Jacki’s Review of Marinated Meat, Risotto, Asparagus.

For the most part we liked this meal.  Rich really liked the Risotto.  I used chicken instead of steak since I had plenty of chicken and no steak.  I had fun making the marinade as I had never used a fresh chili pepper before.  It always sounded like too much work to seed etc.  But, I donned some gloves and seeded and chopped away!  I used a blender to mix it up and marinated it for about an hour or more so it had good flavor.  I cooked it on a grill pan.   The risotto took longer than 20 minutes to cook and at least 4 cups of liquid.  I watched Rachel Ray 30 Minute Meals today and she made a risotto.  She heated her broth first so that might make a difference in the cooking time.  She also said you only need to stir it for a minute or two each time you add the liquid so you don’t need to be stirring constantly.  It is something I will experiment with the next time I make a risotto.  It was tasty and creamy though. I didn’t add the chives because I didn’t have any.  I wasn’t a big fan of the asparagus.  I really like asparagus but roasting it just seemed to kind of shrivel it up and it was crunchier than I prefer.   Maybe I needed to move the oven rack closer to the burner.  I also didn’t care for the garlic powder on it.  But, we both liked it well enough to eat it :)  These three meals made for a very tasty meal and leftovers.