Thoughts From A Juice Cleanse

Hello from the other side.

Why did I do a juice fast? I know, only assholes do these things. But I wanted to use the New Year and resolution time to jump start a healthier lifestyle (I know, #basic, but don't fucking judge me okay? I'm trying to better myself). In the last year, I went off the deep end of indulgences. Too much wine, too much beer, too much pasta, and then one day, nothing fit properly. I also felt like shit a lot of the time. I was exhausted from about 2:00pm-5:00pm, I can't sleep through the night, and I got sick this summer and had to cancel my own 30th birthday. So I was ready for something a little different.

But enough about me, back to the fast. 
I was hungry, but not any hungrier than I've been, and I've certainly gone a full day without eating before (usually thanks to my friend, Bombay Sapphire.)

I absolutely had cravings too, things that wouldn't normally tempt me seemed impossibly delicious- like how Burger King selected January 4th as their 2 Can Dine marketing flyer launch date, "coincidentally" coinciding with the same day I couldn't find a parking spot at my gym. But, the cleanse certainly gave me an opportunity to reflect about what I love about food. And, it increased my appreciation of food, in the sense of food being a tangible thing we shop for, prepare, eat, chew, since I was getting plenty of nutrition without food in that sense otherwise.

So yes, I was hungry. And I certainly missed chewing food. But what I missed most was the ritual of eating. Let me describe the scenario for you: 

It's Friday night, 7pm. I've walked the dog, I've had a hot bath, everyone is leaving me alone like I like, and the rest of my night consists of a bottle of wine, a GIANT bowl of pasta, and Netflix. And like, you can't eat until you find the right Netflix show, but you can't start something and then stop it to make food. It's a delicate ballet of food, film, and my couch. It's my absolute favourite Friday night. It does not get better. So while the juice fast was clearly short term (you can't settle in for a cozy night on the couch with a Spirulina-Spinach-Beet juice) it made me wonder how I might indulge these rituals but make better choices. It also caused me to think about what food means culturally. I also binged on several of my favourite food documentaries during the fast, which gives me deeper perspective on food, culture, poverty, and access. 

While my Friday night pasta and wine isn't necessarily a cultural enjoyment, its most important quality is that it is best done alone; it's part of a beautiful ritual I've created to unwind from my week. I think these food rituals begin to shape our perceptions of ourselves. For example, I've read some great books and articles on people who quit drinking, and the thing I most identify with is the re-shaping of oneself when you stop drinking. "I'm the party girl- without vodka, who will I be?" As someone who did tone the drinking for a while, I tried on the Superior Perrier Bitch persona, but that didn't quite fit. And as it turns out, Moderate Mary isn't who I am either. But that's for another day (and possibly a therapist).

My enjoyment of food is a pivotal element of my persona. I love food. Like, I LOVE it. I love going out to eat, I love cooking at home, I love trying new food, I love experimenting to see how to make things more delicious. I've considered being vegetarian or vegan before, or cutting out other things that are bad for you, but ultimately it comes down to having to redefine myself, and that's the hard work. I mean, I think cows are dopey and cute and I feel terrible that they're slaughtered in horrendous ways. But I like the Bailey who orders her steak rare. I want to be a rare steak kind of girl. Just like I want to be a pasta-loving kind of girl. Or the kind of girl that can go to a dinner party and be game for absolutely anything. A vegan Bailey is a new person. Maybe she also volunteers at an animal shelter. Perhaps she really likes snuggling up with a spirulina smoothie on Friday nights. I don't know. But I know that I want to eat baguettes and brie and rosé this summer on a patio. Because that Bailey eats her steak rare. And won't turn on Jessica Jones until the pesto is on the fettuccine and the Rhône is in the glass.

Ultimately, I suppose Moderation Mary is our friend. Healthy-ish, that's what people are doing now, right? As I mentioned, I did the fast because I wanted to jump start healthy eating habits, and I do want to feel better. So in the spirit of being the Rare Steak Bailey, but with a streak of the Spirulina Sally, plant-based meals are the ticket. Indulgence is okay, once and a while. And yes, I do want to feel better, and sleep better, and be well, but I also really want my fucking expensive jeans to fit, and I want to wear sexy underwear without it hacking into the flesh of my hips and making me look like two baguettes are actually stuck to either hip.

Bottom line- how do you LOVE food without becoming a glutton and getting gout? One advantage I have is that I'm actually not too into processed food, and the preparation of food is something I enjoy, so it’s immensely easier for me to wean myself off the sugar and chemical laden food we typically think of as unhealthy. And, as I’ve found in the days since the juice fast, we can still make food taste delicious and have it be healthy(ish). Take for example this meal, courtesy of Tasty, which I played with a little and found something delicious.

My main changes to this recipe were to use brown rice vermicelli instead of regular pasta; I used homemade almond butter instead of peanut butter (because regular peanut butter is basically just hydrogenated oil and sugar), and added a splash of coconut milk with honey instead of brown sugar. You need:

• 1/2 cup almond butter
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• 1 Tbsp. sesame oil
• 2 Tbsp. Sriracha 
• 1 Tbsp. ginger /minced
• 3 cloves garlic /minced
• ¼ cup coconut milk
• 1 Tbsp. honey
• Vermicelli 
• 1 cup carrots /finely cut into matchsticks 
• 2 cucumbers /shaved using vegetable peeler 
• 1 red bell pepper /thinly sliced into strips
• 1 yellow bell pepper /thinly sliced into strips
• 1/2 cup green onion /sliced
• 1/4 cup cilantro /chopped
• 1/2 avocado
• Crumbled roasted seaweed

This is the easy part. Bring your noodles to a boil. While that happens, mix the first nine ingredients together, either whisked or in your blender. I did mine in my brand new Blendtec and it was awesome. Slice the rest of the ingredients. When the noodles are ready, toss everything together except the avocado and seaweed, then refrigerate for at least an hour. Serve on a bed of greens and garnish with the avocado, seaweed and a drizzle of sesame oil. 

It’s delicious, healthy, gluten-free (if you use gluten free soy) and an excellent option for #MeatlessMonday. And if you participate in Meatless Monday at least, that Saturday Steak is a little easier to enjoy. 

Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Brown Butter Sage Sauce

 

How many blogs have I started with the sentence, “So it’s fall…”? Probably like 100. I feel like I say it all the time. Or spring. But of course that’s because I’m Canadian, and that means our lives revolve around the changing of the weather.

That being said, fall is probably my favourite season for cooking. It means that you can turn on your oven without your house feeling like the Seventh Circle of Hades, you actually feel like eating instead of just wanting 5 cold showers a day, and you can finally justify stuffing your face with delicious pasta, because that bikini can fuck off for eight months now. It’s the perfect season, really.

Being an ambitious young adult, I once tried to make gnocchi from scratch in my University Apartment, for my University Boyfriend, with my University Budget and Attention Span (sadly the attention span issue persists today). It was awful. I attempted such a thing because I knew that University Boyfriend’s favourite pasta was gnocchi, and I thought to myself, “What better way to charm a man than to make his favourite pasta from scratch?” I was given added confidence by watching Giada Di Laurentiis do it on her cooking show, which made making gnocchi look as easy as making Kraft Dinner. “Just scoop out the potatoes,” she said, with all her teeth and baby pink nail polish convincing me that I could just as easily scoop out a roasted potato or two and whip it into perfectly fluffy balls of pasta, given added charisma by being rolled on the back of a fork for a truly professional look. It was seductive, and I imagine University Boyfriend’s impressed and touched face as he popped my perfectly crafted gnocchi in his mouth.

What actually happened was that I began this project at 5:00 for a 6:00 dinner. Frantic, at 5:30, when my potatoes may as well be stones of granite, they were still so hard, I decided that mashing them at their current texture would be just fine. It was not fine. The dough was decidedly lumpy, I was covered in flour and still in pyjamas for dinner, I had potato bits in my hair for days, and I learned a very valuable lesson about why Italian men treasure their Nonnas so much.  To give credit where credit is due, University Boyfriend did his absolute best impression of himself being touched and impressed, and ate the pasta sauce like a soup.

 

Today, as I reflected on that memory, I decided to redeem myself. A fresh, fall day, I was ready for some flavours that reflected the season. I’m also somewhat precariously employed at the moment, so I have quite a lot of time on my hands. It felt like a day for self-improvement, and where better to start than one’s gnocchi-making skills? These are the skills of domestic goddesses and master chefs alike. These are the skills that build one’s character. These are the skills that, while unlikely to get you a job anywhere but the restaurant industry, require credit given on a résumé. Why? Because the creation of these perfect little potato balls requires diligence, attention to detail, and ambition. It is the activity of one succeeding in all aspects of life. To make one’s own gnocchi is to prove to the world that you are an adult and you can Make Anything Happen.  

Also, it’s way better than those weird rubber balls you buy in the grocery store. If for no other reason, this is worth it because I promise this is going to taste better. Let’s get started.

 

In “Bailey Makes Gnocchi: Volume 1”, my main mistake was not cooking the potatoes long enough. This is crucial. Give your potatoes a full hour in the oven at 425°. You also will ideally own a potato ricer, and if not (like me), you at least own a fine strainer that you can push the hot potato flesh through. (Use a spoon to do this, unless you have asbestos-hands.)

 

Start with two yellow potatoes and a sweet potato. Bake them on a rack for an hour at least, depending on how large they are. Once your potatoes are cooked, let them cool just enough for you to be able to handle them. Slice in half, and scoop the flesh out. Either rice it or press it through a sieve into a bowl. To your now-smooth potato innards, add:

• 1 egg, beaten

• 2-3 tbsp of grated parmesan

• Salt and pepper to season

• 1 cup of flour

• 2 tbsp olive oil

Stir that up just until it’s mixed. As with all things that receive mixing, over-mixing your dough will result in the Worst Kitchen Disaster Ever- tough little balls of various baked goods. So just enough to blend is fine.

Once you’ve formed dough, flour a surface that you’ll be able to work on. It needs to be a fairly big space, because you’re about to do some rolling. Cut the dough into four or five vertical slices. Take each hunk and roll it between your hands and the work surface as though you’re making Play-Doh snakes. Then, cut it into little rounds. Mine were about an inch long and maybe half an inch thick? Just make them look like gnocchi. If you want to get really fancy, like if you’re trying to convince a 22 year old artist you are in fact wifey material he could give up his wanderlust for, roll them down the back of a fork for the ridges.

 

Cook them in a large pot of salted, boiling water until they float. Once they float, give them one extra minute and then scoop them out with a strainer or slotted spoon.

 

Now- don’t get flustered, but you’re actually going to do something else while the gnocchi cook. Have a sauté pan getting nice and hot. As soon as you dump in your pasta to the pot, put about a quarter cup of butter in the pan. Also add a few leaves of sage, which you can bruise with the back of your knife to help them release flavour. Brown the butter, which means watch it very carefully until the milk solids and the oily part start to turn brown. Let it get golden, but don’t let it go much past that. The sage leaves will crisp up beautifully as well.

When your gnocchi are plated, scoop out your brown butter sauce onto the pasta. Top with salt, pepper, the sage leaves, and a really great freshly shaved parmesan or reggiano. Very simple flavours, but it is an amazingly delicious fall meal. Just save it for a day when you feel like being in the kitchen!

Thank you to this recipe, which gave some great tips on how to ensure the gnocchi are fluffy and delicious.

Tagliatelle with Meatballs in Red Wine

I've decided this blog doesn't give enough attention to date food. Possibly because two of the three LadyGirls are in live-in relationships, and the third (me) is a jaded serial First-Dater, we don’t consider how many people in this world are actually out there and meeting other humans in hopes that some sort of functioning relationship will blossom.

I’ve had so many first dates that I have a script that I essentially recite. My first date monologue is one of pre-crafted and charmingly quirky anecdotes, dotted with perfectly timed self-deprecating witticisms, which only work because nothing I'm self-deprecating about is an actually personality flaw, which both the date and I know. To break through my carefully fashioned exterior of a mix between Gillian Flynn's Cool Girl and Nathan Rabin’s Manic Pixie Dream Girl, you need to make it to at least a fourth cocktail on Date Three.

 

The monologue is necessary, particularly in the ADD-age of Tinder. Spending time with strangers is rarely fun, and when you are spending time with a stranger who only stood out because in the swath of gym-selfies, gun-selfies, and Unabomber lookalikes, he had a profile without any dead animals or dick pics. This in no way means they will be interesting, or funny, or even a functioning human being. It only means they realize that a picture of their nethers should not be treated as a valentine.

Rather than playing 20 Questions with men who ration their sentences, I will just start chattering to fill the void. As Pulp Fiction puts it, you have to be pretty familiar to share a comfortable silence with someone. What does a silence with a stranger feel like? It feels like the doctor’s office calling you back two weeks after those tests, and then the receptionist being on lunch break for the next hour. It feels like standing in line at Ikea with only three light bulbs to purchase during on the last weekend in August in a college town.  It feels like the moment of dread at 4:52 a.m. when you wake up and have to pee and you know that if you get out of bed, you’ll finally fall back asleep at precisely 6:57 a.m. In short, it is excruciating. The answer is to have a pre-prepared soliloquy of sorts, which you can deliver over a drink (or two, depending on how much you like the sounds of your own voice) and you’ll never have to have a real conversation with a stranger ever again.

So anyway. All that being said, after a few dates with someone, you may actually like them enough to share a meal with them. This needs to be carefully considered as well. It can’t be too slurpy (no pho or ramen), but it can’t be boring or cheap (please, please, never Kelsey’s).  

Once you’ve shared enough meals in public with someone, you then may want to spend time with them in the privacy of your own home. This is great if you actually truly enjoy someone’s company, but be warned- there is much more pressure in your home, because you lack the ability to people watch and base conversations on your observations. A helpful option? Making a great meal.

These meatballs are a great date meal. They are quick, your house will smell amazing, and they’re quite easy to make, without looking like you made some Kraft Dinner. The trick is to use fancy pasta, no basic fettuccine for this. If you use pappardelle or tagliatelle, it looks like an extra special effort. As my mother always told me, “It’s all smoke and mirrors baby,” (as I type this, I realize I really took that advice to heart since my first date monologue is essentially smoke and mirrors.)

I based the meal on this recipe, which I found on Pinterest. I changed a few things, but one thing I absolutely recommend staying with is the integration of ricotta. It keeps the meatballs wonderfully moist.

I wasn’t able to find veal, and also had a lengthy discussion with my best friend on the phone about the ethics of veal while trying to find it in the Loblaws, and was guilted out of even looking very hard by the end of the conversation. You could use ground beef, like I did, but it would probably be fine with really any ground meat you wanted.

For the meatballs, you’ll need:

• 1 lb of ground meat
• 3 tbsp ricotta
• lemon zest
• about a handful of breadcrumbs
• 1 egg
• chopped fresh parsley
• a few cloves of minced garlic
• parmesan
• chili flakes

For the sauce, you’ll need:

• ½ cup chicken stock
• ½ cup red wine (or more, whatever)
• knob of butter
• 3 bay leaves
• squeeze of lemon juice

I didn’t use white wine, as the recipe suggests, because I think red meat is better with red wine. You can use whatever you like though. I also put the lemon zest in the meatballs instead of the sauce and then squeezed the lemon into the sauce.

Mix your meatball ingredients together with your hands, there’s no other way. Form into balls; you’ll get about 12-14 depending on how big they are. Let chill for half an hour. Heat up a tbsp. of oil in large frying pan and brown the meatballs on each side. Deglaze the pan with the red wine and simmer for a minute or two. Then add your chicken stock, bay leaves, and lemon juice. Turn the heat down to a simmer and let cook uncovered for 15 minutes, turning the balls occasionally.

Cook your pasta in boiling, salted water. Just before serving, stir in the knob of butter to your sauce. Top pasta with meatballs, sauce, freshly grated parmesan, and maybe some fresh basil or parsley. (That’s optional, but you’re the type of person who puts effort into things.)

 Happy dating!

Good Ol' Mac & Cheese

Macaroni and cheese holds a very dear place in my heart. It was my dad's favourite meal, so we ate it often growing up. And because we were pretty poor, it was a good and cheap way to feed five kids. Hahah except we always had it with a side of mashed potatoes and buttered bread. So maybe not the healthiest meal. But everybody left the table full and happy, and that's all that counted back in the day. And my dad hated spice of any kind. As most dads did back then. So my mom just boiled the noodles and layered them in a casserole dish with grated mild cheddar and topped it with smashed up saltines and baked it off. The End. No flavour at all. But thank God, Heinz had invented ketchup by then, and nobody took advantage of that more than I did!

Mac & cheese was the first dinner I ever learned to cook as a child so I could help my mom out and have supper ready by the time she got home from work. And it's been a staple on my dinner table my whole life because I learned it's something that kids really love, so I could be sure my LadyGirls weren't going to bed hungry. And like any of my recipes, it's evolved over the years as the girls got older and more adventurous with their taste buds. So the idea of mac & cheese in my mind, is that the pasta is the back beat of the dish and the cheese is the tempo. Like any pasta dish really. The sauce is the star of the show. And cheese on a platter with a nice bottle of red wine is lovely, but it really can't stand alone in a sauce. It needs enhancing. So I add a bit of spice and this and that to jazz it up.

All good, creamy mac & cheese recipes start with a classic Béchamel sauce and you whisk in your cheese and your macaroni noodles. And now you have a difficult choice to make. You can eat it at this stage and it's sumptuous and delicious. Or you can sprinkle some bread crumbs or Panko or even smashed Ritz crackers and bake it off. I'll give you the baked off version, but by all means, feel free to break away before the bake off stage and you won't be disappointed!

You'll need to boil some elbow macaroni in salted boiling water. Depending on how much you want, use 2 or 3 cups of dried pasta.

For the sauce:
1/3 cup melted butter
3 tablespoons of flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt and lots of freshly ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon of grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon of cayenne powder
1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard
2 1/2 cups of half and half or milk
3 cups of cheese. Use what you like. I used extra old white cheddar and Gruyere. (This ain't momma's mac & cheese) but you can use cheddar and parmesan. The cheese is your call since this is your signature mac & cheese. You can grate it if you like. I hate grating cheese, so I chop it into bite sized pieces.

For the topping:
Melt 1 tablespoon of butter and add 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs or Panko or smashed crackers. Mix it all together and sprinkle it over the top.

Preheat the oven to 350 if you're planning to bake this.
Boil the macaroni until still slightly firm to the bite. About 10-12 minutes and drain it well.

Melt the butter and whisk in the flour using medium heat. Add the salt, pepper, nutmeg, cayenne and Dijon and whisk for 3 or 4 minutes until it turns golden. Add the cream and whisk until it just comes up to the boil. It should be pretty thick by now. If it isn't, keep whisking and let it simmer for a few minutes till it thickens up. Turn off the heat and whisk in the cheese. It doesn't have to melt completely. About half melted is fine. And the macaroni and stir it all together.

You could eat it now. Or you can forge ahead with me.

Pour it all into a greased casserole dish and sprinkle the top with your topping. Bake it for 30 minutes until the topping is golden brown. Let it rest for 10 minutes before you serve it. And that's it! Serve it with anything or just have it on its own. Hahah I don't use ketchup on it anymore. (Now I use hot sauce!) Enjoy friends.

Lasagna Roll Ups

So I'm pretty much starving to death. I had a toothache two weeks ago that required an emergency trip to the dentist. They put me on antibiotics for a week and told me to come back for a root canal. Now that might seem like a pretty routine thing to most of you, but for me, it's never routine. And anything that could go wrong did go wrong. But I'm used to that. And that's not the story. A recipe came up on my Facebook page for skinny lasagna roll ups. I had forgotten about lasagna roll ups and I sure as hell don't want to make a skinny version of them. There is nothing about eating carbohydrates that will ever make you skinny. That is an oxymoron. If you're trying to lose weight, don't eat pasta. Ever. Eat fish. Or chicken. But I haven't been able to eat for two weeks now, and I no longer need to lose weight, so I went Googling as I often do when I'm starving to death and decided to go with the Giada De Laurentis version of the roll up. Why is she so tiny and beautiful and lovely and she can also cook like God? A question for another day I guess because we're going to make her roll ups. And this isn't her exact recipe. It's mine because I think unsalted butter is shit and so on. Where she calls for milk, I use half and half. Oh, that explains why she's quite a bit tinier than me.

You'll need:
for the Béchamel sauce:
2 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of flour (can you see a roux coming on?)
1 1/2 cups or so of half and half. Start with 1 cup and thin down if necessary. You're looking for thicker than pancake batter here, but not wallpaper glue
salt & pepper to season
A pinch of nutmeg. Go easy. You don't want your dinner to taste like pumpkin pie

And for the lasagna:
12 lasagna noodles
a splash of olive oil to add into the boiling water
salt for the boiling water

And the filling:
1 pack of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed of the excess moisture
1 container of ricotta cheese
1 cup grated Parmesan plus extra to put on before you put this in the oven
About 7 or 8 slices of chopped prosciutto
1 large egg beaten
salt and pepper.

1 1/2 cups of Marinara sauce (just use jarred here unless you're really into this)
1 cup of grated mozzarella (sure, use your own homemade if you made your marinara sauce)

Boil the lasagna noodles according to package directions. About 10 - 12 minutes. Drain and lay out flat so they don't stick. Make the Béchamel sauce thusly - Melt the butter and whisk in the flour. Add the salt, pepper, nutmeg and cream and bring just to the boil. Remove from heat. In a separate pot or in the microwave, melt 1/4 cup of butter.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Put the melted butter into a casserole dish. Then add the Béchamel sauce.

Make the filling. Just stir it all together and spread it onto each lasagna noodle about 1/4 inch thick. Roll up the noodle and place it seam side down into the Béchamel sauce. Spoon the marinara sauce onto the top of everything and add the grated mozzarella and parmesan and some freshly ground pepper. Cover tightly and bake for 20 minutes. Then uncover and bake for 15 minutes more until the cheese browns. Let it sit for 10 minutes before you serve it.

This recipe is so hearty and delicious. Thank you lovely Giada! Share your beauty tips!

Shrimp Risotto

Oh hey friends, anybody up for taking a cruise through flavour town with me? It's a dreary, rainy and cold Friday night here in Canada, and I wanted some comfort food after a long and stressful week at work. In fact I came straight in the door and did not detour up to put my jammies on as I always do on Fridays. Today, I went straight to the liquor rack and hauled off a bottle of vodka. So yes. That kind of a week! And that By God cocktail relaxed me almost to the point where I was thinking of just saying "Screw cooking" and ordering a pizza. But then I remembered that cooking relaxes me and helps me wind down and wash away the work week. But what to make? I didn't want to stop on the way home to get supplies in the pouring rain, so I had to forage to see what I had on hand. Now I will just tell you that you can take this recipe up to a higher level if you have fresh shrimp and parsley and homemade stock. But I didn't. So we'll go with what I had on hand, and it was still pretty off the charts delish!

We're going to make two separate dishes and marry them into one dish because that's what I like to do. You can serve this with a side of roasted asparagus or a nice, fresh Spring salad.

You'll need:
for the risotto,
1 cup of Arborio rice (this will feed 3 -4 people)
1/2 cup of white wine
1 box of chicken broth (or 4 -5 cups of homemade stock)
1 finely chopped onion
1/4 cup butter
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 cup of grated parmesan (and freshly grated is best)
lots of freshly ground pepper and a bit of salt if you use homemade stock, but no salt at all if you use store bought

for the shrimp:
4-5 Jumbo shrimp per person
3 cloves finely chopped garlic
1 finely chopped shallot
juice and zest of a lemon
1 cup white wine
1/4 cup butter
3 tablespoons of olive oil
and chopped fresh parsley for the garnish

Now if you've never made risotto before, you will be a slave to your stove for the next 45 minutes. So if you're of middle age like me, you'd best empty your bladder and tend to your emails before you begin. Heat up a medium sized, heavy bottom pot on medium heat and melt the olive oil and butter. On another burner, heat up your broth just till it's steaming and reduce the heat to low. Add the onion to the olive oil and butter and just let it soften for about 8 minutes. Don't let it crisp. Reduce your heat if need be. Add your rice once the onion is soft. Stir it around for about 5 minutes and add the wine. Let that simmer off for about 3 or 4 minutes and now here we go - add a ladle full of your warm broth to the rice and keep stirring with a wooden spoon until the liquid has evaporated. Then add another ladle full of broth. And this is what you'll do for the next 45 minutes. Constant stirring and don't add more liquid until the last one has evaporated. As you go along, the rice will take on a creamy texture, but don't be fooled by that. Keep tasting a bite of rice after about 35 minutes and it should have a firm bite, but by no means be crunchy.

Also, before you begin the risotto, prepare everything for your shrimp so you can be stirring your rice all the while and sautéing up your shrimp on the burner next door. Sort of like an octopus. About 30 minutes after you start your rice, sauté the shallot in the butter and garlic for about 3 minutes and add the garlic. Keep the heat pretty low so your garlic doesn't burn. After only about a minute, add the wine and let it simmer off for 3 or 4 minutes and add the lemon zest and juice and shrimp. Simmer the shrimp for about 3 minutes per side until they're pink and cooked and remove them and set aside. Let the sauce keep on simmering until your rice is no longer crunchy. Then add the contents of your shrimp pan into your risotto and just keep on stirring until the liquid is evaporated. This is the nuptials. You're marrying the flavours at this step, and this is what makes you an amazing cook and people cannot figure out why!

Remove the rice from the heat and stir in your Parmesan and some freshly ground pepper. Once the cheese has melted, gently fold in your shrimp. Plate it and garnish with chopped parsley, a sprinkle more of parmesan and some ground pepper. And that's it! A fresh, Spring take on an old favourite!

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

Have you ever invited people over for dinner, but then gotten so caught up in the Speech From the Throne that you forgot to make something? Then you look in your fridge and all you have is eggs, milk, spaghetti and pancetta (because you’re a fancy b*tch)?

Fear not, my culinary chums. If you have those items, (or fine, bacon, if you lack pancetta), you can make your guests a beautiful Italian dinner of Spaghetti alla Carbonara. You also need a good hard cheese like Parmesan. These are all things that a well-stocked fridge and pantry should have, so you’ll be good to go at the drop of a hat.

See how my pan isn't nearly big enough?

This is a two-step meal. Start by boiling some salted water for your pasta. While that comes to a boil, sauté your pancetta in a large frying pan (because you are going to put all the pasta in it- it needs to be quite large in order to accommodate it all). Add some minced garlic to that. Now, in a bowl, crack four eggs and whisk with a little milk and a nice amount of grated cheese. Whisk it more and set aside. (Side note- many people think carbonara is a cream sauce. Many restaurants of ill repute will just add bacon to alfredo sauce and call it a carbonara. This is incorrect and slightly shifty. It is an egg sauce, and it is creamy and amazing anyway.)

Egg mixture

This is one of those meals where timing is everything, so you need to have it together when you come to this next step. If your guests are trying to engage you in conversation at this point, this is an excellent time to tell them to open the wine in order to occupy their minds with a task so that you can concentrate. Or encourage them to choose some dinner music. Whatever. Just get them away from you.

Here we go. Drain the pasta and add it to your very big pan. Turn off the heat of the stove, and if your pan is quite hot, take it off the burner entirely. Now take the egg mixture and dump it all over. What we are trying to achieve here is a cream sauce, not scrambled eggs on pasta. To do this, you need to immediately start aggressively tossing your pasta and continue to do this until the pasta is coated. The heat of the pasta and pan will cook the eggs, and with your assertive tossing, the eggs will not be able to solidify into clumps.

I probably would have been better off with a smaller plate. 

Garnish with some fresh parsley (if you have it, which is why everyone should grow herbs in their kitchen) and serve immediately. Salt and pepper to taste. Now you can judge anyone who thought carbonara had something in common with alfredo!