starch me up

Once you starch me up, I need a nap. Hence my excuse for being tardy on my blog post this week. We cooked up a variety of heavy, delicious starches on Saturday that were enjoyed by Greg and I all weekend long. 

My Saturday morning began by with making pasta dough for the dishes we'll be whipping up next weekend. We also made a tomato sauce and a Bolognese sauce to go along with our dough. Then it was time for our version of the San Francisco treat. We made rice pilaf, risotto, sushi and pad Thai. I also made some green lentils, which were not to my taste buds' liking, but Chef assured us they could be delicious if seasoned correctly. All starch dishes definitely need some sort of seasoning, but the flavor possibilities are endless.

Rice pilaf is fairly simple - the trick is all in keeping the lid on without peeking for 20 minutes. We all know how great I am at not opening the oven while baking, however, I managed to keep my hands of the rice lid and the result was fluffy rice pilaf. I enjoyed making the risotto more because you can continuously see how the rice is cooking up. You also have to stand there stirring in ladlefuls of chicken stock every few minutes, but it's a good arm work out. We added herbs and fresh parmesan cheese to our risotto. If you've never had risotto, it's like a creamy rice pudding and is known in the food world as "porridge of the gods." Here's a close up for all of you Goldilocks out there.

A sushi demo was up next. I can't take full credit for making the sushi since a giant rice cooker made the rice and Chef made the spicy tuna mixture, however, I did assemble the roll by myself.

  
And I brought it home to share. Greg managed to get a few pictures before we inhaled the whole thing. Here's a cool close up courtesy of my new blog photographer.

Last but not least was pad Thai. Greg and I took my parents to one of our favorite Thai restaurants the last time they were in Indy and I ordered the pad Thai. Pad Thai is a pretty Americanized dish, but it still has a lot of the Thai elements like fish oil and some weird fish paste that smells disgusting and made me question eating this dish ever again. Thankfully I forgot all about the fish guts a few minutes later when the wok worked its magic.

I mean really, how could you turn this down?

 Once you starch me up, I'll never stop.