Recipe: Seafood Risotto

A few weeks ago a friend and I made some of the best risotto ever! It was so delicious and perfectly cooked. I hate to admit it, but I actually impressed myself! So naturally I want to share how to make the recipe, so that all of you can enjoy! {I never use recipes, so I had to make this one up...} I went to culinary school and loved making risotto dishes.

Here are a few dont's that you should know:

• Don't leave the stove when you are making risotto. This is a dish that loves attention and needs to be constantly stirred.
• Never wash the rice...the starches help to absorb the liquid and keep the finished product very creamy.
• Don't ever use water when cooking risotto, it will result in a tasteless dish. Yuck!

I'll start with a photo first, just to make sure that your taste buds are working!

  

I'm putting a simple recipe for a standard risotto, just so that you can get the feel for how risotto is made! Then, I'll tell you how to prepare the rest of the ingredients and how you can incorporate both. This is going to be so fun for us!!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 small white onion finely chopped
• 4 cloves of minced garlic
• 1 1/2 cups of Arborio rice (Italian short grain rice)
• 1 14.5oz container of chicken broth
• 1 1/2 cups of dry white wine
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan OR Gruyere cheese

Preparation:

1. Put the wine and the broth with a sauce pan and heat on low (this will help to speed up the cooking process and help to regulate the cooking temperature.
2. In a dutch-oven, saute the onion and garlic until almost translucent, about 3 minutes on med-high heat.
3. Then add the rice and toast for about 1 minute, just to get a little color on the rice.
4. Add the heated broth/wine to the rice in half cup increments. Constantly stir. The rice will absorb the liquid, before the rice gets to dry add another half cup of broth. Continue until rice is tender.
5. Once the rice is al dente, remove from heat and stir in cheese.

That is a basic risotto! You will love it like this, but the entire point of the post in to learn how to make it taste awesome! So here is the part where you turn into a master chef...sort of. But it will really help to impress those around you.

*I saute the seafood in a brown butter, you don't have to do it the same way...but it sure does taste REALLY good if you do it this way!

Ingredients:

• 6 tablespoons of butter
• 1/2 LB of raw, peeled shrimp (36-40 count)
• 1/2 cup of lobster tail meat
• 6 basil leaves, chiffonade
• 1/2 tablespoon of chopped oregano

Preparation: (Warning, this is very easy!)

• In the brown butter, toss in the shrimp, cook for about 2 minutes, then add lobster, basil and oregano...once the shrimp is perfectly pink the dish saute process is done.

Now add the seafood with the sauce into the prepared risotto, stir gently, then serve! Top with a little salt & pepper and a cute little basil leaf.

Provecho, Enjoy, Apprécier!


As always, please let me know if you make the dish. I'd love to get your feedback on it. :)

 
With love from the Big Little City in Texas,
Laura 

Workout Inspiration: Workout Music

I have NO idea how people can workout without music! That is what keeps me pumped up! I have few playlists that I refer to most...and I wanted to share them with you. Enjoy!

I'm pretty much OCD about a few things:

• The playlist time has enough minutes...I'm not a fan of repeating songs during my workouts
• Range of singers {male/female...even down to the way their voice sounds, rapping/singing/no vocals}
• Pumped up or chill enough for what I want to accomplish

So here are the 3 playlists that I love the most:

1. Work it Out: Pumped Up and Popular {This playlist has a few older songs, but it still keeps me going on The Arc!}

About this mix: I love that this mix is just under 60 minutes, coming in at 55.1 minutes. It gives me time to start on my machine or warm-up for walking around my neighborhood before I start with the up beat tunes. Some of them are mixes, and I'm OK with that...wait until you see my #3 list!

2. Chill Out!: Calm and Collected {This playlist makes me giggle! I think it is such a random mess of chill music...}

About this mix: This mix is exactly 60 minutes. I listen to this mix when I'm doing Pilates or Yoga. I find that my mind really focuses with these songs. I love that Mercy Me is in this mix, they make me happy and their music is so relaxing to me.

3. WHOA!! Mix: This is my David Guetta mix...it really is just his "Nothing But the Beat" album with a few of his other mixes on the list. I really can't take credit for putting it together, but it just pumps me up!!

About this mix: Warning...let me count...5! 5 explicit tags in this mix! To be honest, I don't really pay attention to the words, I just love the beat. (Spoken like a true Drill Team girl..."I just want to DANCE!") I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love David Guetta! Also, this mix is 59.6 minutes.

So there you have it, my most cherished playlists. I'll add that all of these songs we're purchased...no crazy downloads for this girl!

With love from the Big Little City in Texas,
Laura

Volunteer Work: Days of Taste

Hello everyone! I wanted to share an event that I volunteered with last week. I hope that I'm able to do this again in the Fall, it really was a blast!!

The Dallas chapter of AIWF (American Institute of Wine & Food) hosts an annual event like no other! Days of Taste is a great example of philanthropic outreach. The week long event held at The Dallas Farmers Market hosts 5 days of culinary education to inner city elementary students. The sponge-like minds of the third and fourth grade students are filled with useful knowledge in all things culinary! They learned how to use their taste buds, how to make a homemade dressing, knife skills, and how to effectively shop at the Farmers Market. They loved it, and so did all of the volunteers!

Chef Brent Ruggles from the Las Colinas County Club on Day #1 talking to the students about salt, sugar, citric acid, and cocoa. They hated the citric acid taste test!

On Day #2 Chef Mark McDaniel was a hit with the kids! He did an excellent job with getting the students involved in the lesson!

A nationwide herb farm supplied herbs for the entire week! The students also sampled edible flowers, the pansies won best taste by the kiddos!

Each volunteer was given a group of 5 students to take shopping and help prepare all of the delicious food. I may be a little biased, but my group was the best! {Look at how tall they are...}

In the end, I love that my new career path allows me to volunteer more and tap into my passion for Philanthropy. It feels good to me to give back to the Culinary Arts community and to be able to teach a younger generation (...makes me feel old!!) how to eat healthy!

XO from the Big Little City in Texas,

Laura

Easy Recipe: {Pesto Pasta Salad}

Here is a yummy and super easy for a Pesto Pasta Salad. I make this when I have a pop-up party, making dinner for others, or even catering an event. The longest part of this salad is really just waiting for the pasta to cool. I wish I could tell you that I made the pasta by hand and made homemade pesto sauce...but I normally take the easy way out and use boxed pasta and delicious pre-made pesto.

{Pesto Pasta Salad}

Ingredients:

• 1 box of Rotini {Corkscrew} or Farfalle {Bowtie} pasta
• 1 package of cherry tomatoes {cut in half lengthwise}
• 1 small can of sliced black olives
• 1 small purple onion {small diced}
• 3/4 cup of pesto sauce...I felt bad leaving you hanging with out a "real" pesto sauce recipe.

 Directions:

• Bring a pot of salted water to a rolling boil, add the pasta and cook until al dente. Once the pasta is cooked, drain and put in a large bowl to cool. 
• Once the pasta is cooled, add tomatoes, black olives, onion, and pesto. Add s & p to taste. Toss all together and enjoy!

SEE, I told you it was easy! Look at how yummy it is!

XOXO from,

Big Little City in Texas  



My ups and downs...

I had a pretty good weekend and last week was a really great sign that someone out there is watching over me! I've been meeting with new potential clients and even getting to put my years of marketing to good use! My sister and I will hopefully be doing marketing and PR for a company here in Dallas. I'm so excited about the plan that we put together for this company!

I feel so very blessed to be able to be involved in the event planning of a fundraising event with a YP group in Dallas that I joined last month. Talk about diving in...more like a cannon ball into the planning process. They also asked me to Co-chair the event...sweet! I love working with this new crowd of people. There are some pretty amazing individuals in this group, and I'm so happy to be apart of it!

I went to Austin this weekend too...at 3:30 on Saturday, I was driving home from lunch and got some kind of wild hair. I packed my bag and hit the pavement, well my tires did! I like that Austin is only 3 hours away...2.5 for me, from Dallas. It makes for a nice, quick getaway from reality. We hit up Sixth Street for a few adult beverages...I'm in love with (new to me) StarBar, and its just down the street from Molotov's. It was really fun. Yes, we took a cab and acted like adults! Then on Sunday we went for brunch, a nice long workout, and then watched the Super Bowl.

This is the part where my "downs" start...

I'm a huge sports fan! I like sports for me, and not like some girls out there who like it to impress a guy. Not that I don't want to impress guys, it's just that I love sports!...mostly Football and Basketball! I'm so bummed that football season is over. I so look forward to it every season and now that it's gone I'm not sure what I'm going to do!

I want to highlight a few of my favorite quotes from Super Bowl XLVI via Twitter:

• Haha!! RT @RANDOM: Giants look to unleash the "Kim Kardashian Defense" on Tom Brady tonight; knock him to his knees and on his back as many times as possible.
• Ummm @RANDOMjust asked if Tony Dungy was a make-a-wish candidate.
• That lip-synch-a-thon at halftime was brutal! It's been said but bears repeating: the performer CAN'T be older than the Super Bowl.

I just love Twitter! I want to leave you with a few pictures from the last couple of days!

 

I saw this picture and just love the simplistic explanation of Social Media!  

A beautifully decorated dessert table and perfect inspiration for a client that I'm working with.

  

My new favorite supplement to take...except I really want to drink the entire bottle!

Have a great week! More posts to come...

XO from the Big Little City in Texas,

Laura 

Austin calls my name...

I've really enjoyed the opportunity to take a quick 3 hour drive to Austin every few weeks! I love being in Austin, it's such a different scene from Dallas. There are really fun people and new experiences that I find there.

This past weekend was pretty awesome, just like always. My friend and I went for a quick run around the neighborhood which always feels great! I love getting up early in the morning and start my workout in the dark, then finish with the sun rising. It makes me feel so accomplished. Seeing the sunrise is truly one of life's most breath taking experiences. :)

After our workout, we went and volunteered at a community garden. We made soil chocked full of peet, dirt, compost, and minerals. Grow little seeds, grow!! I helped to plant broccoli, leeks, pingting eggplant, and Bibb lettuce. It was really fun! More fun than I expected...and I didn't get too muddy! The group of volunteers from the previous built this greenhouse...it is pretty awesome! It makes me want to follow through with starting a garden and building a chicken coop. (Did I just say that?)

This greenhouse is holding18 flats of baby seeds! I hope all of them get a chance to grow! :)

If I remember the leader's name...I'll update this post! She was so sweet and encouraged me to come back again. Thank you...I will be back!

Interjection:

Can I just take a quick second to say that the divisional games were such an upset to me. Good thing I didn't bet on any of my teams! I knew that Denver didn't have a chance, but I like Tebow..so I was rooting for them. So girly of a way to pick a team...I know!!! I'm going to have to choose a team that I want to go to the Super Bowl, any suggestions?

OK, so back on topic. One of the nights we decided to do a progressive dinner. We started at a co-op brewery with some really tasty beer and a yummy cheese plate.

Brie, Manchego, Blue...and 2 others.

Second, we went to a sushi restaurant called Uchicko. We were sat at the sushi bar, which is my favorite place. It's a great place to sit and watch all of the sushi chefs make the different types of cuisine. For Dallasites, this place was like TeiTei Robata Bar! We started with tempura nasu which is tempura eggplant, which was pretty good. my favorite part of the meal was the Roasted Golden Beets....

The beets were so tender resting over a bed of sykr yogurt (kinda like Greek yogurt, to me) topped with bitter greens, honey, and fresh cracked black pepper. HEAVEN!!

Let me introduce you to the SHAG roll: tempura fried salmon roll, sun dried tomato, sumiso, spicy sauce. yummmm...

Well I hope that you're hungry now!! More about my trip to Austin in the next post! I'm really trying to be better.

XO from the Big Little City in Texas,

Laura

First post in 2012...alrighty then!

Hey y'all!!

Before you say it or think it...I know I said I wasn't going to take such a long break between posts. I didn't really lie, but I didn't hold up my end of the bargain. I will get better! I already have 3 new posts in the works. Be proud of me...please! :)

I'm going to be a little scattered here, there is a lot to cover!

I want to start be telling my 2012 resolutions, I feel that these are pretty good and I can't wait to put them into action.

• My first one is the most exciting to me! I'm going to run at least one 5K a month, which totals up to 12 5K races. I posted on Facebook that I wanted to do this and got really great feedback from it, so I'm excited to have friends that want to do this with me. I'm hoping that I can work up to a 13.1 or even a 26.2....woo-hoo! In due time, Laura...don't get ahead of yourself!
• Just like every year I say that I'm going to grow in my faith and this year is the year for me to do so. I have already attended a few services at this amazing church in Mansfield, TX. I'm really liking the message that I hear and it motivates me to go and spread the word. I feel great at this new church!! Wow, God is amazing!
• Here is the BIG one...I'm going to let my light SHINE! If I want to see something happen...it will happen. Very vague...I know, but I have a ton of goals to reach and I want to see all of them happen! I will be strong and powerful this year. Each morning I read "Our Deepest Fear..." by Marianne Williamson. (not sure if I have referred to this in the past, but I love it!)
• Along with all of the other top ten popular resolutions...I will make this year an amazing one.

PICTURE TIME!

I felt that I needed to get away from it all one day and booked a hotel room for myself at the W in Victory Park. I ordered very expensive room service, and loved every minute. It felt good just to pamper myself. I intend to do this for myself every so often!

In my last post I talked about how my sister and I started an event planning company...well here are a few photos from the event! It turned out so fabulous! For this Holiday party, we went with a funky, trendy color scheme.

Our client was so blown-away and we hope to plan more events with this company in Austin!

The food table! It turned out so amazing...everything was delicious!



The client provided all of the beer and wine...we took care of making it look pretty! :) There was Champagne, wine, craft beers...a ton of delectable beverages to choose from. The partygoers has a pretty good time depleting the goods! I'd like to add that it was all purchased from The Wine Therapist here in Dallas, and shipped down to Austin. (Plug for Phillip!)



This is just a better view of the colors that we chose. Gold was the main accent color with pops of hot pink, lime green, purple, and aqua.



This is always my favorite display of flowers! I love using white and letting the beauty of the flowers shine.


One of my greatest friends, Dawn, was the one who made all of this happen! I'm SO blessed to have her in my life! She is truly an amazing person. We met in Culinary School back in summer 2004...my life was forever changed. :)


On a side note: I had a vivid dream of creating this Antipasto platter...I went out and bought the rustic cutting board, and went to town. I marinated my own cheeses, baby bellas, grilled asparagus and even stuffed the olives myself! I think that this turned out so amazing...I hate to say it, but I impressed myself. Food is my artwork!  

Also...I renamed my blog! I hope you like the new name. Dallas truly is the big, little city in Texas. I see familiar faces around every corner and embrace the charisma that Dallas has. I'm glad to be back in the "Heart of Texas". Also, I have started to settle back into my Southern girl charm and let my accent slip out a little more. So...

Bless your heart!

XO,
Laura