Foodie Wednesday: Musroom Risotto with Peas

(The Risotto in the pan cooking!)

Even though I may not have had a Foodie Wednesday post in awhile (last week due to internet technical difficulties at my house and prior to that just being busy with work) does not mean that I have not been cooking up a storm!

In my quest to cook all of the recipes in Giada DeLaurentis' "Everday Italian" cookbook I present to you Mushroom Risotto with Peas.

Ingredients

8 cups canned low-salt chicken broth
1/2-ounce dried procini mushrooms
1/4 cup unsalted butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups finely chopped onions
10 ounces white mushrooms, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice or short-grain white rice
2/3 cup dry white wine
3/4 cup frozen peas, thawed
2/3 cup grated parmesean
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, optional

Directions

Bring the broth to a simmer in a heavy medium saucepan. Add the porcini mushrooms. Set aside until the mushrooms are tender, about 5 minutes. Keep the broth warm over very low heat.

Melt the butter in a heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add olive oil. Add the onions and saute until tender, about 8 minutes. Add the white mushrooms and garlic. Using slotted spoon, transfer the porcini mushrooms to a cutting board. Finely chop the mushrooms and add to the saucepan.

Saute until the mushrooms are tender and the juices evaporate, about 5 minutes. Stire in the rice and let it toast for a few minutes. Add the wine; cook until the liquid is absorbed, stirring often, about 2 minutes.

Add 1 cup of hot broth; simmer over medium-low heat until the liquid is absorbed, stirring often, about 3 minutes. Continue to cook until the rice is just tender and the mixture is creamy, adding more broth by the cupfuls and stirring often, about 28 minutes (the rice will absorb 6 to 8 cups of broth.

Stir in the peas. Mix in the Parmesan. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

(The finished product!)

I will say that this did take a long time to cook - I was stirring for what seemed like forever - but it was well worth it. I was nervous having never previously made a risotto and it doesn't start to really look like risotto till towards the end, so I was unimpressed with my big brown glob of mush in the pan while I was cooking!

However, the final product was outrageously delicious!!! Jon and I could not stop saying how good it was. It made about 6 servings and had 4 as leftovers. It was a fight as to who got them! I will definitely make this recipe again and I look forward to trying additional risotto recipes. Now that I've done it once it doesn't seem so scary anymore.

As a side note, when purchasing the 1/2 ounce of Porcini mushrooms you really only need 1 maybe 2 mushrooms. They are $49.99 a pound (at Whole Foods) so be careful how many you throw into the bag!!!

Post in Comments:

Have you ever made a risotto?

What are your favorite risotto flavors?

Tuesday Travels: NYC Museum Rankings

Well, we've finally done it. We visited every museum that was on our list to visit in NYC. That does not mean that we've visited every museum in NYC just the ones that we felt interested us or were just too famous to miss. I've reviewed many of them (although not all) but thought it would be interesting to compile a ranking of the 12 museums we visited. I've solicited Jon for his input as well.

Jon's NYC Museum Rankings

1 - The Frick
2 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
3 - Ellis Island
4 - Museum of Natural History
5 - The New York Historical Society
6 - The Whitney
7 - The Tenement Museum
8 - The Museum of Modern Art
9 - The Folk Art Museum
10 - The Guggenheim
11 - The Skyscraper Museum
12 - The Museum of the City of New York

Beth's NYC Museum Rankings

1 - The Frick
2 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
3 - Ellis Island
4 - The Tenement Museum
5 - The Whitney
6 - Museum of Natural History
7 - The Museum of Modern Art
8 - The New York Historical Society
9 - The Folk Art Museum
10 - The Museum of the City of New York
11 - The Guggenheim
12 - The Skyscraper Museum

The only museum on the list that I feel I wouldn't recommend to someone is The Skyscraper Museum. It just wasn't impressive at all and although only $5 to get, you'd do better going across the street and having a glass of wine while looking at the Statue of Liberty from Wagner Park!

All the others I think are definitely worth the visit and would be a good use of 2 hours on a rainy or winter or cold day. I find it interesting that our Top 3 were spot on...but then we have differing opinions.

Now we are concentrating on re-visiting some of the big ones (The MET, Museum of Natural History, MOMA, etc). I'll review them as we go.

Post in Comments:

How would you rank the museum in NYC that you've visited?

What is your favorite NYC Museum?

Monday Bookworms: Netherland

Netherland, Joseph O'Neill

Netherland was our July book group book picked by Jen. She said she chose this book because it was recommended and given to her by one of her clients. She said another reason she picked this book was because when she was reading the reviews about half said they loved the book and about half said they didn't love the book and she thought that would provide for good discussion. And a good discussion, we did have!

Netherland is primarily the story of Hans Van Der Broeck. He is originally from Holland, but moved to London for a job in his 20's and ended up marrying a Brit named Rachel. In 1997 or 1999 they decide to move to NYC just for the experience. After 9/11 Rachel becomes fearful, distant and unemotional and eventually says she's leaving, she's going back to London and she doesn't want Hans to go with her and their son.

Hans is left in NYC, living in the iconic Chelsea Hotel with other"misfits", and looking for a place to fit in. He rediscovers his love of cricket and through cricket he meets Chuck. Chuck is a dreamer, always only looking at the big picture, always living "larger than life". Hans and Chuck strike up a bizarre friendship during the rest of his stay in NYC.

This book is a story about a man, a marriage and a friend all tied into one. It deals with the immigrant experience in New York City, love, friendship, sports, family and loyalty.

So where do I stand on the book - I'm kind of teetering on the fence. My biggest problem with the book was that I didn't feel O'Neill painted any of the characters as sympathetic so really I just didn't care what happened to them, which doesn't keep you reaching for a book day after day. And Hans, oh Hans, he was so blah, he had no fight in him, no passion, no anything he was just a lump on a log used as a vehicle to tell the story. It was a shame because he was the narrator and you wanted to root for him but at the same time you just didn't really care!

One of the things I did really like about it was that New York City itself (in all of it's glory and weirdness) was a central character in the book. We all agreed that since we live in NYC that made us like the book a little more, because we could relate to some of the things that were said, or we new some of the places or people mentioned in the book. We were curious during our discussion as to what a non-New Yorker's opinion of this book would be.

All in all it was OK, but as we've discovered in book group, sometimes it's the books that are just OK that provide the best fodder for discussion. In the case of the Netherland that proved true.

As an aside, many have compared Netherland to the greatness that is The Great Gatsby. To this I strongly disagree! I mean his prose is just not as beautiful and his characters are not crafted as well. Fitzgerald has a gift (IMHO) for creating characters that you love so dearly you almost wish you have their life. Then he shows the reader that in all their glamour, they're real people, with real faults, but you love them so much that you still root for them in the end. O'Neill did not in my opinion achieve this.

However, as one of my fellow book group members pointed out, maybe when Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, his contemporaries didn't feel that way about his writing. Perhaps in 50 years if I was to revisit this book I too might feel different.

Post In Comments:

What books have provided your book group with the best disccusion??

Tuesday Travels: The New York Historical Society

I have openly admitted numerous times on this blog that Jon & I are historical junkies. We have thoroughly been enjoying learning more about the history of the city that we live in and decided to cap that off with a visit to the New York Historical Society. This was our last museum on our museum list for NYC. Now we get to go back and visit some of our favorites.

The New York Historical Society is located on Central Park West at 77th Street. We weren't quite sure what to expect and were pleasantly surprised. We started on the top floor at The Henry Luce III Center for The Study of American Culture. Almost the entire floor is dedicated to artifacts from New York's history. They house the largest collection of Tiffany lamps for example. You'll see busts, sculptures, toys, a real horse drawn carriage and furniture among many other things. We spent a good part of our visit wandering this floor and pointing out things from NYC's past.

There were some paintings on the 3rd Floor, but most are on the 2nd Floor. One whole side was portraits of children and adults alike, some who were even family members, all real New Yorkers. The other part of the floor was dedicated to paintings that were Hudson River School landscapes. They were large and beautiful almost entirely landscapes without people in them.

The first floor we first took in the visiting exhibition of "Landmarks of New York". This is a collection of over 80 photographs of New York's more important landmarks. They are separated out by the year in which they were built, so as you walk through the room you essentially watch New York evolve. It was hands down our favorite exhibit.

The second visiting exhibition we saw was Harlem: Photographs of Camilo Jose Vergara 1970-2009. This was a collection of photographs that would show one storefront in Harlem from the 70's, then that storefront again in the 90's and then again in present day. Not just storefronts but schools, apartment buildings, streets, etc. There were also just great photographs of Harlem in general in this exhibit. I'd have to say the coolest thing about this exhibit though was seeing the changes of time right in front of your eyes when you see how something was at one time and then you see it again in the present. Those of us that haven't lived here our entire lives don't have those images in our heads. I found it very intersting.

The last visiting exhibit that we visited which was on the second floor was Abraham Lincoln in His Own Words. This was a very small exhibit that had writing samples and letters directly from Abraham Lincoln. It was basically set up as a U shape and took you through highlights of his career. It was small but incredibly powerful (especially to one so interested in the President's). I mean to see an actual letter that Abraham Lincoln wrote, his handwriting and all...pretty cool.

All in all, we thoroughly enjoyed our visit to The New York Historical Society. It was the perfect size, we were able to meander our way through in 2 hours or so. I can't say that it's a museum that would have me coming back again and again, unless they had a great visiting exhibit I wanted to see, but I was certainly glad that we took the time out of our day to have the experience. New York is full of history and it's always interesting to learn more about the place where we live!

Post in Comments:

Have you ever been to the New York Historical Society?

What is your favorite time in NYC history?

Monday Bookworms: Blog Reading

Well, it's Monday and you are expecting me to blog about a book that I recently read, and while I have recently read a book, I'm not ready to blog about it! That is because it is our most recent book group book and we do not meet until this Wednesday, July 8th and I want to wait to see what our discussion adds to my experience of the books.

So with no book to discuss I thought I would talk about another "reading related" topics. Reading is more than reading books and one thing that a lot of people are reading now are blogs!!! So I thought I would share with you some of my favorite blogs with the hopes that you might share with me your favorite blogs.

Our Grand Tour of Europe - I found this blog when I was working in a dead-end job with literally nothing to do day in and day out (don't worry I've since left said job). I love to travel and I somehow stumbled upon this website www.slowtrav.com. It is a great resource of travel related information - where to stay, where to eat, what tours to take, where to hike, what cities to visit, etc. They have a community forum where you can search for related information or post your own question and they have numerous members who are bloggers.

The "Our Grand Tour of Europe" Blog is the blog of a woman Kathy Woods. Her, her husband and their daughter took off for 14 months in Europe. They would spend a week in each location and then they spent 6 months of the time in Provence so that their daughter could go to school. I loved reading this blog, and still go back sometimes to re-read parts of it, because who wouldn't want to pack up their life and head out on a European Adventure such as this. The blog is chock-full of usefull information on numerous European regions! If you love to travel, or wish you traveled more than you do, this is a blog you would certainly enjoy. They took this trip 5 years ago and have since turned their passion for travel into a job - www.european-experiences.com.

Mile Markers - I feel like I may have already blogged about this, but I love this blog! Kristin Armstrong (ex-wife of Lance Armstrong) blogs weekly about running related & family related themes. As much as I am a runner and can appreciate the running anecdotes she uses, I read this more for her writing style. I love the way she writes and find that her blog entries always center me and put things in perspective a little bit. It's nice to get those weekly reminders of what's really important in life! Sometimes in the fast paced NYC it's easy to get caught up in the little things and forget the big picture.

My Malleable Reality - This blog is written by my friend Shion (who has been mentioned many times on this blog). She writes about a variety of topics, fun things she's done in NYC, movie reviews, recipes, product reviews, or just her thought of the day. I always love reading friend's blogs because it gives you a new perspective on their thoughts (and really she has the best recipes!!! She's a great cook!)

Rockin' to the Gentle Beat - This blog is also written by a friend of mine, Ashley. I knew Ashley when I lived up in Boston, we were in Book Group together. Ashley also writes about a variety of topics: entertainment reviews (movies, tv shows & music reviews primarily), her many travels, her upcoming move, and much much more! I love Ashley's entertainment reviews and reading her blog is a fun way to still feel connected to someone that you no longer live near.

KERF - I found this blog through another blog and totally love it. It's a food blog primarily but the way Kath writes you end up feeling like you know her as well. I am always looking for new recipes and while I'm not quite as adventurous as Kath I do like reading her blog! It has tons of tips on how to eat healthy & make time for exercise. I recently tried her Kale Chips recipe, which I will blog about soon!

Post in Comments:

What is your favorite(s) blog that you read?

Entertainment Thursdays: Les Miserable

Les Miserable is my favorite musical of all time. I know it's not the most uplifting show, but god, is it amazing! I have seen it now seven times: 2x in NYC, 2x in London, 1x in Boston, 1x in Wichita, Kansas and 1x in Lancaster, PA.

My mom had asked me to do a little research before our trip to Lancaster and come up with a couple of things I wanted to do. Because my buddy Okie Amy, works in a Regional Theater, it has made me more aware of Regional Theaters in general. So when I saw there was a theater in Lancaster I decided to check and see what was playing. Imagine my delight when I clicked on the link and it said Les Miserable would be playing while we would be in Lancaster.

I immediately sent an email to my mom, who promptly called me, and then called and got us tickets!!! (Thanks Mom!) I could tell that she wasn't nearly as excited as I was.

After dinner at Checker's we drove down towards the Fulton Theater and parked in a lot across the street. We got there about 45 minutes before the show started to pick up our will call tickets and enjoyed some wine & snacks while we waited (this experience reminded me how expensive it is to live in NYC!)

The show was great! While probably not the best performance I've ever seen it certainly didn't disappoint. The man who played Jean Valjean was great, he voice was amazing, and he nailed my song ("Bring Him Home"). My one complaint was that he just didn't look old enough to be a believable Jean Valjean...but I got over that. The woman who played Cosette was also remarkable. Since I've seen the show so many times now it's interesting to me that each time I see it a different character stands out. The guy who played Enjolras was outstanding, he really stole the show from the Marius character in my opinion. I found myself saying, "I don't remember this part being so prominent in the past." And the best part is that the guy who played Enjolras is touring with "The Little House on the Prarie" tour that is coming to the Paper Mill Playhouse in the Fall! I might have to go see it...

The other thing I've noticed after seeing this show so many times is that when I was younger I used to think that the 1st Act of the play was the better part of the show and that the 2nd Act wasn't that great. The older I get and the more I go to see it I realize that the 2nd Act is really the krutch of the play. It's interesting how your perspective can change the more you see a show. I mentioned this to my mom and she agreed that she always had thought that the 1st Act was better but that after seeing the show in Lancaster, she realized the 2nd Act was better.

I think my mom was pleseantly surprised by the show. She stayed awake for the whole thing, which is a fete at an evening show! Overall we both enjoyed our night out at the theater in Lancaster. Where, oh where, will I see Les Miserable next?

Post in Comment:

What is your favorite Act in Les Miserable?

What is your favorite song in Les Miserable?

Foodie Wednesday: Lacaster Eats

When my mom and I arrived in Lancaster on Friday it was lunch time and we were starved. We checked into our hotel (the Marriott Courtyard) and asked the woman at the front desk for a lunch recommendation. She recommended Isaac's Restaurant & Deli, she said it was a chain that was only in that region of Pennsylvania.

There happened to be one right around the corner where we were staying so we headed over there. Isaac's is a typical low-cost restaurant, the decor is a little cheesy, but the food is delish! We got our menu's (which were extensive) and immediately decided on Pretzel Bread Sandwiches. We couldn't decide what we wanted so we decided to get two sandwiches and go splitsies. I ordered the Salty Eagle (grilled ham, swiss cheese, fresh tomatoes and lettuce) and my mom ordered the Rose of Sharon (sliced portabella mushroom, fresh tomatoes, onion, spinach with melted provlone cheese). Both sandwiches were delicious but we both agreed that the Rose of Sharon was the better sandwich. What made this sandwiches extra special was the pretzel bread - it looks like a roll, but tastses like a soft pretzel - it was so good that we ended up purchasing pretzel bread to bring home with us!

Isaac's was so enjoyable that we returned on Saturday for lunch and visited the Staussburg location. I once again ordered a Pretzel Bread Sandwich, the Whooping Crane (sliced turkey, onions, fresh spinach, and swiss cheese, grilled). I think the Whooping Crane was my favorite of the three different pretzel bread sandwiches that we tried.

If I was back in the area I would definitely return to Isaac's! 4 stars


Friday night we headed to Gibraltar's restaurant for dinner. Gibraltar's is on the outskirts of downtown Lancaster and actually is practically on the campus of Franklin & Marshall. The restaurant was very fancy, a little fancier than we had anticipated. The restaurant was big and open and our waitress was very knowledgeable!

I ordered a ceasar salad to start and followed it up with the Salmon dish. The ceasar salad was delicious with homemade sourdough croutons but the Salmon was just OK. It was a little dry and it was a huge piece of salmon probably 3 times the actual portion size that you should eat. I ate about a third of it and was full!

Overall, my mom and I agreed that while this restaurant was very nice, the food didn't line up with the expecations. The restaurant was very expensive and fancy and we expected better food then was delivered. Not that our meal was bad perse, it was just OK.

If we were back in Lancaster, I can't say I would return to this restaurant. 2 1/2 stars

On Saturday we headed into Downtown Lancaster for the evening. We began the night at Checkers Bistro, also recommended by our hotel. Checkers doesn't seem like much from the outside, and our experience didn't start out great, as the hostess was incredibly rude, but we got over it.

Our waiter was extremely friendly and knowledgeable! I started with the half portion of the ceasar salad and then ordered the scallop dish for dinner. The ceasar salad probably wasn't as good as at Gibraltar but it was still a good salad. The scallops however were to die for - they were so good!!! We were both pleasantly surprised because the entrees at this restaurant were half the price of the entrees at Gibraltar's.

We both agreed that Checker's Bistro was a great restaurant. Very affordable, the food was delicious, and the atmostpher inside was very nice. The restaurant is bigger than you would think when you first walk in.

If I was ever back in Lancaster, I would definitely return to Checker's for a meal (and I'd probably get those scallops again!) 4 stars

Bird-in-Hand Farmer's Market

On Saturday we went to the Bird-in-Hand Farmer's Market on Old Philadelphia Pike. My mom had originally wanted to go on Sunday to bring home some fresh produce but we both realized it would probably be closed on Sunday. She wanted to visit it regardless so we headed over for a visit.

This farmer's market reminded me a lot of Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, just much smaller (probably only 1/6 of the size). There were places were you could eat a meal, and places where you could by produce, jams, meats, desserts, etc. I was on a quest to find a delicious whoopie pie (and I succeeded!) My mom decided to make a couple of purchases at one of the jam sections. She bought a pear butter for herself, a sweet potato butter for her mom, and then a selection of james for each kid (I helped pick them out!) They had these mini sample jams that you could load into a little box, 6 per box. The varities were: Apple Cinnamon, Apple Raspberry, Pineapple, Peach, Pepper Jam, Blackberry, Blueberry, Grape, Strawberry, Red Raspberry and Four Berry. I'm excited to try out my sample jam pack!

All in all it was a pretty cool little farmer's market. I think we both wished we had gotten there earlier in the day when they were really stocked up, but at least we got to have the experience.

Post in Comments:

If you have ever eaten in Lancaster, what is your favorite restaurant?