Beef Bourguignon and Risotto Milanese

Typically Risotto Milanese is served with Osso Bucco, which I love too.  But tonight, being minus a billion outside. I felt like beef stew.  I really wanted to make veal stew.  But No Frills sucks donkey balls and there was no veal.  So old man cow it is.

I usually use Ina Garten's recipe  Over time I have pretty much memorized it.  Same goes for the Risotto.  The recipe I use is from Joy of Cooking. 

If you have kids.  You know stew is the most offensive thing you could ever serve them.  Partly because it's got that whole barfy gravy going on.  But mostly because ALL OF THE INGREDIENTS ARE TOUCHING!  Good Lord.

I have mastered the art of plating food like an artists paint palate.  That's fine.  But I don't want to be substituting or removing ingredients because my kids are assholes.  That's where I draw the line. But I can tweak it.  That I am willing to do.  I know that my oldest daughter hates cooked carrots.  Actually, because the carrots are in the stew touching the (ick) gravy, no one will eat it.  So I have to think of another veg.  But I don't want to actually cook something else.  That's why Risotto is perfect as a side dish.  I might be lying, but I am pretty sure the Joy of Cooking suggests adding frozen peas.  My kids LOVE frozen peas.  Done.

The stew calls for mushrooms and onions (pearl onions, which I usually have time to par boil and squeeze out of their skin but tonight, nope) to be added in the last few minutes of cooking.  But my kids HATE both.  I can hide the yellow onions in the stew and risotto because they are cut  up really small.  But these are kinda big and pretty much impossible to fish out once all stirred together.  So sauteing them and adding last minute works out well.  I get to enjoy the whole dish as it was meant to be.  The kids don't have to eat grodie mushrooms.

Kids meals are plated so NOTHING touches.  Meat over here.. risotto over there.  And we all love bread so yay.  'xcuse the drop of gravy.  I'm not a chef you know.

Now the adults. A nice touch with Risotto Milanese is the lemon zest and parsley you add at the end.  And well parsley is green, so that won't go over with the kids.  But again, you can add it to your own plate, and everyone wins.  Yes that's a big old glass of wine in the background, because you know that even with all of this special kid friendly prep, you will be critiqued. 

This is my eldest face when she saw her dinner (Eddie looks like he'd happily eat it though).

And this is the feedback:

"I thought we were just having pork"
"OMG Carrots!?" (to which I pointed out only I was eating)
"I don't like the crust of this bread.  It's too crusty"
"Why can't we have normal  hard rice.  This rice is disgusting"
"Can I have more milk? I am going to just swallow it down with milk so I don't have to taste it"
"Blah. I'm done".

Defeated? Yes. But I have my wine.  And I didn't have to eat chicken fingers.

Until tomorrow!