Experience Italia: Zucchini and Butternut Squash Risotto

I am a fan of foodblogs. I mean, who isn’t? If it weren’t for Facebook and other things like, you know, the real world, I would probably spend the majority of my time switching back and forth between Foodgawker and Gojee. I have always thought it would be fun to have one so today I am going to pretend that that is what this is. Maybe I will do this from time to time from now on. I am however missing a crucial, arguably the most important, element of a recipe—pictures. I didn’t really plan this out, okay? I will just have to try to paint with my words. My keystrokes are like the soft strokes of a aptly wielded paintbrush, right? Right? Challenge accepted.

I will start with right now: it's a cloudy but not gloomy kind of night. Chilly but not the cold is not biting. I am inside, but the window is open as always. Out of the window I can hear the people in a neighboring apartment having a jam sesh (All You Need Is Love has been played at least twice) but that is mildly blocked by the Italian version of Shrek 2 playing on the TV. 

I am taking this on to commemorate my most successful Italian cooking adventure to date. Personally, at least. I have certainly witnessed much nobler and grander culinary feats from the Italians in my life, but I am at a genetic disadvantage comparatively. I wasn’t born with olive oil coursing through my veins and fresh Parmesan at my beck and call (just veins full of queso and an expertise in chocolate chip cookies. Boo hoo.).  This feat was a long time coming, too. The word “zucca” (pumpkin) has escaped my lips many, many times in recent weeks. The craving has been out of control. I think I may have mentioned before that I have been in the “fall mood” more than ever before this year. It probably has something to do with the fact that the feelings associated with fall are so homey and, being so far from home, I seek them out now. And I am sure that my pumpkin craving hasn’t faded because it never will be fully satisfied without a Great Harvest pumpkin chocolate chip muffin (YA HEAR ME, SHAWNA?). But I can keep trying, right? I have been experiencing pumpkin doubts in the grocery store. They certainly don’t have the canned/processed pumpkin. That’s out. In the produce section, everything that was labeled zucca always looked a little bit off and Emily and I finally decided that what they labeled as pumpkin was butternut squash. Close enough. Finally a few days ago I decided I would get a little bit of it , combined with all of the other stuff in my cabinet and experiment un po’.  The result? Zucchini and Butternut Squash Risotto. Somewhere in the title I should add “delicious” “creamy” and “heavenly”. I’m feeling really humble about it.

Zucchini and Butternut Squash Risotto

Serves: 2.5 really hungry girls who are accustomed to Italian-sized portions.... so probably 4

Ingredients

Note: the measurements that I used were not only non-exact, they were in metric. I don’t know how to convert grams of risotto to cups exactly so it is an estimate. I would recommend just heating up a little bit extra broth and just know that you might need to use more or less, depending. Just follow the method and taste it a lot when you get close to the end. Just keep adding until you think it is done. Sorry that is not very helpful.

A few tablespoons of butter (maybe 2-3)

Couple cloves of garlic

1 small onion (I used red because that is what I had, but shallots or yellow onion would have probably been better)

2 zucchini

1-1/2 cup roasted butternut squash

2 cups Arborio Rice

Splash (or 2 or 3 splashes) white wine

1-liter vegetable broth (this is how much I heated up, but I didn’t use all of it)

¼-1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

½ tsp nutmeg

Begin by heating the vegetable broth in a pot and bringing it to a boil. Once it boils, turn the heat down and let it simmer throughout the whole process. In a large sauce pan heat about 1 Tbs of butter and then start sautéing the onion, a few minutes. Add the garlic and the zucchini and sauté until the onions become slightly translucent. No recipe tells you to do this but at this point I add a little bit more butter right before I add the rice. Then add the rice and mix around a little bit so that it gets coated in butter. After letting it cook for a minute, deglaze the pan with the wine. I probably used about ¼ cup. Once the wine evaporates, let the rice cook for another minute or two. At this point you are ready to start the process! Add a ladle-full of broth to the pan and stir. When all of the broth is absorbed, add another ladle. You will keep doing this until the risotto is cooked, which will take about 30 minutes. Piano, piano (little by little). It is important to keep stirring the whole time in order to keep the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pan and/or burning. When it is soft and creamy and you are almost done with the broth, mix in the Parmesan and the squash. Keep stirring. Add nutmeg. Keep stirring. Add salf and pepper to taste. Keep adding broth and stirring until the rice is thick, sot and creamy.

I served with a little bit of Parmesan on top, an arugula salad (courtesy of Emily) on the side and a small glass of the wine I cooked with. Meravigliosa.

While I don't have pictures of this dish, I do have some of another pumpkin-related escapade. This craving is not a joke, I am telling you. We actually planned a day trip based solely on the fact that this place is famous for pumpkins. On Friday my I went with my friends Lauren, Raquel and Emily to Mantova- a relatively small city of Bologna that claims to be the origin of Jack-O-Lanterns, which means they must have good pumpkin food, right? Well, yes. This did turn out to be correct. And while we didn't find the street lined with Jack-O-Lanterns like we read about online, the quote "we are INSIDE Halloween right now" did get said many times during our explorations. As for the food, we had a pizza with pumpkin cream, mozzarella, sausage and onions and pumpkin-filled tortellini. The pizza was packed full of delicious contradictions. The light and crunchy crust delightfully contrasted the rich creaminess of the pumpkin and the cheese; the sweetness of the pumpkin went wonderfully against the saltiness of the cheese and the crust. And the sausage wasn't even listed on the menu as a part of the pizza but just added a surprise heartiness that made the whole thing come together like magic. And the tortellini. I don't even know how to describe it. The filling was veeeeery sweet and full of very unique flavors. I have never had anything like it. It was sweet in the woodsy maple-syrup kind of way with a strong presence of what Emily identified as amaretto. I honestly couldn't tell you. But I can say that the pasta was definitely fresh and homemade and the sage-butter sauce on top added the perfect heart-warming richness that I can just close my eyes and imagine whenever I want to. Something that I am currently very grateful for.

We got a little bit excited and ate half of the ravioli before remembering to take a picture of it. Whoops...

I will probably write more on my trip to Mandova soon. For now I will leave you with a fun Italian food fact. You know when you finish a pasta or any other dish that had a sauce on it and then there is extra sauce on the bottom of your plate/bowl so you take a piece of bread and scrape it up and it is so delicious and one of the best parts of the meal/your day? It's the greatest, right? Well the Italians think so too because they have a word for it. Fare scarpetta. It literally translates into "to make little shoes". I don't know why, I guess the bread is like little shoes walking across your plate? Nope? I really don't know. Whatever the reason for the name- I think that we can all agree the action is wonderful.