Low on $$$ ? Its not surprising!

Eating out is expensive. And that’s where most of my $$$ went to………which resulted in an almost non-existent bank balance (well…aside from food, there’s the occasional splurge on a new top, shoes, bags….etc etc).
Well, its about that time where the bank balance looks like its drying up…..and its a long weekend, where work is park at this place called Far Far Away, I’m craving from some nice stuff to eat. My plan to make my own brekky, which would have saved me about $15 - $20 ++ , but none of the grocery shops were open in the morning and I woke up with a ravenous appetite. Hence, from Foodland, I drove to Jones the Grocers in Hyde Park and had a lovely french toast with crispy bacon strips (I added fried egg too)…and a long black! There goes $25 for brekky! I think its worth every cents though.....

Then feeling absolutely ashamed of myself, on how easily I gave up on my plan to be a frugal chick……I vowed to cook dinner.

And so dinner it is. I have lamb mince, and a 3 days old bunch of mint. I’ve bought that after reading a blog, from Tastespotting.com. I don’t have everything….but I think I can improvise. Making breadcrumbs was easy …..and i have a pack of ground coriander somewhere. Took me awhile to find cinnamon….and I ended up finding a bottle of ground cinnamon and a few stick of cinnamon bark. Hmm…well, I’m good to go to make some Lamb Meatball with Mint

As I planned to skip lunch, I’m expecting that I would have work up a huge appetite by dinner time…hence, risotto it is, which is suggested by Kevin, from Closet Cooking blog. Works really well as the weather is rather chilly, it being the tail end of Autumn. While Kevin uses Farro, I only have arborio rice in my pantry, hence that’ll do. I bought a 1L pack of Chicken Stock from Foodland (which opened at 12 pm today, as its Anzac Day)….and I manage to dig out my stash of dry porcini. Bought this a long long time ago….from the Adelaide Central Market, when i first arrived in Adelaide. Bought it mainly because I’ve never been able to find any Porcini mushroom in M’sia…….and its the most “earthy” flavoured mushroom that I’ve ever had before…..and am glad I finally found an excuse to use it.

 

~~Soaking the dry porcini for about 20 mins~~

So, Dry Porcini Risotto it is……
The dry porcini is the only different element from Kevin’s recipe…..and the twist is that I added the water from the porcini soak to the chicken broth…

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Cooking the risotto……and I don’t have any parmesan cheese, just some bitey cheddar ….and am too lazy to grate it (i don’t think I can actually grate cheddar slices…kekeke…), hence I tear it to bits and sprinkle on the risotto…
Added the porcini to the risotto when its about 20-30 mins after I’ve cooked the rice. The colour of the risotto gets darker and darker….and the porcini, the freshly cracked pepper….the butter, cheese..and stock…just smelled so amazingly good. At that point, even if it taste like crap, I’ll probably want to still put it in my mouth….smells great.
Final product ????? Ta daa……….

I let the whole watery mixture reduced to the above consistency…and plate it with the Lamb meatballs.
Did I mention that it took a lot of will power not to gobble up the meatballs while waiting for the risotto to cook?
And stirring the risotto is quite a chore…and thank god I’m cooking just 1 cup of rice. Can’t imagine having to stir a whole lot of rice in a thickening stock………And Shane, I think you’ll love this…the rice is cooked perfectly…with that little bit of bite to it, what you’ll called al dente if you are cooking pasta. :D
I added a bit of lemon zests before digging in…..which really “brighten” what would have been a heavy meal.
Down the whole thing with a glass of Yalumba’s TGV…….nice!!!! And I have leftover to munch on tomorrow….not that I’m too hopeful as to how a reheated risotto will turn out….fingers crossed!
Happy!!!!!!! guinea pigs who want to try this, please sign up on FB….and book me 1 week in advance to cook this…kekekkekekekekeke….

Visit Kevin’s blog– Closet Cook for the recipe to the lamb meatball, and the basic recipe of a risotto , as I just improvised by adding the porcini (which btw, I did a bit of stirfry with garlic before adding it to the cooking risotto).

Am proud of the risotto, and I also love the meatballs :

Cravings....

Its 2.04am in the morning.

I should have packed my stuff nicely for the pre move survey this coming Wednesday, but procrastination had interrupted my initial intention.....

My room look like this now :

And reading food blogs make me hungry again....and all of a sudden, I have this craving for DIM SUM.....and not just any DIM SUM....i want those at Kuchai Lama, the one that Sen Shih aka Bro Bra brought us. Its called Kam Him......and I want the egg tart, char siew pau, siew mai, steam ribs.........

HUNGRY lar.................

Its really amazing...I went there 3-4 times, but up to now, I still don't know how to get to the restaurant. I vaguely remember we pass through Federal Highway....and I can see Midvalley along the way....and its blank from there on!

ugh!!