Spicy risotto on a cold day with a cold.

The title of this blog is confusing, misleading, and, if I may say so myself, fabulous! Haha...so I have a cold, which kinda sucks, but its not too bad, so thats good. It was snowing this morning and I was hoping so much for a snow delay, but no such luck Miss Harper! Anyway, work was fine, nothing exciting or really worth writing about. I left at about 2, which was awesome and came home with intentions to go to the gym. I quickly ditched that idea and took a nap instead....my reasoning was that I have a cold and I don't want it to get worse. Yes, I know there is that whole theory about "sweating it out" if it is anything above the chest...but ya know what? I think I believe more in "snuggling it out" in my cozy warm bed on a freezing cold, sleety, icy, snowy, rainy, shitty day. So anyway, that's what I did, and I feel good about that decision.hahaha.

I woke up thinking about Christmas stuff (specifically the chocolate bark I am making for my friends at work) and dinner. Figures....always thinking about food. I decided to ask my sister for her recipe for asparagus and shrimp risotto because she always raves about it. It looked pretty simple, and I figured that since I had asparagus already I may as well go for it. I went to the store to get the stuff and to get stuff for my chocolate bark. I was feeling kinda down in the dumps until I was rounding the corner on the baking aisle and spice girls "if you wanna be my lover" came on. As I sorted through the baking chocolates and nuts, I had a moment of pure, 6th grade, pubescent bliss! I smiled and even let out a little, shameless giggle right there in the baking aisle. I flashed back to the day Michele, Sarah, Marissa and I went to the movie theatre to see Spice World and there were no seats together, so Marissa sat in a seat by herself, refusing to do something as crude as sitting in the aisle. Haha...the rest of us sat down in the front in the aisle and watched the movie from there. When we stood up to leave, one of us had a leg that was so asleep that she nearly fell over. I can't remember which one of us it was, but in my head it was Sarah. I also remember that after the movie we went to McDonalds right near the movie theatre and bought an obscene number of 50 cent apple pies and sat on the curb and ate them. Damn, those were the days.

So anyway, I brought my goods back home, humming a mix of Spice Girls and an acapella version of the 12 days of Christmas the whole way. I started making the risotto, the smell was delicious, like roasting chicken and garlic mixed with sauteeing onions and the starchiness of rice. Awesome. Then, the stirring started. According to this recipe, you are to add 1/2 cup of the 4 cups of liquid at a time. Then you have to stir until it is absorbed before you add more. This takes about 5 minutes per addition, adding up to over 30 minutes of stirring. 10 minutes in, I pulled up a barstool and made myself comfortable. At this point, I feel it is necessary to add that all this stirring was totally worth it, as the resulting risotto (oooh..alliteration!) is creamy and thick, with a deliciously al dente bite. The Shrimp and asparagus were cooked well, and the olive oil garlic bread I had on the side was crispy and tangy...yummo!

As I am sitting here, I am crunching on my last few bites of spicy, oily bread, and I am gearing up for round two of my cooking for the night....I think it is going to be toffee chocolate bark and maybe peppermint chocolate bark too...I know, I'm livin' on the wild side.

bon apetit!