The homely russet potato is not much to look at — especially when you compare it to the swirling architectural beauty of a head of Romanesco broccoli, or the seductive lipstick-red of a radish. But the russet’s allure lies beneath its skin: a creamy, unblemished flesh so versatile, it can transform into a bevy of appetizing eats using just about any cooking method invented.

Yes, these grubby little tubers clean up real nice.

One of my favorite russet makeovers is the galette, where potatoes take a cue from the Romanesco’s structural swirl. To make a galette, potatoes are cut into thin slices, then arranged in an overlapping spiral to form a circular tart. Between potato layers, you can use your imagination to add aromatics, herbs and cheese to flavor. I love the combination of onions, garlic and rosemary — it’s a fragrant classic that never disappoints in a potato dish. This combo also works well if you plan to serve the galette with meaty main courses like beef and lamb.

Now, it’s true that traditional galettes are prepared with a pastry crust, but this isn’t necessary when you’re using russet potatoes. When the galette is baked, the potato slices act as both crust and filling — the top and bottom layers crisp and brown into a crust all its own, while the galette’s center remains pillowy and light. After baking, the galette is inverted to showcase a smooth, even surface of golden potato goodness. (And I promise, inverting it is a lot easier than you may think.)

There are a few methods for making a potato galette, but the breeziest is baking with a nonstick cookie sheet. The sheet acts as a blank, wide canvas for you to create your masterpiece, and the Teflon coating keeps individual potato slices from sticking to the sheet when you eventually flip the galette over onto a serving plate.

This is also a recipe where you can brush up your knife skills. Making thin, wispy potato slices may take a bit of patience if you’re a newbie, but the end result is well worth it. And don’t worry if your slices are uneven or slivered. You can arrange slices to mask these imperfections – but only if you want. In my experience, the flawed, rustic galettes are the best ones.

ROSEMARY POTATO GALETTE
Yield: 6 to 8 servings

• 3 pounds Russet potatoes
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 1/2 teaspoons dried Rosemary

Procedure:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Scrub and peel the potatoes, then pat them dry with a paper towel. Slice the potatoes crosswise into super-thin slices, no thicker than 1/8-inch thick (the thinner, the better). Don’t worry if slices aren’t uniform – you can still use them.
2. Place potato slices into a large bowl with olive oil, salt and pepper. Toss with your hands to coat.
3. Starting in the middle of your nonstick cookie sheet, arrange potato slices into a circle, spiraling and overlapping potatoes until you have a circle about 10 inches in diameter.
4. Top this circle with half of the onion, garlic, Parmesan cheese and rosemary. Repeat Step 2, making another spiraling potato mass over the first one. Top with remaining onion, garlic, Parmesan cheese and rosemary.
5. Continue to add layers of spiraling potato slices until you have none left. Press down on the galette to help the potatoes settle into place. If you need to, you can tidy up here by removing slices or tucking some slices under others.
6. Bake galette for 45 minutes, or until the top is crispy and has a rich, golden brown color. Remove from oven and cool for 10 minutes.
7. When ready to serve, take a large plate and place it over the top of the galette. With one hand on the base of the plate and one hand on the underside of the cookie sheet, flip galette over, so that the cookie sheet is now on top. Remove the cookie sheet to reveal a uniform, golden spiral of potatoes. Cut the galette into wedges. You can serve it as-is, or as a side dish to a meaty main course.

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When I was a kid, coming home from school to the aromas of cinnamon, star anise and ginger meant that we would have pho for dinner. Score! I’d throw my backpack on the couch and run to the kitchen to watch my grandfather char onions halves and ginger over the open flame of a burner until they turned black. He’d let me add them into the pot when they had cooled a bit.

When I got older and moved out of the house, I took those scents along with me. Nowadays, it seems I can’t make a stock or broth without using those ingredients to flavor them. There’s always a little Vietnamese inspiration in even the most American soups I serve, like split pea or even this chicken and rice soup. It’s good for any occasion, even an elegant one, if you know how to plate it. I’ll explain.

Say you’ve made this soup and you’re eating it out of a mug, only later you realize that you need something more elegant. In other words, something to help you apologize to your boyfriend after you’ve had a fight. Well, you can turn this soup from homey to handsome with just a few tricks. Pack the rice into a small ramekin to mold it into a circular shape, then overturn the ramekin onto a shallow bowl. You’ll have a neat little rice mound where you can artfully arrange the shredded chicken and parsley. And here’s the kicker: If you’re really in the doghouse with your boyfriend, you pour the hot chicken broth into the bowls at tableside. Now that’s service that says “I’m sorry.”

(Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe.”)

For the stock, you’ll start with a huge pot and 6 quarts of water, but you’ll reduce the liquid to less than half of that to concentrate the broth’s flavors. You may only need a smidge of salt at the end, but sometimes I find that I don’t need any at all. Finish with some lime juice to perk it up a bit.

VIETNAMESE-INSPIRED CHICKEN AND RICE SOUP
Yield: 6 to 8 servings

• 4 pounds chicken bones (carcasses, or necks, backs, wings, etc.)
• 2 medium onions, cut in half
• 1 4-inch piece of ginger
• 2 carrots, peeled
• 2 stalks celery
• 3 star anise
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 teaspoons black peppercorns
• 4 whole cloves
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled
• 6 quarts water
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Lime juice, to taste
• 2 cups wild rice
• Shredded chicken from carcass, or 2 cooked and shredded chicken breasts

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place chicken bones in a roasting pan. When oven comes to temperature, roast bones for 1 hour, or until thoroughly browned. Remove from pan and place in a 10-12 quart stock pot.
2. Place onion halves (peels removed) over the open flame of a gas burner. Use tongs to turn onions when needed. When onions are blackened, place in stock pot. Repeat method with ginger, but cut ginger into 1-inch pieces before placing in pot. Add carrots and celery to pot.
3. Make a sachet of spices: Pile star anise, bay leaf, peppercorns, cloves and garlic in a cheesecloth, and tie with kitchen string to make a little pouch. Add pouch to pot, as well as cinnamon sticks.
4. Fill pot with 6 quarts of cold water, making sure to cover all ingredients (add more if you need to). Bring pot to a boil and immediately turn heat down to medium-low. Let the pot simmer with the lid slightly ajar for 4 hours. Refrain from stirring here, so that you’ll end up with a clear broth.
5. Remove all bones, veggies and spices from pot. Turn heat up to medium-high, and reduce to about half of its current amount. Taste, and add salt if needed. When broth is full-bodied and flavorful (and this depends on personal preference), remove from heat and cool. Add a healthy sprinkle of lime juice, if desired.
6. When ready to serve soup, portion cooked rice into 6 to 8 servings. Pack each serving into a ramekin to mold it into a circular shape. Overturn the ramekin onto a shallow bowl. Arrange the shredded chicken and parsley over rice. Pour hot broth over rice tableside and eat up.

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I’m not gonna lie. This isn’t a gourmet dish that came about through many moons of research and testing. It was birthed when its parents, desperation and craving, met late one night in a refrigerator half-stocked with vegetables my mother has never heard of and more booze than I would ever care to tell her about. We all know that chance encounters sometimes don’t work out, but on that night, desperation and craving were at the right place at the right time. It was love at first sight.

Desperation wanted to use all of the ingredients in the kitchen that were on their last legs. Craving wanted nothing more than a giant bowl of wiggly spaetzle — the same spaetzle that caused a young culinary student (ahem) to hide in a corner of the kitchen storeroom while shoveling it into her mouth with her bare hands.

Together, desperation and craving created a meal with echoes of that curious day when three-quarters of the spaetzle mysteriously disappeared from the Culinary Arts 122 class. Only this time, there was broccoli rabe, prosciutto and toasted pine nuts to share the spotlight. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe.)

A big hug and thank you to Val, who  in my hour of need typed the spaetzle recipe to me in an e-mail. The original recipe is from one of the earlier editions of the CIA’s “Professional Chef,” but it was inexplicably taken out in later versions of the book (too many students hiding in storerooms?). I tweaked the recipe based on what I had in my fridge, and it’s just as good as I remember.

BROWN BUTTER SPAETZLE WITH PROSCIUTTO AND BROCCOLI RABE
Yield: 2 to 3 servings

• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup whole milk
• 1/4 cup parsley, minced
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup butter
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 medium onion, minced
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 1 bunch broccoli rabe, chopped
• 1/4 pound sliced prosciutto, chopped
• Garnish: Parmesan cheese, lemon juice

PROCEDURE
1. Put a large pot of salted water on the stove and over high heat to boil.
2. In a large bowl, crack the eggs and add milk, parsley, salt and pepper and mix until combined. Add in flour a little bit at a time and mix until combined. The dough will be a bit runny, and this is just fine. Let sit for 10 minutes to rest.
3. Put a colander or cheese grater over the pot of boiling water and spoon dough through holes. You’ll have a bunch of wiggly noodle nuggets that drop into the pot. Cook these for 5 to 6 minutes until just tender. Drain.
4. Melt butter in a sauté pan over high heat. When butter starts to separate and brown, have your ingredients at the ready. You’ll know the butter is ready to go when you start smelling a sweet, nutty aroma.
5. Dump in the drained spaetzle, garlic, onion, pine nuts and broccoli rabe. Cook in browned butter for about 2 minutes, then remove from heat. Toss in prosciutto and top with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

My column ran today in The Orange County Register print edition today. It’s not available online, so I’ve posted it here. Thanks for reading!
*****
Every year, we look forward to the annual holiday eating rituals: A golden, grand dame of a turkey, savory sides and a sweet finale with pumpkin pie front and center. (And if you’re household is like mine, the obligatory post-feast nap follows soon after.)

Though there’s nothing wrong with these traditions, why not mix it up a bit? This year, you may want to surprise your guests by serving pumpkin pie at the beginning of the meal instead of at dessert. How? By turning it into a soup. The transformation can be made even easier by using canned pumpkin instead of fresh, yielding fantastic results.

Canned food often gets a bad rap for being, well, canned. And rightly so; fresh ingredients are almost always better in recipes. But there are few exceptions to this rule, and canned pumpkin is one of them. For one, the canned variety is way easier to use. When you’ve got your hands full with roasting a bird and preparing sides to go with it, chopping, boiling and mashing fresh pumpkin isn’t making the best use of your time. Tip: When buying canned pumpkin, make sure you’re getting “pumpkin puree” instead of “pumpkin pie mix,” which is offered in similar-sized cans with almost identical labels.

This recipe yields a spicy soup that’s just reminiscent enough of a pumpkin pie to seem like a before-dinner treat, but packs enough savory ingredients to warrant it a place as a starter or first course. And with the welcome addition of bacon, cream and butter (necessary ingredients for happiness, in my opinion), everyone’s a winner.

The following long list of ingredients may look intimidating, but I promise the procedures are quite simple: You simply cook everything in one pot. If you have a formal party and want an elegant soup, you can puree it for a soft, velvety texture. But it’s just as good when left as a hearty, rustic soup.

When I make this soup, I like to serve it with pie crust “crackers” on the side. Take some ready-made pie dough (or homemade, if you have it), roll it out and use cookie cutters to cut rounds from the dough. Bake rounds on a baking sheet according to package directions.

Another fun way to serve this soup is in shot glasses. If there are appetizers before dinner, you can easily slide a tray of these onto any table, and guests can help themselves to pumpkin soup shooters. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe.)

PUMPKIN SOUP WITH BACON
Yield: 6 to 8 servings

• 8 strips bacon
• 2 cups onion, diced
• 1 cup carrot, diced
• 1 cup celery, diced
• 1 can (29 ounces) pumpkin puree*
• 1 cup white wine
• 8 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 cup water
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon cloves
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

PROCEDURE:
1. Chop bacon into small pieces. In a 4- or 5-quart pot over medium-high heat, cook bacon until crispy. Remove from pot and set on paper towel-lined plate to drain and cool.
2. Add onion, carrot and celery to bacon fat in pot and cook for about a minute. Add pumpkin puree and cook for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until puree is slightly darker in color. (This will caramelize and deepen the pumpkin’s flavor.)
3. Add wine, stock, water, sugar and all spices, and stir to combine.
4. Bring soup to boil. Reduce heat to low and cover pot, leaving lid slightly ajar to allow room for steam to escape from soup. Simmer for 1 hour, or until soup has reduced by about one quarter.
5. Taste soup and adjust seasonings. (For spicy-food fans, you may want to add more cayenne and chili powder.
6. Optional step: With a blender or immersion blender, puree soup until smooth. If using a blender, puree the soup in batches. Return to pot.
6. Turn off heat and add cream and butter. Mix in bacon. Soup is ready to serve. Garnish with bacon pieces, if desired.

Cook’s note: Should you want to use fresh pumpkin in this recipe, 4 1/2 cups of cubed pumpkin is the equivalent.

Dear readers, I am in a funk. And not the good kind that allows you to wear a sequined gold dress and your sunglasses at night. The kind where everything you cook burns or tastes weird and everything you write reads cliché. It’s not a good place to be.

But onward we go, because cooking and writing is what we do here, however cringeworthy or awesome either turn out.

In the span of one week, four out of the five dishes prepared by my hands ended up as spectacular trainwrecks – ones that made microwaved frozen meals look like five-star food. The sole saving grace was this pasta with meat sauce, which is made annually at the first sign of winter’s chilly weather. It’s a hearty sauce thicker than blood, like an Italian chili almost, that goes well with garlic bread and even eaten alone in a bowl with a large spoon, should you be so bold.

In this case, it’s paired with a fresh pasta recipe adapted from Michael Ruhlman’s “Ratio,” using just the basics: flour and eggs. Nothing else.

I’ve been making this meat sauce for years, and thus it’s a recipe built on intuition. It’s a sauce that does its job and does it well, and with all of the flops I’ve been cranking out lately, it also helps to remind me that success, however little or large, is very, very sweet. And filling. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipes)

This Italian meat sauce borrows from its Bolognese sibling by including cream. Garnish the plate with basil chiffonade and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese, if you please. Both sauce and pasta recipes can be doubled when serving more than two.

LOW-AND-SLOW MEAT SAUCE
Yield: 2 to 3 servings

• 1/2 pound ground beef
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 cup onion, minced
• 1/4 cup carrot, minced
• 1/4 cup celery, minced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 1 3/4 cup (about 14 ounces) crushed Italian tomatoes
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon butter
• Salt and pepper, to taste

1. In a 3-quart pot over medium-high heat, brown the ground beef. Remove from pot and drain. Set aside.
2. Add olive oil, onion, carrot, celery and garlic to pot and sweat for 2 minutes. Add tomato paste and cook for about 5 to 6 minutes, or until tomato paste darkens in color. (This will deepen its flavor.)
3. Add red wine to pot and use wooden spoon to scrape any bits of fond that may be stuck to the bottom of the pot. Let wine reduce in half, about 3 to 4 minutes.
4. Add tomatoes, water, brown sugar, oregano, basil and ground beef. Bring sauce to boil, then reduce heat to low cover with pot lid slightly ajar so steam can escape. Simmer for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Taste sauce and adjust seasonings to preference. Add heavy cream and butter to finish, and serve with fresh pasta noodles (recipe follows).

PAPARADELLE PASTA NOODLES

Adapted from “Ratio” by Michael Ruhlman
Yield: 2 servings

• 2 eggs
• 6 ounces all-purpose flour

1. Mound flour into a bowl and make a well in the middle. Add eggs and use your fingers to swirl them around the flour until they are completely incorporated. (Dough will be kinda flaky in the beginning but will start looking like dough the more you mix.)
2. Remove dough from bowl and knead on a floured worksurface for 8 minutes, or until dough becomes uniform and no streaks of flour can be seen. Wrap with plastic and let rest for 10 minutes.
3. Using a floured pasta machine, feed dough through on lowest setting (for my Imperia, this is No. 1). Fold dough in half and repeat once.
4. Continue to roll out pasta until you reach your desired pasta thickness (Imperia: setting 5 or 6 is ideal). Place pasta sheet on a floured surface and cut into 1-inch strips. To cook: drop paparadelle into a pot of boiling, salted water for about a minute. Drain and serve with pasta sauce.

Every now and then I wish I could poke little children with spoons. Why? Because there are few things in this world that we like to see inflated. A soufflé is one of them. A bratty little puffy-cheeked child is not.

Somewhere in time, children learned that the way to personal satisfaction was to fold one’s arms, inflate your cheeks and take as deep a breath as your little lungs will allow. You’d hold your breath until you got your way, no matter what kaleidoscope color action was happening on your face. Often, there would be a pleading parent in the immediate vicinity. This is called the Face-Off, and it ends horribly each time — with either a passed-out toddler or a bruised adult ego.

Ego-wounded adults, this is where spoons come in. We know that poking any soufflé with a spoon results with its collapse almost upon contact. My clever mother knew that the only way to deflate me during these patience-trying times was to poke me — lightly, but firm — with a spoon (or a pointer finger, if a spoon was not available). This resulted in giggles, which signaled that I had started breathing again. Mom, 1, me, 0. The experiment concluded with positive results every single time.

Children and souffles weren’t meant to remain inflated for long periods of time; they have to depuff at some point. With both subjects,  a little prodding allows the depuffication to happen sooner rather than later. I hope this information is helpful to the moms and dads who suffer through the public tantrums of their children (like the family I ran into at the supermarket a few months ago).

(Click “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe)

This soufflé is made in a ramekin built for two (about 16 ounces), to be shared between a wary adult and his/her beloved enfant terrible. If you’d like to keep your spoon to yourself, bake the soufflé in two smaller ramekins. (Just cut baking time in half and keep a watchful eye to make sure eggs don’t overcook. You’d be missing out on a creamy center surrounded by fluffy goodness.) For a vegetarian version, omit bacon.

EGG SOUFFLE WITH BACON AND ASPARAGUS
Yield: 2 servings

3 strips thick cut bacon
1/2 cup onion, minced
6 asparagus stalks, tips reserved and stalks cut into coins
4 large eggs
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 16-ounce ramekin or two 8-ounce ramekins.
2. In a nonstick frying pan, cook bacon over medium-high heat until crispy. Place bacon strips on a paper towel-lined plate to drain. When bacon is cooled, cut into bite-sized pieces and set aside.
3. Drain all but 2 teaspoons of bacon fat from pan. Add minced onion and sweat for 3 to 4 minutes, until onions are almost translucent. Add asparagus and cook for about a minute more. Remove pan from heat.
4. In a small bowl, whisk together eggs, heavy cream, Parmesan, salt and pepper, until ingredients are incorporated. Stir in onions and asparagus.
5. Line bottom of ramekin(s) with bacon pieces. Pour egg mixture over bacon. Arrange reserved asparagus tips on top of the egg mixture and place ramekin on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake in oven for 35 to 40 minutes, until center slightly jiggles and top of soufflé is somewhat browned. Serve immediately, before it falls!

Optional: You can sprinkle a tiny bit of shredded Parmesan over the top of the soufflé before baking, if desired.

– Cynthia Furey

I always thought that any grilled sandwich with at least a 2:1 ratio of cheese to meat/veggies/etc. could be correctly defined as a grilled cheese. Currently 44 percent of voters on Serious Eats disagree. To this majority, grilled cheese is nothing more than bread, cheese and heat. Are they right?

Think of Campanile’s Grilled Cheese Night, and how it might offend this group of purists with it’s weekly nightmare of “grilled cheese” dishes like burrata with capers, both versions of Croque and Ahi tuna. None of these fit the literal meaning of grilled cheese as defined by this group. (I picture the purists huddled in a picketing pack outside of the restaurant, holding signs depicting sandwiches with big red Xs drawn through them.)

If we continue accepting only literal meanings, then many playful spins on certain culinary words wouldn’t quite work. Any reference of the word “steak” that doesn’t apply to actual meat would be wrong (one example that comes to mind is Marcel’s watermelon steak with tomatoes on season 2 of “Top Chef”). I’d also argue that the only true grilled cheese is just the cheese itself, like a grilled Halloumi or queso fundido. Being rigid in definitions takes the fun out of creating new dishes, doesn’t it?

Serious Eats reader Pavlov sums it up best with his comment: “A grilled cheese is whatever I say it is!”

That’s perfect. A grilled cheese is defined by whatever you say it is. It can be classic or have all the bells and whistles of a Campanile grilled cheese.

So today, my definition of grilled cheese has marinated onions, Dijon mustard and skirt steak — a personal homage to my favorite offering on Campanile’s menu. If you’re inclined, you can serve it with watermelon steaks for a truly non-literal meal.

(Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe.)

GRILLED CHEESE WITH SKIRT STEAK AND MARINATED ONIONS
Yield: 4 servings

• Marinated onions:
• 2 medium yellow onions, sliced
• 1/2 cup white wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

For sandwich:

• 1 pound skirt steak
• 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 8 slices French bread
• 4 slices medium cheddar cheese
• Whole grain Dijon mustard
• 4 teaspoons butter

1. To make marinated onions: Place onions, vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper into a large bowl and toss to coat. Refrigerate for a half hour. Turn onions and marinate for another 30 minutes.

2. Drain onions from marinade. In a sauté pan or pot over medium heat, cook onions until shriveled and golden brown, stirring occasionally, for about 40 minutes. (These will cook down like you won’t believe. Also, the onions will have enough oil on them to cook without sticking, so there’s no need to add any more.) Set aside. Onions can be made a day or two ahead.

3. Heat 1 or 2 tablespoons of oil in the same sauté pan you used for the onions. Season skirt steak and cook for 3 minutes on each side for medium rare. Remove from pan and let rest for 5 to 10 minutes before slicing meat on a bias.

4. Butter French bread slices, using 1/2 teaspoon for each slice. Layer onions, cheese and steak slices. Spread mustard over inside of one slice of bread. Grill sandwiches about one minute on each side until browned. Serve hot!

If you ever need to find me in a crowd, just follow the string of heavy silences I leave in my wake. It goes like this: I’ll say something, you’ll nod your head and smile, and then you’ll stand frozen while holding your mojito, wishing desperately that someone will come along and save you from me. Eerie silence ensues.

It happened recently when I met Michael Chiarello at a “Top Chef Masters” preview event. There were fans looking over my shoulder, PR reps flanking Chiarello and all kinds of activity in between. In an attempt to ask him something for a follow-up story I wanted to write, I managed to winnow that boisterous man down to a nodding and smiling animatronic. (Cue the crickets.) I’m not quite sure how I do it, but it may have something to do with nervously ramming three questions together in a single, incoherent sentence.

It’s kind of weird being a journalist who gets panicky around selective sources.

The Symposium for Professional Food Writers was yet another event that had me exponentially intimidated. The sheer number of attendees who’ve published cookbooks, the James Beard awards won and the fact that most of them could grow flourishing gardens with both hands tied behind their backs made me feel like a fraud. I’ve written some stories here and there, but did I really know anything about food? I can barely keep a potted thyme alive for longer than a month.

But my nerves subsided slightly when I met cookbook author Tara Mataraza Desmond. Her friendly nature put me at ease, foreshadowing what the week-long conference would be like: welcoming and encouraging. It was exactly what I needed. I had my awkward moments for sure, but I wasn’t a basket case (well, not the whole time). Had I not met Tara in the elevator minutes before the symposium began, I wonder if my experience would have been a little more anxiety-ridden.

So when Tara sent an e-mail to SPFW attendees about a blogger potluck being held in conjunction with her new cookbook “Almost Meatless: Recipes That Are Better for Your Health and the Planet,” I jumped at the chance to join in. The book is co-written by Joy Manning, with recipes that emphasize grains and veggies rather than meat (that’s the “Almost” part). I took on the shrimp and slow-roasted tomato risotto.

As a journalist, I think it may be difficult for me to write an unbiased review of this recipe because I’ve met Tara and think her a genuine and thoughtful person. So I’ll just leave you with this: The recipe reflects the person. And I’ll replace my own further thoughts with letting the recipe and photos speak for themselves. Or better yet, what do you think of them? (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe.)

SHRIMP AND SLOW-ROASTED TOMATO RISOTTO
Reprinted with permission from Ten Speed Press and authors

Risotto is so misunderstood. Thought to be a luxurious restaurant dish, risotto is actually much better at home, where you can make it to order. (at a restaurant, the rice is often cooked hours ahead.) Because of its creamy texture, dieters typically avoid it. But it’s the grain’s natural starchiness that lends the luscious consistency. and, worst of all, many home cooks consider it too difficult to make. in reality, there’s nothing hard about making risotto. it doesn’t even require the constant stirring that’s often part of the recipe. this version gets its flavor from homemade fish stock, good quality shrimp, and flavor-packed slow-roasted tomatoes. in fact, the tomatoes are flavorful enough to be the star of the dish in a vegetarian version that omits the shrimp and uses vegetable broth.

Serves 4 to 6
Slow-roasted tomatoes:

• 1 pound plum tomatoes, quartered and seeded
• 1 tablespoon olive oil, plus extra as needed
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Risotto:

• 5 cups fish stock (page 134 of the book)
• 1/2 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined,
• cut into 1-inch pieces, shells and tails reserved
• 2 tablespoons butter, divided
• 1/4 cup minced shallots
• 1 1/2 cups Carnaroli or arborio rice
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1/4 cup loosely packed basil leaves, torn

Preheat the oven to 250°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil.
to make the tomatoes, toss them with the oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. Transfer to the prepared sheet and roast in the oven for 3 hours. If you don’t use the tomatoes right away, cool and then layer them in a small jar with 2 tablespoons oil. Cover and refrigerate up to one week.

To prepare the risotto, heat the stock in a saucepan until simmering; add the shrimp shells and tails and simmer for 10 minutes. Strain, then return the stock to low heat to keep hot.

Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter over medium-high heat in a sauté pan. Add the shallots and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes, until softened but not starting to brown. Add the rice, stirring to combine with the butter and shallots for about 3 minutes, until the grains are coated in butter and the edges appear translucent. Add the wine and cook until almost absorbed, stirring occasionally.

Add about 1 cup of the hot stock and stir occasionally, for about 6 minutes. When the rice has absorbed most of the liquid, add another half-cup of stock. keep adding stock in half-cup increments each time the risotto absorbs most of the liquid. Start tasting the rice for doneness when about a cup of stock remains. The risotto should look creamy and be tender with a little al dente bite—this takes about 30 minutes. When the risotto is almost done, add the sliced roasted tomatoes and shrimp; stir until the shrimp has just turned pink and cooked through, for no more than 2 minutes. Stir in the basil and the remaining 1 tablespoon butter (if desired) and season to taste just before serving. Drizzle with the tomato oil if you jarred them.