Ask Dear Gaby

Cooking for me is fun.  So I always experiment with my old recipes and try to update them.  This time I experimented with risotto.   I have made risotto the traditional way using Italian aborio rice.  I have also made risotto with other grains such as barley and brown rice.  However, until yesterday, I never made it with Quinoa.  I love Quinoa since it is a complete protein and its tastes wonderful. So I try to incorporate Quinoa in many of my meals. Quinoa is great for vegetarians looking to add some protein to their diet.

Making risotto using Quinoa is quite simple.  Just take your favorite risotto recipe and substitute Quinoa for the aborio rice.   It’s a wonderful twist to risotto and will be a welcomed addition to your meal.

If you do not have a basic risotto recipe, I have included one below using Quinoa instead of aborio rice.

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 onion diced
2. 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter
3. 2 tablespoons olive oil
4. 2 cups Quinoa
5. 1/2 cup white wine
6. 4 1/2- 5 cups hot broth or water
7. 1/3 cup parmigiano cheese
8. 1/4 cup fresh parley chopped
9. chopped 2-3 green onions (optional)
10. Salt and pepper to taste

In a heavy pan, over medium heat,  melt 1 tablespoon of butter in olive oil.  Add the chopped onion to pan.  Cook onion until soft, approximately 2-3 minutes.  Add quinoa to pan, making sure to coat it with the olive oil-butter -onion mixture.  Cook for 2 minutes.  Add white wine.  Stirring frequently.  Add 1/2 cup of hot broth to pan.  Continue to stir frequently.  When the liquid is almost absorbed, add another 1/2 cup of  broth.  Continue to do this until all the broth has been added.  When the last of the broth is almost completely absorbed.  Turn off the heat and add remaining butter and cheese.  Stir until the butter has melted.  Add all the remaining ingredients.  Mix everything together. Cover pan and let sit for 5-10 minutes.  Serves 4-6 people

This recipe is your basic risotto recipe.  Once you learn the technique of making risotto than you can virtually add anything you’d like to it.  Try using dried porcini mushrooms along with other mushrooms to make a wild mushroom risotto. Add the mushrooms about 10 minutes into the cooking process. Soak about 1/4 ounce of dried porcini mushrooms in 1 cup of water. Add the 1 cup of the liquid you soaked the mushrooms to the hot broth.  But reduce  the broth from 5 cups to 4 cups.

I have made a variety of risottos including spinach, asparagus, seafood, meat, etc.  Risotto is also an excellent way to use up your leftovers.

If you haven’t made risotto–give it a try. It is not very difficult and it can be prepared in 20 minutes.

          

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I love meatballs made with ground beef, pork, and veal.  I usually make my meatballs with very lean (95% fat free) sirloin and ground turkey breast meat. However, I have friends who are vegetarian.  So I needed to come up with a vegetarian version.  I ultimately decided on using eggplant since it has such a meaty texture and I substituted that in my recipe for the meat.  Everything else is the same.  However, the meatballs made with eggplant are more fragile, so I cook them separately in a little  tomato sauce and serve over pasta-  These are soooo good, you may even opt to make these even if you are not a vegetarian.

Ingredients

1. 3 eggplants, sliced, oven baked with a little olive oil  at 450°F for 7 minutes on each side.  Then put into a food processor for 1 minute or so to resemble the consistency of a ground meat.
2. Egg Whites (equivalent of 1 egg)
3. 1/3 cup Freshly Grated Parmigiano Cheese
4. 2 cloves of fresh garlic finely minced
5. 2 tbs of Fresh Flat Leaf Italian Parsley chopped
6. 2 tbs of Pignoli Nuts (Pine Nuts)
7. Day Old Bread (about 1/2 baguette per pound of ground meat), crusts removed, dried, and soaked in warm water; Squeeze  the bread to remove the water and leave bread moist.
8. Sea Salt to taste
9. Ground pepper to taste
10. Olive Oil

In a large bowl, combine  the ingredients, 1 through 9,  together,  using your hands.  Form into little meatballs about 2 inches in diameter.   Heat up the olive oil in pan over medium heat.  When the olive oil is hot, add the meatballs, turning occasionally in order to brown on all sides.  Than lower heat, and cook meatballs for about 4 minutes more or until cooked all the way through.   Freeze or serve with your favorite tomato sauce.

Note: You may also consider putting a small cube of mozarella cheese in the middle of the eggplant meatball before putting into the pan to cook. Follow instructions above for cooking.  Serve with tomato sauce.  Great as an appetizer.

          

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I love meatballs made with ground beef, pork, and veal.  My mother use to make them exactly that way.  To the meat, she would add day old bread made into bread crumbs,  fresh Italian parsley,  freshly grated cheese , eggs, salt and pepper.  Than she would brown them in olive oil and finish cooking them in her homemade tomato sauce.

Then in an effort to make Italian meatballs healthier and of course avoid the beef, I saw recipes using ground turkey instead of beef, veal and pork.  Not quite the same as the real thing– but they were pretty good.  Now I have taken it a step further to provide more flavor but not the additional calories. Pignoli Nuts (Pine Nuts)  is a very traditional ingredient for Meatballs from Napoli.  They  add incredible flavor and texture to the meatballs.

Ingredients

1. Equal parts of Ground Turkey Breast, Ground Turkey Dark meat, and Lean Ground Sirloin
2. Egg Whites (equivalent of 1 egg) per pound of ground meat
3. 1/4 cup Freshly Grated Parmigiano Cheese per pound of ground meat
4. 2 cloves of fresh garlic finely minced per pound of ground meat
5. 2 tbs of Fresh Flat Leaf Italian Parsley chopped
6. 2 tbs of Pignoli Nuts (Pine Nuts)
7. Day Old Bread (about 1/2 baguette per pound of ground meat), crusts removed, dried, and soaked in warm water; Squeeze  the bread to remove the water and leave bread moist.
8. Sea Salt to taste
9. Ground pepper to taste
10. Olive Oil

In a large bowl, combine  the ingredients, 1 through 9,  together,  using your hands.  Form into little meatballs about 2 inches in diameter.   Heat up the olive oil in pan over medium heat.  When the olive oil is hot, add the meatballs, turning occasionally in order to brown on all sides.  Than lower heat, and cook meatballs for about 10 minutes more or until cooked all the way through.   Freeze or serve with your favorite tomato sauce.

          

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