ourselves and the house. 

Saturday: House party at mine. Co hosted with Laura though. During every minute of it i thought it was all shit (Espresso wouldn't come inside because of all the people and the music was too loud.) but then i realised her friends are actually really nice.... and then i got only three hours of sleep because of all the noise. Oh, and i also did my eyebrows while Laura was at tuition. And La Senza opened in shoppo :)

Sunday: By 12pm, the house was finally quiet again. THANK GOD. Had yum cha and bonded with the little kids - I think i only want children up to the age when they start to think for themselves... because if you didn't raise them properly/environment wasn't good then it's going to be hell to reverse that kind of behaviour. Met up with Tom while Laura was at tuition. Took her to a party... then went to my one up the road... food and company were good :) 

Monday: Discovered my growing pumpkin patch. Extremely foggy. Got some biochem done. 

:S

It's 3am and i can't sleep because i'm feeling so many jumbled emotions that i don't know what else to do but get up and dissolve myself in music and so far shuffle is being good to me. I don't really know what is going on atm but all i do now is get upset really easily and how do you even talk about this to someone like what can you say i don't understand what's going on anymore. 

Life is really not that bad - in fact it's alright - but when you start thinking before you sleep everything seems so much worse so i have to learn to fall asleep immediately or i'm going to go crazy. 

I need to sleep.  

BRUNO MARS OMG

sigh i tried to upload a video of Bruno Mars singing "Just the Way You Are" live but blogger cancelled it.....great.....

  

But yeah, it was really really good !!!!! And I love Bruno Mars but I love Farn even more for getting me the concert tickets for my birthday tehehehehehehe :)

After getting squished in the moshpit, I can say that I have become close to many people on a new level.....LOL  Actually, despite getting mega insulated by the fat lady on my left and forced to smell hair product and shampoo on my right, I'm glad we were standing on the floor because the atmosphere would've been heaps better than in the stands. You get to jump around and get really into it lol

 Anyway, I just finished all my midsems so i feel freeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and I'm actually impressed that one of the subject people bothered to send a "Congratulations on your midsem results" letter. 

My holidays started on Thursday actually.... helped laura make an apple pie.... went to friend's house for dinner.... have a lot of studying to do...... oh and i watched "The Secret Life of Bees" last night.. i really like it :D And i bought a pair of Dotti boots too :)

.................

I don't understand. 

Sometimes I feel like I need people more than they need me.

And you don't know what to do about it because you think you'd only be annoying them.

a nice break from uni

I think i need to do more...stuff. Expand my interests and activities. Not just focus on the same people. Try not to get sick of some of the people I always see. 

A new routine would be nice.

I think today was a good start towards one. I really had a lot of fun today with you guys :) Malaysia kitchen, op shopping, icecream and lolly making and goldfishiessssss. 

:D  

My jaws hurt from laughing too much.  

whale quail

It's been so cold lately... I downloaded the Tangled soundtrack and also baked a Fig Tart and a Carrot, Chestnut and Walnut cake with Laura. So look forward to those recipes soon :)

Bought two dresses from Dotti on sale... and i'm seriously considering having my own stall at Camberwell Sunday Market soon. I could easily give away half my wardrobe to people who would make better use of it... :) And don't worry they're not rubbish clothes LOL they are nice but just too big or small for me.   

Sister is on holidays now... so i borrowed lots of DVDs for her from the Rowden White Library so she could stop sucking up the net... i need to lectopia so i don't fail the biochem test next week!!! 

 I also wake up with a triple eyelid every Wednesday morning. 

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY 

i think it's time to blog

"cali gurls they love some bruno"

thanks Pinga :)
 

On Monday i had a peanut butter and mushroom omelette sandwich for breakfast. It was actually really good! I think my mum made too much omelette for lunch and put the rest in my toast... 

Last night, I went out with Farn for dinner and we had two dishes - "Pork Belly with Taro" and "Fried Tofu with Prawn Meat" with rice. It was yummy! Then we met up with everyone else and I stuffed myself even more (with the "Colossal" ... mega drool with the fudge) at Pancake Parlour... Got a really bad stomach ache from so much food LOL it was so bad that i was too scared to drive back home without taking a dump first at his house in case i really needed to go toilet on the way home.... like whose house could i randomly crash at 12:30am anyway???? People would think they're being burgled but NO I JUST NEED TO USE YOUR TOILET rofl

 I also had two mid sem tests yesterday so life is pretty chill at the moment.

 Time to collect more recipes.

motion picture in the sky

Time for a more serious post... I don't even know why i blog or why i continue to due to the lack of obvious feedback but I do know that I blog for myself first and have only recently begun to blog for the world too. But according to my stats, it seems a lot of you are interested in my life anyway so I will continue to blog but this post is just for me really. 

In Animal Health I learned about how most pathogens cause subclinical infections (organism infecting animal but no obvious symptoms) MORE than clinical infections (obvious signs). This made me realise how much faith we (subconsciously at first?) have in our vets and doctors - basically anyone superior in a field - to make both correct short and long term judgements about our wellbeing. After learning about the different life cycles many parasites have (eg - infective as larvae but not as adults or vice versa), I became paranoid that my dogs had something like Dirofilaria immitis (heartworm) in them because that only causes a problem over a long period of time but i wouldn't be able to tell (if infected/which symptoms relate to which cause/s etc ...should get them rechecked). Which comes back to how much we rely on the knowledge and integrity of our vets' and doctors' observations and diagnoses. It also reminds me of some article i read in the The Triple Helix magazine over a dispute of "wrongful" birth regarding the responsibilities of a medical practitioner and the Law. I can't remember the facts but it did emphasise that with advancing technology also comes increasing responsibility to foresee problems and whether a practitioner who cannot with absolute certainty prevent a child from being born with a disability be held liable.  

That being said, I have now run out of stuff to write. For now. 

  

  

Kit Cleanser Trade-In ...

Hey everyone, take a look at this :)

Origins and Kit Cosmetics are getting together for World Earth Day. 

"On April 21 take in the bottle, tube or jar of your current cleanser or skincare product of any brand (even if it's still full) into Kit Cosmetics and they will recycle it.

In exchange, you'll get your choice of a free A Perfect World Antioxidant cleanser ($43)

or a Checks & Balances Frothy Face Wash (valued at $38) 

Not sure if any other conditions apply but i read this in the Westfield Shine Magazine. I've also purchased quite a few things from Kit Cosmetics before for my mum/as presents but I've never looked into Origins until now.


Anyway, have a great weekend!

I also have some opshopping goodies to show you guys later too! And a few cooking posts up my sleeve as well.... :D