Recipe 35: Beet, Swiss Chard, Goat Cheese, and Walnut Risotto

This pot was obviously too small to
everyone but me. 

This recipe is a classic example of the Paperblog Princess underestimating the size of a pot.  If you have two sizes of Le Creuset in which to make this dish, I encourage you, go big.  It may not fill the pot.  But it will not try to escape your too small Le Creuset.  Be safe, you guys.  I make messes so you don't have to.  I took this recipe on the road to the Asphalt Kitchen's kitchen, where we used a billion of our farmshare beets and chard to make this.  We all thought it was just okay.  I think the major problem in our case was under seasoning (we needed way way more salt), not chopping the chard finely enough (possibly using too much), and going a little rogue trying to use as many beets and as much chard as we could.  Follow the darn recipe.  And make sure to boil and peel the beets before adding them to the recipe.  Unless you like crunchy uncooked beets, you weirdo.  The cook time in the original recipe is not enough to cook them through entirely.  As with all risotto's, make sure to serve it almost immediately or it will dry out.  Because ours went awry, I've barely tweaked the original October, 2003 Cooking Light recipe.  Don't get fancy.  Follow the recipe.  Seriously. 

Murrrrder. 
They call me the Dexter of the kitchen.

Beet, Swiss Chard, Goat Cheese, and Walnut Risotto
via Cooking Light (October, 2003)

Allegedly serves 4.

Beet, Swiss Chard, Goat Cheese, and Walnut Risotto

Recipe 36: Le Creuset Apple Crisp, guest starring the Ashalt Kitchen

The Asphalt Kitchen, working the grill at sundown.

Remember when I told you I had more recipes to post, and soon?  Probably not, because that was like...months and days and weeks and hours ago.  Oops.  October got crazy busy, and someone lost the motivation to actually take the time to write things up.  But here I am now!  It's me, snitches!  Here to learn you good how to make a delicious Dutch Oven Apple Crisp, one so good and warm and cozy you'll want to take it on the road with you to the (insert college or professional football team name here) tailgate next weekend, now that it's football season and all.

Grilled corn, roasted radishes and
peppers, caprese salad, bread, vino,
and apple crisp.  Our tailgate is
better than your tailgate!

In fact, this recipe is a mashup of blogs!  The Asphalt Kitchen and I got together and decided we wanted to do a Le Creuset recipe at a tailgate. Obvi, we needed to cook it on the grill, so we immediately ruled out Blue for his largeness.  Neither of us had done too much desert cooking, and we both are suckers for baked applely things, and, let's be honest, this one isn't rocket science.  We were sold!  We also realized that with the lid on, the apple crisp would lose its crispness due to the steaming effect, and thought it was a dish best cooked somewhat in advance, and heated to finish cooking in the moment.   Obvi again, if you don't have a tailgate to attend, you can just cook this at home and finish cooking it in the over, or toss it on a burner for the last ten minutes should you want to recreate.  In the interest of full disclosure, we have no idea where the recipe came from, except from the internets, and it may have been a combination of recipes, and we definitely also took some creative liberties.  Sorry original recipe creator!  If I were to do this again, which I probably will, I'd add in some raisins or dried cranberries.  Yum! I would also recommend this as a great breakfast treat served, with some Greek yogurt.  Double yum! And finally, as the Asphalt Kitchen notes, it's better to use an apple that won't turn entirely into mush with the cooking; aim for something crispy and slightly tart (unless you really like super sweet and mushy apple crisp).




Before I get into it, we had an abundance of farmshare veggies, so we roasted them up.  The recipe below is a bonus!

Dutch Oven Apple Crisp

Recipe after the jump:

A bonus recipe and foray into tailgating with the Asphalt Kitchen: Thai Peanut Marinade vs. Thai Peanut Shrimp and Pinapple Skewers

I had my first experience with some hardcore tailgating on Saturday at the New England Revolution game, courtesy of the lovely Lady Bean, master vegetarian chef and soccer star behind the Asphalt Kitchen!  Why was it hardcore?  We saw sideways lightning on the way in.  It was cold. Chris was not wearing pants! There was thunder and much rain.  Benny Feilhaber has bright blue eyes! Wait, what?  That's the beerita talking!  I digress. Luckily, the storm cleared up in time for us to enjoy a delicious dinner of Thai Crunch Salad (to die for, try it immediately) and my (just okay) Shrimp and Pineapple Skewers.  Behold Bean's photo:

This is how food photography is done.

My shrimp and pineapple skewers were okay - I didn't cut the pineapple down to be the same size/level as the shrimp, so the cooking was uneven and some parts, while cooked, never attained the crispy grilledness you want from, you know, a grill.  The grill, by the way, was awesome.  Well played, Asphalt Kitchen.  HOWEVER.  It was post tailgate when I was contemplating what to do with the extra marinade that I'd left in the fridge that a genius idea hit me.  It went something like this.

"Self, you know what is really good? Peanut butter and jelly.  But self, you have all these three pounds of strawberries you bought with hungry eyes after you entered a grocery store to buy water after a 6 mile run turned into an 8 mile run because you can't follow directions.  And you have all this peanut sauce.  What if you dip the strawberries into the chilled sauce?"  

Genius was born in my mouth.  This works well as a marinade, but I think it also does double duty as a dipping sauce.  It especially works well with fruit because of the innate sweetness of the peanuts and coconut, and the added smoky yum of the cayenne and other spices and the acidity of the lime juice manages to balance it out while putting it over the top.  Give it a go; next time I'm trying fruit skewers only marinated in this stuff and then grilled.  If you try it before me let me know what you think!

Thai Peanut Marinade
(Adapted from Anton Health and Nutrition)

1/2 c lite coconut milk
2 heaping Tbsp of natural peanut butter (I used Skippy All Natural)
1 Tbsp sesame oil
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp ground ginger
Juice of 1 small lime or 1-2 Tbsp lime juice
2 Tbsp honey
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 - 1 tsp cayene

1. Put in a blender and blend.  
2. Voila.  
3. Either marinade something in it and then skewer and grill it, or chill it and use it as a dipping sauce.

Proof from the photographic lens of the Asphalt Kitchen: pretty sure this is an action shot of me turning off the grill and not realizing it.  Grill Master I am not, especially after a beerita.