A new week, a new "Jamie Oliver 30 Minute Meal"! I managed to find the key ingredient "dried porcini mushrooms" at a continental shop in a local shopping centre, excellent start. With these in hand I was excited at the prospect of cooking this meal tonight. Problem was, I didn't have the rest of my shopping list for this recipe and my memory, although never great, since having a child, has completely turned into a mushy mushroom risotto!
I did however remember that I needed a stick of celery, the fancy mushrooms and some lemon curd and I was sure that these few things would be all I needed to make this dish. I bought a variety of different fancy mushrooms that I had never dared to buy before and the price was one of the things that scared me off. A small pack of fancy mushrooms costing $6 each. Never the less, I purchased what I thought would be enough and after giving my toddler a ride on Thomas the Tank Engine we headed home.
My hubby came home early so I decided tonight was the night to make this special dish and I started prepping my kitchen and gathering my ingredients, herbs and spinach from the garden. I ended up being short on a few ingredients, but nothing that would change the recipe considerably so I decided to continue.
Check the clock and away we go. Flat out with everything going on at once. I burnt my hand but pressed on. My hubby ended up helping with the desert and I realised too late, that I had missed some important steps in prepping the cream cheese in all the chaos of the risotto starting to stick to the bottom of the pot and realising that the mushrooms needed to go under the grill after pan frying when I had already removed them so that I could reuse the pan for the desert. Ahhhhh!
But in the end, I managed to pull it all together and we sat down to "Oozy Mushroom Risotto with Spinach Salad and Quick Lemon & Raspberry Cheesecake". It was a lovely meal but not sure if I think it was worth hunting down the dried mushrooms or even using a bunch of fancy mushrooms. Nor do I think pan frying a bunch of mushrooms separately just to put on top, was really worth it. As I write this blog my stomach feels heavy, like I have just eaten a big steak and maybe this is due to the quantity of mushrooms used. The salad was a nice fresh accompaniment and I also added a couple of slices of grilled ciabatta bread on the side which added a nice crunch. The desert was also lovely. I good tip to place the glasses in the freezer first and then add the filling. The base was cold and hard even though it went in hot. I didn't have enough cream cheese so I used a little pre-made custard and mulberries instead of raspberries, but I don't think any of this mattered as it was a layered desert with plenty of flavour and not too heavy.
The kitchen looked like a tornado hit it and I felt guilty leaving it for my hubby to clean up as it was my turn to bath and put our son to bed. With him finally in bed, I eagerly turned on the tele to watch the next episode and what I would be cooking next.....Steak Sarnie, or sandwich as we call it. Oh...lovely, another heavy looking meal, cos it's not just the steak sandwich, but also potatoes, beetroot salad and stuffed mushrooms! My stomach hurts just thinking about it. Might need to wait until the weekend and invite a couple of friends over for lunch for this one. I think we have enough risotto to feed us all for several days!!
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