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Thursday 5 July 2007

Calming down with Red Risotto



There are times when everything turns from the well-planned into the unexpectedly chaotic. Add to this friends coming over for dinner and you get me freaked-out. Luckily, my friend Nora from Life's Smorgasbord and her partner weren't expecting a dinner extravaganza - instead, Nora and I had planned to cook together. Nora even brought vital ingredients like readily marinated garlic prawns. Lucky me...

While frantically getting the kitchen into ready-to-use status, Nora contentedly sipped her red wine and chatting with me, she got me cooled down eventually. We managed to put together a very nice three course dinner: Pumpkin Soup, Red Risotto with Garlic Prawns and homemade Vanilla Custard which I had already prepared the night before.

Despite being still not very coordinated, I did not manage to botch the pumpkin soup. Nora who had chosen the risotto recipe, took charge of the main course so I didn't have to do much more than stirring... With some steamed asparagus for added vitamins this risotto proved to be an absolute winner. The amount of tomato paste was just right, not overwhelming, and provided the ideal backdrop for the juicy garlicky prawns. The only thing we changed was adding another half cup of rice and therefore adjusting the amount of chicken stock. The recipe is supposed to be for four people and I was pretty hungry after all that last-minute hurry. With good food and wine and with a little help of my friends I managed to enjoy myself and we all had a wonderful evening!

If you'd like to read Nora's account of our cooking adventure, head over to her post!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds and looks very delicious. :)

Patricia Scarpin said...

That's so great, Eva! You and Nora cooking together, so much fun!
I wish I lived in the neighborhood, too. ;)

Nora B. said...

Eva, I had a great time. We should do this again. And I recall that you did more than just stirring of the rice. You should post the pumpkin soup recipe. Oh, and I felt bad for leaving you to do all the dishes!

Eva said...

Cooking Ninja - I can really recommend this recipe, every single bite was delicious!

Patricia - Too bad, Brazil isn't around the corner!

Nora - I felt bad about being completely unprepared (and I noticed that I tend to swear a lot when I'm off balance...ahem). If I can get a good shot from the soup I'll post the recipe but soup is really hard.