FruHubs Food: Butternut Squash Risotto with Pancetta

Remember how The Frugal Hostess said that she was on the road to redemption?  That she was slowly gaining FruHubs' respect back with her beet-slinging ways?   HA!

The Frugal Husband is not one to rest on his culinary laurels.  (Except that he just now almost set the house on fire with hot oil.  Which is not exactly resting on his laurels, but neither is it very Top Chef behavior.  Just sayin', FruHubs.)

So here's what he made for dinner on Thursday.  As usual, The Frugal Husband is opposed to recipes, so he found a couple and tailored them to his preferences.   In other words, don't be offended if this is your family's contribution to the Smithsonian Institute, and he changed it.


 

Ingredients

1 medium butternut squash, peeled and cubed (2 cups)
2 tablespoons half and half
2 teaspoons olive oil
6 oz diced pancetta or bacon (FruHubs used pancetta but he says, "Next time I'm going the bacon route.")
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 cup arborio rice
4 cups chicken stock (make your own, yo)
Pinches of curry, cumin, cinnamon, brown sugar, basil, salt, pepper
(Pinch means like 1/2 to 1 teaspoon.  TFH doesn't particularly love cinnamon, or curry, or brown sugar in savory food, so she would err on the side of a very, very, very small, perhaps invisible, pinch.  But don't tell FruHubs.)  [From FruHubs: Now, now, you need 1/2 - 1 teaspoon of the brown sugar,1/4 a teaspoon of the cinnamon, and touch of the other stuff.  And she loved this or else it wouldn't be posted.] (This is his nice way of saying that TFH gobbled up every bite.)
2 tablespoons (or whatever - seriously, could there ever be too much?) Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons cold butter
Crushed pistachio nuts & chives for topping

Directions

1.  Cook squash in boiling water until fork tender.
2.  Meanwhile, fry the pancetta in the olive oil until crispy.  If you're using bacon, you know how to fry it.  Reserve two tablespoons of fat in pan (And you know that means save the rest in your bacon fat jar.  What?  Sorry, didn't hear you - what do you mean you don't have a bacon fat jar?  Are you in need of an intervention, or perhaps some methadone?).
3.  In reserved fat, cook onion until it's translucent, adding garlic when you're almost done.  (Garlic cooks so much more quickly than onion, so please ignore anyone who tells you to throw those two ingredients in the pan at the same time, as said anyone is freaking cra-zay-zy.  And you know which f-word really belongs back there.)  Add the rice and stir until coated with fat.
4.  In a surprising second "meanwhile" move, bring the stock to a simmer.
5.  Now's where it starts to be a big risotto pain, because you have to stir non-stop for 25 minutes.  So, do some stretches, pour a glass of wine, and put someone on standby in case you have to pee.  Careful, now: Add a ladle-full of stock to the rice and cook, stirring nonstop (you heard correctly) until all the stock is absorbed.  Then add more, and do it again.  And again, and again, and again until the rice is tender and lovely.  This will take fo-evv-ah, so be ready.  Oh, and did TFH mention that this takes a while?
6.  After your arm is about to fall off from the constant stirring, add the spices, squash, cheese, butter, half & half.  Stir some more.  Don't let it burn!  Be sure to scrape down those sides!  Don't screw it up in the home stretch!!!
7.  Put that delicious risotto in some bowls and top it with pancetta (be generous), pistachios, and chives.  Eat it.  Die happy.

The Frugal Hostess realizes she is the luckiest woman in town. But still, please comment. You can also join the Frugalistas on Facebook for exclusive content, follow on Twitter @frugalhostess, or subscribe (over there, to the left) so that you always know when a new post appears.

Halloween Porch Decorations

The Frugal Hostess likes to decorate her front porch for the various holidays and seasons.  She sometimes buys decorations (usually at the after-holiday sales), but she really prefers throwing things together.  After the graduation party a few weeks back, TFH decided she would definitely make a fabric banner for Halloween using purple, green, black, and orange fabric.   Easier said than done, as it happened.  None of her fabric scraps were the right colors, and the thrift stores were suspiciously barren of fabric scrap bags.  [Do note that most thrift stores sell giant bags of fabric remnants for next to nothing - like, two dollars - TFH just had bad luck.  If you like to use fabric in your crafts, get thee to a thrift store.  Plus, you usually get random colors and patterns that you wouldn't pick out but are glad to have.]  She was finally able to score single napkins and pillow cases in the right colors, and away she went.  Instructions are here, if you missed it.

 
Next, she planned to use some of the things she made last year.  In a fit of new home owner crafting, The Frugal Hostess made bat mobiles, witches' hat garlands, a pumpkin still life, and a bunch of other stuff last Halloween.  While the decorations themselves fell apart, paper perhaps not being the most long-lasting of choices for outside decor, TFH saved all of her templates, ribbon, and other odds and ends in a box in the basement.

But wait!  Didn't her basement flood recently?  Oh no!  What happened to all of the templates?  (Doesn't that just sound like something that would get uttered in all seriousness in an accounting office somewhere?)  Well, Dear Reader(s?), they were rescued.  Whew.


For the door, FruHo (Yes.  Like J-Lo.) envisioned a creepy black wreath with a glow-in-the-dark skeleton.  Because she already had the skeleton and couldn't figure out what to do with it.  Here's how it went down.  TFH had purchased a huge lot of embroidery hoops at a thrift store a while back, because they are the perfect thing to use for paper craft mobiles, wreaths, etc.  She took two of them, one large and one small, and taped them together.  Then, using a pair of black tights that she sliced up, she wrapped the wreath shape to cover the tape.  (You could also spray paint it).  Next, she took a long and winding black scarf and wrapped it around the wreath, followed by a long piece of black velvet ribbon.  All of this was loosely secured with a couple of safety pins.  The final touch was to dangle the little skeleton from the wreath.  Now, you are probably normal and thus lacking in a storehouse of embroidery hoops, but the point here is to use what you have rather than spending a fortune on decorations.

To flank the fabric banner, TFH decided to make a couple of bat mobiles (mow-bull, not Bat Mobile like what Batman drives).  Detailed instructions are forthcoming soon, but these would be slightly less complicated than last year's bat-a-palooza, while making use of the already existing bat templates.  Brill.  She got out the box of templates, placed it on the table, and began to work.  She cut out the bats, did all the steps, blah blah blah to be explained in a later post.  And then she walked away from the table for a few minutes to talk to The Frugal Husband.  At which point one of the assholes cats peed into the box of templates.  That's right, folks; the templates that had been carefully tucked away for a year, then rescued from flood waters, were destroyed by cat piss.  All the more reason not to spend a lot of money on decorations, in The Frugal Hostess's humble opinion.

BOO!

The Frugal Hostess is turning into a cat lady. Please comment. You can also join the Frugalistas on Facebook for exclusive content, follow on Twitter, or subscribe so that you always know when a new post appears.

Seasonal Saturday: Blueberries

Blueberries are in season right now, at least where The Frugal Hostess lives. She bought some at the farmers' market, and they are delicious. They are sweet and pretty and make TFH feel extra happy.

But wait, you say, blueberries aren't exactly cheap. I (meaning you, Fair Reader) used some in a recipe for President's Day, and they cost me an arm and leg. Why are you (meaning The Frugal Hostess) telling me (Fair Reader) to buy an expensive fruit?

Hmm. Err, back to the third person. The Frugal Hostess reminds you that food in season is less expensive than food out of season. Imagine how expensive it is to grow blueberries in January, when they don't wish to be grown. The bribes, the payola - not to mention the chemicals, greenhouse construction materials, and labor - amount to a pretty penny. What they don't amount to, usually, is a pretty blueberry. Blueberries, and almost every other food, taste like mealy, mushy bleck when eaten out of season. Add to that the associated costs of shipping blueberries from the places they will grow out of season, and one wonders at the point of the year-round blueberry.

Well, The Frugal Hostess could talk about this until she's blue in the face, but she supposes you would prefer she didn't. So, here are some easy ways to use fresh blueberries when you're cooking and entertaining this week.

1. Sprinkle them in your cereal.

2. Mix them into your yogurt (and stay tuned for a yogurt segment coming very soon!).

3. Crush or blend up and add to marinade for fresh tuna steaks.

4. Make this salad: arugula (also in season now) + goat cheese + pecan halves + blueberries. For the dressing, put these ingredients in a jar and shake like crazy: 1/3 cup of olive oil + 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar + one egg yolk + salt & pepper + 10 or so crushed blueberries + some honey. (Please note that The Frugal Hostess made up these measurements because she eyeballs ingredients for salad dressing. So, you know, do what you can, and taste it before you serve it, adjusting as needed.)

5. Make popsicles. Fill these molds with apple juice and blueberries. (Buy the molds here, and The Frugal Hostess might be able to afford a set, too.)

And here is a slightly more complicated way to use fresh blueberries.

The Cheap Host's Famous Weekend Pancakes

Ingredients
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
3 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 ½ tablespoon sugar
1 ½ cups milk
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 tablespoons melted butter
1 cup of fresh blueberries (estimated)

Directions
1. Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a bowl. If you don’t have a sifter or are lazy, just stir vigorously with a fork. Add the milk, egg, vanilla and melted butter. Mix until smooth. Add in enough blueberries to spread evenly through the batter.
2. Heat a frying pan over medium high heat and melt some butter to cover bottom of pan. Scoop the batter onto the hot pan using a ¼ size measuring cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot. (Easier said than done, right? That's why this is The Cheap Host's recipe.)
3. You can crush up some blueberries to add to your syrup, too, but this is very messy. Whether or not you do that, heat up your syrup (that's right, you can buy some without high fructose corn syrup!) in the microwave. This thins it out, so you use less (good for saving money and saving your pants size), and it also makes eating pancakes more exciting (at least, to The Frugal Hostess).

photo by MeetaK