Like the Irish Cream Poundcake from a few weeks ago, Katrin Baker shared this recipe with me for me to add to Jessica’s cookbook.  She thinks it may have originally come from Cooking Light.  It was another one of Matt’s and my favorites of the ones we made.  I always love risotto, and the roasted tomatoes that go with this would also be delicious on their own, or in bruschetta, for instance.  Enjoy!

Risotto with Fresh Mozzarella, Roasted Tomatoes, and Basil
Adapted from Katrin Baker, possibly originally from Cooking Light

⅓ cup balsamic vinegar
4½ cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 cups chopped onion
1½ cups Arborio rice or other medium-grain rice
⅓ cup dry white wine
¼ cup half-and-half
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
roasted tomatoes (recipe follows
¼ cup chopped fresh basil
5 oz. fresh mozzarella cheese, finely diced

Place vinegar in a small, heavy saucepan; bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook until slightly syrupy (about 4 minutes). Set aside.

Bring the broth to a simmer in a medium saucepan (do not boil). Keep warm

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion; sauté 3 minutes or until tender. Add rice; cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Stir in wine, and cook 1 minute or until the liquid is nearly absorbed, stirring constantly. Stir in 1 cup broth; cook 5 minutes or until the liquid is nearly absorbed, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium. Add the remaining broth, ½ cup at a time, stirring constantly until each portion of broth is absorbed before adding the next (about 25 minutes total). Stir in half-and-half, salt, and pepper; cook 2 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in basil and cheese.

Place about 1 cup risotto evenly into 6 shallow serving bowls, and drizzle each with ½ teaspoon balsamic syrup and roasted tomatoes.

Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

1 teaspoon coarse salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground peppe
4 sprigs fresh oregano, rosemary, or thyme

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

Put tomatoes, herbs, oil, salt, and pepper into a large bowl; toss to combine. Spread mixture on a rimmed baking sheet.

Roast until tomatoes begin to collapse, about 30 minutes. Let cool completely; serve at room temperature.

Another recipe I received when putting together Jessica’s cookbook, from her mom, Julie Badger. This is a great and easy side dish. We often make some version of this with whatever vegetable we have on hand. And of course, it was a great accompaniment to Swedish meatballs.

Oven Roasted Green Beans with Garlic
from Julie Badger

1 lb. fresh green beans
1 cup sliced onion
4 cloves fresh garlic
1 Tablepsoon olive oil
1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray 13”x9” baking pan with Pam.

Rinse beans and trim ends. Add beans and sliced onion rings to pan. Peel garlic, cut cloves in half, and scatter over onions. Drizzle olive oil over vegetables and add salt and pepper to taste

Bake uncovered for 30 minutes, stirring briefly every 10 minutes.

Remove from oven, add vinegar, and stir. Serve hot or at room temperature.

This is another recipe I’m recycling from the cookbook I made for Jessica.  This one is from Rachael Ray’s 30-Minute Get Real Meals, a cookbook Jessica had when were in college (that I think I sort of appropriated — oops!). We made it several times when we lived together on Clark Street, and now it’s a last-minute staple for Matt and me. It’s tasty but also very easy. When I took these pictures, I served it with Jessica’s mom’s roasted green beans, so maybe you can guess what’s coming up next?

Swedish Meatballs
Adapted from Rachael Ray’s 30-Minute Get Real Meals

1 lb. frozen turkey meatballs
2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups beef stock
1 Tablespoon red currant or grape jelly
1 cup heavy cream or sour cream (I almost always use sour cream, but I think Jess used cream)
~3 Tablespoons flour
1/2 lb. wide egg noodles
2 Tablespoons butter
a small handful parsley, chopped

Heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Add the meatballs (still frozen is fine) and brown on all sides.

Add the stock, jelly, cream, and flour. Bring to a bubble and reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes, or a little longer, until the sauce is thickened to your liking.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the egg noodle and cook until just tender. Drain the noodles and toss with butter and chopped parsley.

Serve the noodles topped with meatballs and their sauce. (Rachael also says to garnish with chopped gherkins, but we never have.)

Believe it or not, I actually have a better reason than the usual, “Sorry, we’re busy” for not posting much lately. If you keep an eye on the flickr site, you might’ve noticed that food pictures have been appearing there but never migrating over to the site. Well, the reason is that I’ve had a side project going on — I’ve been making a cookbook! My good friend Jessica is getting married today, and as a wedding present for her, I gathered recipes from her friends and family and put them together in a cookbook that I had printed over at blurb.com. I didn’t have time to make everything myself, but we did test out and photograph some of the recipes, so those are what you may have seen show up on flickr. I wanted to share some of these delicious recipes with you, too, but I didn’t want to ruin the surprise for Jessica, who I think might read this here blog occasionally. But the beautiful wedding was yesterday today, so the cat’s finally out of the bag. The next several posts will be recipes shared by Jessica’s friends and family.

First up is this Irish cream poundcake from Katrin Baker, an advisor to both Jessica and me when we were in the Honors program at NCSU. I couldn’t resist adding some chopped chocolate to Katrin’s recipe, though I’m sure it would be delicious either way. As Katrin says, this cake actually gets better after it sits for a day or two. I especially liked it toasted. Thanks, Katrin!

Chocolate Chip Irish Cream Poundcake
adapted from Katrin Baker, originally from Cooking Light, she thinks

2 3/4 cups cake flour (about 11 ounces)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup low-fat or fat-free cream cheese, softened
10 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs
3/4 cup Irish cream liqueur
3/4 cup dark chocolate, chopped, or chocolate chip (optional)
Cooking spray
2 tablespoons powdered sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.

Beat together cream cheese and butter with a mixer at high speed. Beat in granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla. Add eggs, 1 at a time; beat well after each addition. Beat on high speed 1 minute.

With mixer on low, add flour mixture and liqueur alternately to sugar mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture; mixing well after each addition. Stir in chopped chocolate, if using.

Pour batter into a 12-cup Bundt pan coated with cooking spray.

Bake at 325 F for 55 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack. If desired, sift powdered sugar over cake.

As anyone that knows us knows, we like to make pizza … a lot … mostly as a result of my parents’ wood-fired pizza oven in Raleigh.  While we miss that dearly, we’ve found that a very hot oven or, even better, a grill make decent substitutes.  I’ve posted a bunch on pizza in the past, but I decided it might be time to put everything together in one place.  I’m probably the only one that has this problem, but when I look back and try to find a combination of toppings I’ve tried before, I end up having to sift through a bunch of posts to find out which one it is.  In the future, I’ll try to keep this up-to-date so all our favorite pizza dough recipes and topping ideas are synthesized in one place.  Enjoy!  And I’d love to get more ideas in the comments!

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