Happy Christmas!

I made Christmas dinner tonight. We were joined by my uncle's family. Here's our adorable little drool bug, A:

And here she is again with the 5 foot long alphabet caterpillar I got her for Christmas:


For her brother, I got a learning laptop - with games teaching him arithmetic, spelling, music, time, etc. I want my cousins to be smart! My brother and I spent some time after the gift was open showing him how to use the laptop - S' addition skills are better than his subtraction - he's still counting with his fingers and he hasn't quite mastered the skill of hiding fingers to get to the answer...multiplication and division are beyond him at the moment but he'll grow into the toy. At least he can tell time - sort of.

Tonight's menu included herb and garlic-crusted beef tenderloin, green beans with balsamic-shallot butter, and my own seafood risotto with lobster, scallops and jumbo shrimps, which I knew was good because my brother - who wrinkles his nose at my attempts to broaden his culinary horizons - went back for seconds!

I usually follow recipes, but I've made risotto often enough now that I felt confident enough to wing it this time! The measures for the wine and oil are made up - for the former, I just tossed in leftover Chardonnay we had in the fridge and for the latter, I just covered the bottom of the pot.

phoenix's seafood risotto

2 cans of chicken broth
3.5 cups of arborio rice
6 tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup white wine
1 large onion, diced
1 large shallot, diced
2 lobster tails, chopped
5-6 large scallops, chopped
8 jumbo shrimp, chopped
1 large tomato, de-seeded, chopped
green onion, chopped
salt & pepper to taste

Serves about 6

In a medium saucepan, heat chicken broth. In a larger saucepan, heat oil and cook onions and shallots until soft. Add rice and stir until it's well-coated with the oil mixture. Stir in 1 cup of hot broth, simmer and cover until the liquid is absorbed, stirring occasionally. Add the white wine, simmer and cover until the liquid is absorbed. Continue to add the broth 1 cup at a time until the rice is tender. Turn off heat and stir in lobster, scallops, shrimps and tomato. Serve with green onions as garnish.