Happy Middle of January !
Winter had finally arrived here in New England. It’s cold, it snowed (not enough to really shovel but enough to look pretty), the sun is out and it’s cold. Just the kind of weather for hearty yummy carb-laden goodies made in the Big Gray Pot.
This week (so far) I made risotto with shrimp and peas. Risotto is one of those dishes that everyone in the house loves, but I kind of forget about when I’m thinking of things to make. It is super easy, I use the basic recipe from an old, old Williams Sonoma “Risotto” cookbook. There is half an hour of minding the pot on the stove as you add the chicken stock but easy to do while you are puttering around the kitchen making salad or cleaning up. Add to that peas in the freezer and frozen cooked shrimp on sale at MarketBasket and it’s risotto for the win!
The night I made it was my basketball carpool night, after the risotto was finished, I put the lid on and put it in a 200 degree oven to stay warm while I picked up and dropped off hoop stars. I’ve never “held” risotto in the oven like that before and I think were I to do it again, I’d add a little extra water on the top to keep it moist. The rice kept sucking up the cooking liquid and wasn’t dry but not quite as creamy.
Hope you try something like this, I love the fact that I can cook something on the stove and then hold it in a warm oven rather than letting it get cold and them microwaving to heat up later.
Have a great day everyone!!
Looked great!! Of course it did, fit just like I’d planned. So excited to have drawers! So many I’m not even sure what I’m going to put in them (ha ha ha). On my list of things to do was to clear out the shelves and re-organize them, and take down all my notes on the wall from 2015. 
Yay organizing project. In addition to cleaning out, I found $6, and a bracket for the shade I would like to hang on the driveway side window (hopeful bracket #2 will turn up soon), and I cleaned. I am going to swap the workstations with sewing on the right with the ironing board behind me and computer/memorykeeping on the left. All was going swimmingly, until the subject of this came up… 
and yes, people I went down that path. I thought I’ll just put a coat of poly on the top so I don’t mess it up. Um no…. old poly, wrong brush means took for.ev.er. to dry and didn’t cover well. One new fresh can of poly later (read on the This Old House blog you should 
Put the stuff back in that’s been junking up the upstairs hall. 
So excited, can’t wait to work on one long continuous counter, spread out my fabric or my projects, a home for the scanner and maybe the tablet, this is going to be great! Or not, wait, it seems a little low for me. Get out the tape, measure, yup, the worktop needs to come up 1″ – 1 1/2″, and I need a big piece of something for on top of the cart to make up the space on the back that won’t be covered by the top, since I have to move it forward to the edge of the drawers (overhang = not getting into the back of those drawers) *sigh*
Charlie joked that I used it 3 times the first week I had it… and the problem with that would be???? I thought it might be fun to share what I’ve been making in my new toy this year. We are in the season of basketball now and I am finding that planning a soup/stew item and a casserole that can be time-baked in the oven gets us through the dinner hour on the nights we are out over dinnertime and want to come home to a hot meal. It worked during soccer season and seems to be working so far for hoop.
Chili for the win! This one was deemed a keeper. My alterations were chicken stock rather than beer and the aforementioned reduction in chipotle peppers (love the flavor need to moderate the heat). I also tried using some boneless chicken thighs instead of some of the chicken breasts…won’t be doing that again, waaaay too much trimming for the picky eaters so chicken breast it will be next time I make this. I highly recommend, give it a try!!
triggsey 