Tejas.

Hello everyone,

It has been a while I know but I have been busy getting semi-settled in my new life in Texas. Not a whole lot to say about Texas - its freaking hot - as in record breaking hot every freaking day...

On the positive side I have a kitchen...and come sunday I will move into my apartment that also has a nice kitcen. clutch. In celebration of new friends, places, and having a kitchen, I had a new friend over for some dinner and wine. We were trying to do a spin class first but it was cancelled! that was sad but the food rocked none the less. Sorry not alot of pictures...I am a bit out of practice on the whole blog thing!

I started with a tomato and peach salad. Just one tomato and one peach per salad bowl - large chop and drizzled with EVOO, apple cider vinegar, little salt and a little sugar. simple. easy. yum.

Then I popped a butternut squash in the microwave with some water to bake for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile I cooked 1/3 of an onion with some evoo in a pan, then added  1 3/4 cups arborio rice and coated them with the olive oil [thanks Lilly for that tip!] before added 4 cups of chicken stock and letting that baby boil/simmer away until all the liquid was gone.

While those were going, I started my side - i put the other 2/3 of the onion in a pan with some evoo then after they slightly carmelized added slices carrots with some honey, balsalmic vinegar, about a TBsp of brown sugar and maybe a TBsp of cinnamon. I pretty much eyeballed everything and added more balsalmic and vinegar as i tasted. Just let those lil babies cook until I was ready for them - the onions were soft and the carrots still had some crunch but i would have liked them softer too

So after the rice had absorbed all the chicken stock, I took the butternut squash and scooped it out into a bowl and mashed it all up before adding it to the hot risotto. After blending the squash into the rice, I added about 100/120 grams of shredded parmesan cheese and 3 or so TBsp of marscapone cheese to make it super creamy. yummmmm it was soo good. 

It looked//tasted//smelled better in person, I promise. =)

We finished it off with a nice glass of Cupcake Red Velvet wine.  nice relaxing night.

Speaking of wine, checked out the H-E-B grocery store out here and I was sooo excited when I went to the Texas wine section and saw my favorite wines from the vineyards I went to this summer! Bought my Becker vineyards Claret =)