Recipe: Lobster Risotto

With how crazy our schedules have been lately, it felt like forever since I cooked dinner – I mean, really cooked. 

A week of vacation followed up by a week of traveling for work, topped off with a week of Mr. KK working late and boring, fast 'weekday' meals, this long weekend felt like the perfect time to pour a few cocktails, let the swanky sounds of Sinatra and Bublé fill the kitchen, and just cook.

And what better food to enjoy as the end of summer looms over our heads, than lobster!

I love risotto, and I love making risotto. It's not hard (I swear!), it just requires constant attention.

We watch a lot of food TV, and every season without fail, a contestant attempts risotto. And every time, it's the kiss of death. I swear, if I ever make it onto a cooking show, I'm making risotto. (You hear that, Tom Colicchio??)

(Little known kk fact: about 7 years ago I sent in a video submission for The Next Food Network Star. Guess what I made? Yup. Risotto with peas and lemon. And, no, nothing every came of it).

So here's my recipe* for lobster risotto.

Ingredients:

2 lobsters, steamed, delicious meat removed and cut into large pieces

(I leave the tails whole for presentation)

3 Tbsp of unsalted butter, divided

Olive oil

1 large shallot, diced

1 cup arborio rice

3/4 cup white wine (stuff you drink)

6 cups chicken stock, kept warm throughout cooking

1 lemon, zested and juiced

1/4 cup parmesan cheese (cheese with fish? are you crazy? yes. yes I am)

A crisp white wine for drinking.

This recipe should probably feel 4 people. In our house, it feeds 2 people with a little leftover to be enjoyed by Mr. KK for lunch.

1. Do the lobsters first. Look at that gorgeous meat!

2. Melt 2 Tbsp of butter with a few swirls of olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat (I sometimes do it over medium low, but my behemoth stove cooks hot)

3. Add the shallot, and sauté until translucent (but not brown)

4. Add the rice, and stir until you coat every piece with the butter/oil mixture. The rice should glisten. Continue to stir, allowing the rice to toast up a little bit.

5. Add the wine, and stir rice to pick up any bits that may have stuck to the pan. Stir until just about all of the wine evaporates.

6. Once the wine evaporates, add two ladlefuls of warm stock. Stir the rice to coat and work the broth around the pan. The rice will absorb the stock. When this happens, add another two ladlefuls of stock. Continue this until the rice is plump and creamy, anywhere from 22-26 minutes or so. I do it by taste. The rice should be creamy, but still have a little bit of bite left. I also season with salt and pepper along the way.

7. At the very end, stir in the cheese, lemon zest and lemon juice, then add the picked lobster meat and stir to warm through. Turn off the heat. Add 1 Tbsp of butter, stir to melt.

8. Serve with lobster tail on top.

As we were cooking our risotto, we grilled up some clams and just enjoyed them with lemon.

Happy end of summer!

Sh*t I've been doing.

I logged in to write this post tonight and saw that I haven't blogged in almost three months. Three months!

That's horrible. I'm a shitty blogger. I'm sorry.

But please – get out your violin so you can play a sad tune while I attempt to explain where the hell I've been.

Summer who?

If it weren't for my school teacher friends on Facebook, I probably would have never known it was summertime, or that summer has (unofficially) ended. I mean, I knew it was summer (it was a million effing degrees out and my hair was one big ball of frizz), but we didn't do anything that I would call 'super summery' this year. I think I went in my in-laws' pool a total of 2 times. I saw the beach once (once!), and it wasn't until we were on vacation in North Carolina two weeks ago. I don't feel like I had a summer yet, so I'm struggling with accepting the fact that it's over and letting it go. Summer in September, anyone?

House renovations.

Our house looks like a show on HGTV gone wrong. We are finally doing the big construction project we've been talking about forever, and turning our garage into a family room and building a new garage next to that. The main reason is that Max has too much crap, and all of his crap is really big. Why is baby stuff so freaking big? I remember playing with wooden spoons and Tupperware, and being happy.

Between piles of dirt, our broken up driveway, large equipment and the fact that we have to park on the front lawn Sanford-and-Son-style, our yard leaves much to be desired. Today, I came home to the sprinkler on, continuously wetting a mound of dirt. We are now watering dirt. This place is a wreck. (But it's going to be awesome!)

#maxmars

Somehow, this kid is going to be a year old in a month. How is that even humanly possible? 

I've stopped reading my weekly updates from baby websites, because they practically have Max driving a car at 47 weeks old. Max is a superior crawler, when he wants to be. And he loves laughing at the word 'no', which we believe he inherited from his paternal grandfather. I also think he's going to be left-handed, though he REFUSES to pick up any morsels of food and put them in his mouth. Inanimate objects? They go right into his pie hole. Actual food? He prefers to be hand fed like a Roman King by mommy and daddy.

But he's super cute, so we forgive him.

My novel.

I actually started it!

I was going to publish a post with the Prologue, but then got cold feet. What if you hate the prologue? Does that mean you'll hate the whole book? 

I even started one of the chapters, though Mr. KK isn't a fan of it, because the whole chapter revolves around this thing he does that drives me NUTS, and I totally call him out on it.

Wieners.

Vito the Wonder Dog is starting to show his age. He's been gray for a while, but now he's practically deaf. It's so heartbreaking, because he was always on alert. I swear that dog would bark at a deer in the woods two streets over.

Now, he has to be looking at you when you talk to him in order to hear you. He IS 13 years old, which is really old in dog years. Oftentimes we find ourselves screaming things to him like, "VITO.COME.HERE!" and "DO.YOU.HAVE.TO.POOP?"

In other wiener news, Max found HIS wiener in the tub the other night. He was fascinated. To quote Elaine Benes, 'I don't know how you guys walk around with those things.'