Today was best spent indoors out of the blustery weather, mainly doing some laundry and video work. After primary work this morning I picked up some ingredients for tonight’s dinner I volunteered to make. One of the things I like about winter is comfort food. For me a good Italian risotto can fall into that category, and there are so many ways you can prepare it. In the past I’ve added chicken, beef, ham and of course sausage of any of them as the meaty part of the dish. This time around I gave tuna a shot instead, as I haven’t partaken of any recently. Originally I tried to follow a recipe in one of my cookbooks, but due to not being able to find certain ingredients and discovering too late that some of them were missing I had no choice but to improvise. I have to say it turned out to be quite a savory dish with a nice texture given to it by the pecans.
First I was low on chicken stock, both the fresh stuff and the bullion cubes; fortunately I still had some Mexican chicken/tomato granules for a rich broth. Next came the rice preparation which went smoothly as always, mixing the uncooked rice in melted butter and olive oil with browned onions to give it a nice nutty aroma and flavor, and of course adding the stock bit by bit until I gained the desired creamy consistency that makes risotto so delicious. In a bowl I combined some tuna, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, chopped pimento, olives and then a mix of marjoram and parsley. In my broth pan I added some more butter and oil and fried some garlic and chopped pecans, which sounds weird but surprisingly tastes really good mixed in with everything else. Of course I had to add some fire roasted tomato to the mix, and made green beans for the side vegetable. Overall I was happy with the results considering I pretty much measured and improvised the ingredients to make up for the actual missing ingredients. I’ll definitely have more tomorrow. I’ll have enough for an after work lunch, and then I can plot tomorrow’s dinner menu. I’m thinking something Scandinavian inspired.