Dinner during Dora: Carrot-Parmesan Risotto

It has been a long, long time since I posted a Dinner during Dora post. I've got several recipes cued up- some even with some pictures taken- but I just haven't found time to write the posts. In the meantime, I think I've picked up some new readers, so if you don't know what a Dinner during Dora post is, you can check out the rationale in the first one. But briefly, the idea is that these are recipes that I can make in the limited time I have between getting home from work and dinner time, i.e., about the length of an episode of Dora.

Tonight's recipe is a risotto. I'm a sucker for a good risotto. OK, I'm a sucker for even a halfway decent risotto. Let's just say that Pumpkin comes by her carb-loving ways naturally. I haven't been making risottos that much these days, because none of my favorite risotto recipes can be completed in anything close to the time I have allotted for weeknight dinner preparation. (You may wonder why I don't make them on the weekends, when there is more time for dinner prep- the answer is that weekend dinners are usually Hubby's problem.)

But then, I learned that you can make a risotto in the microwave. I won't lie- I've yet to produce a risotto that is as good as one made the old-fashioned way. But I've reliably produced some more than halfway decent risottos, and referring back to one of my favorite quotes of all time, I'm not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

This recipe is for my favorite microwave risotto (so far- I'm sure I'll try converting some more recipes). It only works in the Dora time slot if you pre-grate the carrots- I usually do them the night before and leave them in the fridge in a tupperware container. If I know I'll be home a little early, I don't bother- then the meal takes about 30 minutes total to assemble and cook.

Carrot-Parmesan Risotto

Ingredients:

26 oz. chicken stock (I use stock, not broth, in this recipe- I think it makes a richer flavor)
2 tbs butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
6 medium carrots, grated (I use the fine grater)
1 1/4 cups arborio rice
1/2 cup white cooking wine
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (or Asiago- that gives the risotto more flavor. I use a mix, if I have both on hand)
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Combine butter, onion, and carrots in a 2.5 quart microwave-safe dish. (I've used smaller and had it be OK, but I tend to make a mess when I try to stir, so I prefer the bigger dish.) Microwave on high for ~2 minutes, stir, and then microwave for another 2 minutes. (Obviously, you may need to tweak these cooking times for your microwave.)

2. Add rice, stir to coat, and microwave for 3 minutes.

3. Add broth and wine. Stir and microwave for 9 minutes. Then stir again and microwave for 6 minutes.

4. Remove from the microwave. It will still be quite watery:

5.  Let stand 5-9 minutes, stirring frequently, until liquid is largely absorbed. I am never patient enough at this step, and end up with risotto that is a bit on the runny side. It is usually perfect by the time I'm packing up leftovers....

6. Stir in the cheese and salt and pepper.

Here's the final product:

I often serve this with my picky eater's green beans, which makes an all-microwave meal. I can microwave the green beans while the risotto is resting. The all-microwave aspect of the meal leads to one of my favorite things about it: the all-dishwasher clean up:

Source: I modified this from a recipe I found online, at Martha Stewart's site, of all places. Petunia had shown an interest in rice, so I was looking for new recipes to try on her.

Who Eats It: Hubby, me and Petunia. Petunia really likes it. Pumpkin does not share her interest in rice (she prefers pasta), and is deeply suspicious of the carrots.

You're Up One Day, The Next You're Down

So, Petunia's sick again.

It is her "usual"- a high fever, with no other symptoms, really. Hubby took her to the doctor today, who confirmed that there were no obvious symptoms other than the fever, but took a throat culture just in case. We're out of specialists to talk to, and are settling in to figuring out how to deal with the consensus medical opinion: that she's a basically happy, healthy little kid who happens to get a lot of fevers.

We worry and we debate about what to do, but I am also trying to remember that this consensus medical opinion isn't such a bad one to get. As much as I hate to see Petunia sick with these fevers- she gets so clingy and sad until the acetaminophen kicks in and brings the fever down- she is still managing to have a lot of fun. Tonight, after dinner, she wanted to go for a walk ("wok! wok!") so I took her out front, thinking we'd head out on foot, as is her preference these days. She managed to signal that she preferred a stroller walk, so I got her stroller out and got her in. Pumpkin came out to ride her bike, too. We had a friend over, and she wanted to show him how well she rides her bike now. We all took off down the sidewalk. Before too long, Petunia demanded that she be let out of the stroller, and she and I continued on and a slower pace, stopping to smell the flowers.

I mean literally stopping to smell the flowers. When Petunia sees a flower, she says flower ("wower"), does the sign for flower (pinched fingers by the nose, as if you're sniffing a flower), and then leans in and loudly sniffs the flower. I think the last bit is her own innovation, and it is adorable.

Petunia had a good run between illnesses this time. Even the final weekend was pretty good. She slept through the night in her own crib twice, which is unheard of, and, in retrospect was probably a sign that she was getting sick, since she does seem to sleep particularly well the night before her fever arrives. But ignorance is bliss, right? We were just happy to wake up two mornings in a row and realize that no one had woken us up in the middle of the night.

We went to the park a couple times, visited the Birch Aquarium, and managed to have a pretty good lunch out on Monday.  And, of course, we saw some fireworks. We watch them from a church parking lot in our neighborhood that has a good view of Sea World's show. We caught part of the show at the big bay and off Ocean Beach from the top of the slope in our backyard, but Pumpkin really wanted to go down and see the Sea World show with "everyone else" (not even close, kid- everyone else was down at the bay, which we had no interest in fighting our way in and out of that mess), so we went. Both kids enjoyed the show.

We also had a 45 minute tantrum from Pumpkin, sparked by my request that she help me clean up the crumbs she'd blow all over the table. And the second trip to the park ended in tears because Pumpkin, who is trying very hard to learn how to climb up and over some monkey bars at the park, slipped and fell, coming down straddling a bar. Serious ouch, which also caused some serious drama the next time she needed to go potty. She tried to be brave, but she ended up crying, saying that she wished there was a fairy who could come and wave her magic wand and make the boo-boo go away. Me, too, kid. And while she's at it, she could clean up some of the tail ends of my big project at work. That would be really nice. In general, there seems to be a real shortage of fairies with magic wands in our lives.

Pumpkin was all better today- although we weren't sure of that when she went to day care, so I had to have a rather awkward conversation with her teacher about the potential potty drama- and the memory of the tantrum has faded. So I look back on the weekend and remember the good things. Petunia finally figuring out how to get up to the toddler slide on her own at the park, and the proceeding to go down that slide roughly 500 times in a row, while I sat and watched and occasionally cheered for her. Pumpkin skipping home from our first (boo-boo free) outing to the park, with her braided pigtails swinging behind her, and me struck by the memory of trying (unsuccessfully) to teach her to skip about a year and a half ago. She's got it now. I asked her how she learned, and she said she just saw some of the bigger kids at day care doing it, and asked them what they were doing. They said skipping, and she watched them and figured out how to do it.

That's right. Just figure out how to do it. That's a good lesson for me, as I wonder how we're going to deal with our sweet, happy, basically healthy toddler who happens to frequently run fevers. We'll just figure out how to do it. And maybe I should listen to some more John Prine.

Quotable: Lost Landscape

"As I looked about me I felt the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the color of winestains, or of certain seaweeds when they are first washed up. And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running."

- Willa Cather, in My Antonia

We read this book for book club recently. I can't believe I had not read it before. It is wonderful. She evokes the daily life of the women on the prairie as well as she evokes the landscape. If you haven't read it yet, you should. If you only read it in high school because you had to- maybe you should reread it. It is free for the Kindle!

On Monetization... and Switching Teams

I think I've mentioned before that I've been playing around with various ideas to "monetize" this blog. (And can I just pause right now and say that I hate that word? But it is indeed the right word to use.) I don't have the sort of readership statistics that would lead me to delusions of getting rich from this blog, but I have been curious to see if it could make me enough money to stop my husband from rolling his eyes at me when I sit down to blog rather than, say, file the stack of papers that is threatening to consume my desk. (Short answer: no, it can't. But hey, they're his eyes. He can roll them all he wants.)

Anyway, I've experimented with a range of things: Google Ads, setting up a Zazzle Store, making it possible to subscribe to my blog on the Kindle, and Amazon Associate links. I have some other ideas, too, but those require more time/effort than I want to commit right now. Of the things I've tried so far, the Amazon Associate links were by far the most profitable- which isn't saying much, trust me. And to be fair, I haven't invested much effort in any of the other things I've tried. Still, I liked the program.

But then, earlier this week Amazon booted me out of the program because my state has enacted some bill that they feel means that having California-based associates will expose them to sales tax requirements. Well, boo on them. I actually think we should be paying sales tax on our online purchases, and that the big online stores should get over themselves and set it up so that we do it at the point of sale. I've heard their technological arguments, and frankly, I don't buy them.

But my opinion doesn't really count in this particular argument, so I'll just wave good-bye to Amazon's associate program, and say hello to the Powell's Books partner program.

 

It seems that Powell's doesn't care if I live in California, so I've signed myself up. (Or maybe they do care, and will boot me out shortly- we'll see.) I will slowly go back through my archives and change the links on the more "profitable" book referral pages, and all new links going forward will be to Powell's. Or you could just click on the pretty little graphic I've put on the left of my blog template. As with most affiliate programs, I get a percentage of any purchases you make after following one of my links. Powell's program has a twist, though- I also get a percentage of the amount they pay you if you choose to sell your used books to Powell's. They have some other cool things- like the possibility of setting up my own "bookshelf". I'll have to play with that. It sounds like an excellent way to spend some time thinking about my favorite books.

I'm feeling pretty happy about this switch. I love Powell's Books- no trip to Portland is complete without spending a significant chunk of time browsing their stacks. They have a nice website, and their affiliate program looks to be a better deal than Amazon's. So click on through and buy some books... do it for my husband. His eyes are getting tired from all that rolling.

Weekend Reading: The Mostly Video Edition

My break from work on Monday evening was really effective- I was then able to spend the rest of the week working hard. Like Caramama (and I suspect a lot of people), I can maintain a higher than normal work load for short periods- I have been working 50+ hours/week for the past few weeks. That should be done for awhile once this big migration/upgrade is over. Which should be sometime this weekend. Things did not go all that smoothly today, and I am actually still at work, watching database migration scripts tick over. Fun and exciting stuff, and obviously, I'd much rather be home eating dinner with my family. But this sort of thing doesn't happen that often in my life- I plan like crazy at work to avoid it except for big upgrades that have to be done when the users aren't online- so I'm mostly OK with things. In fact, I'm planning on taking a little comp time next week- Hubby has the week off (long and not very interesting story), so I might take an afternoon off. We can leave the kids in day care and go take a walk on the beach or something.

Anyway... I have been really busy with work, so I only have one thing for you to read: it is a post that links to a NY Times article with predictions for the impact of the internet... from 1982. I thought it was a fun read. I found it via Ginger at Ramble, Ramble's twitter feed.

I also have two things for you to watch- both courtesy of my husband.

First up, a rap about first world problems that is (1) hilarious and (2) a nice follow up to my recent rant about (among other things) privilege.



Next, a completely random thing that made me laugh, particularly given the amount of time I spend at merry-go-rounds these days:



Have a good weekend!