NONNA ANTONIA’S SPINACH RISOTTO! – Cooking in the Camper

This week we are cooking a family recipe handed down though the generations… Spinach Risotto! Super simple, only a few ingredients, ready in less than 30 minutes (if you already have stock prepared)

Little taste test here. Oh, thank you. Mama mia. Hey everybody. So, tonight we are going to make my father’s famous spinach risoto. Uh, so the first step is we have to make the stock. If you want to buy vegetable stock, you can. That’s what’s preferred. but we don’t have any on hand. So, I’m going to use this chicken bullion and make some stock before we get started on the risoto. All right. One thing I love about these stoves is that they heat up very quickly. So, now that the water is boiling, I’m going to put the bullion cubes in and let those melt. While I do that, I’ll just let you know that this is a fairly easy recipe. If you already have the vegetable bullion, great. You can use that, like I said before, or you can pick up um veggie stock. I’m using the chicken stock. It will taste a little bit different, but you could use chicken stock, you could use beef stock, whatever you have on hand if you’re trying to save some money. Um my again, my dad’s recipe, I’ll put it up here on the screen. It’s very generic. He gave me like no instructions in terms of how much. So, this is just my recommendation based on making it a couple times. lower this a little bit because it’s really boiling. But the main ingredients are going to be your veggie stock and then garlic, which we have right here. We have got our olive oil and one pack of frozen spinach. I have the 10 oz here from Walmart. We have got some Parmesan cheese, which I have some fresh in the fridge. I will um shave before we finish. We don’t have butter on hand unfortunately. We Mike accidentally bought this alternative dairyfree butter that I mentioned to him. I was like, “It’s dairyfree. Did you realize that?” And he was like, “No.” Most important part is the arboreio rice that’s actually intended for risoto. It’ll give you that taste that you’re looking for. And this bullion is looking pretty good. This stock is looking pretty good. Guys, how do influencers do it with like multiple cameras? Like I’m holding this with my right hand and stirring with my left and I am not a lefty. All right, so once that is all melted down, then we’re actually going to take it off the heat and save it for later. And we’re going to use a different pot for our risoto. This pot is hot cuz the handles are the same material as the actual pot. So, I’m just going to move this over to the side of the stove so that it’s not burning the countertop, but it’s not in my way. Um, next, we’re going to get the actual pot we’re going to use. If you have a deep round almost like a pan at home, you can use that as well. I actually when I’m at home when I’m at home I’ll use a bigger pan like this. This one’s not large enough for it, but if you get like a large deep one, a skillet almost, you could use that. But for the RV purposes, we have this massive stock pot, which works. So, the first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to chop up our garlic, throw some olive oil in the pan, and we’re going to sauté that garlic a little bit. So, first thing we have to do is actually add the olive oil and the clove garlic to the pan. And we’re basically going to brown the garlic so that we get that garlic flavor into the olive oil. And then we’re going to remove those garlic cloves. So they’re not going to stay in the recipe the entire time. They’re just for aromatics and taste in the olive oil. I usually use five to six cloves of garlic total. That’s for most of my recipes. Honestly, this is a mini one. Got like one, two, three. See how many we have in this. Yeah. So, there’s a bunch of little ones. So, we’ll use one, two, three, four, and we’ll kind of piece these together to make five. Honestly, there’s not that much garlic left, but we It is gold here in this house, so we’re going to save it for another recipe later. So, put all these back. This is the hard part of living in an RV is everything is very small and you have limited counter space. So, right now I’m on the only piece of counter space that’s not my oven or my sink that’s available. Okay. Now, the easiest way to get this garlic desked is actually going to be to press it with the side of the knife. This reminds me of the Harry Potter movie where he uses um Snape’s journal to figure out how to squeeze the juices out of something and it says like chop, but Snape says like use the side of the knife to squeeze for better juice. Uh same thing applies for the garlic. If you use the flat end of your knife and just squish it, all of the skin and all the um shell will come right off and it’ll be much easier to use for cooking. Especially in this case, we’re just throwing the big cloves right in the pan with the olive oil. So, we don’t really have to worry too much about getting it finely chopped. So, we take this clove just like this. I use a very large knife. My sister makes fun of me, but I use it cuz it just you flatten it out. And now this is just going to peel right out of it. And there’s your clove without anything on it, which is great. I’ve also seen people take it and put it in a jar similar to the one that’s right here on my cutting board and like shake it. And apparently that also helps with getting it off. This just feels cleaner cuz I’m actually physically pulling it off versus it’s all if you shake it in the jar, it all gets stuck in the jar. I don’t know. Comment down below how you prefer to deskin your garlic. Oh, that was too aggressive. That was very aggressive. So, all of these pieces of garlic are going to go in the pan with some olive oil that is heating up. Okay. So, there’s all my garlic that I’m going to use. Take some olive oil here. So, you can do this while you are deskinning the garlic. Again, dad used no particular amount. So, just a healthy dose of olive oil in that pan. And once that oil starts to heat up, we can throw that garlic in. This is heating up really fast because it’s on an open flame. So, I’m going to grab my garlic. And we’re just going to toss this in here. Hear that sizzle? Let me show you what this looks like. All right. So, this is what your pan looks like. Just got that garlic going. And basically, you just want to sauté it on like a medium low heat until the garlic browns. And then we’re going to remove the garlic before we put the rice in. Now, this is for a one cup of rice, three cups of veggie stock, and one packet of chopped spinach is definitely plenty for two with a little bit of leftovers. We’ll show you when we’re done how much there is, but you can always double the recipe, triple the recipe as needed, depending on how many you’re feeding. I’m going to measure out my one cup of rice while this garlic is browning. I have honestly been trying to film this video for several days, but I usually like listening to audiobooks while I cook. So then I’ll get to the day where I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to cook for the channel and start doing these videos and then then I want to listen to my Sarah J. Moss audiobooks. I’m sorry.” So, with this recipe, you’re going to measure out this one cup of rice. And we’re actually going to kind of cook the rice a little bit on just the in just the olive oil before we start adding the broth. So, I have my one cup of risoto rice here. Be sure not to forget to stir this garlic because it can get smoky quite quickly. Yeah, I think I have it on a little bit too high. I got to turn the fan on. So, the good and the bad about the propane stove is it can cook really, really quickly. So, that was faster than I expected. So, I turned it down a little bit. And I turned the fan on. Hopefully, you can still hear me pretty well cuz I have a microphone. Maybe I should put the um wind protector on it. Hang on. All right. No time for the windscreen. Just got to go with this. I’m actually going to turn this off just because it’s getting too hot for the garlic. And I’m going to take this garlic out. As you can see, mine is pleasantly browned. Definitely got that nice garlic smell to it. Mike’s just hanging out in the background playing Xbox. It’s probably like, “This chick can’t cook. What is she doing?” So now we have the olive oil in here and it’s got some garlic taste to it. So next what I’m going to do is I’m actually going to turn the stove back on cuz I had turned it off. Put it on low and I’m going to put the rice directly into the olive oil so that it can soak it up a little bit before we add some broth. So this is what it looks like. Give it a nice stir. Make sure that you coat the rice pretty evenly with the olive oil mixture. Get that nice and good in there. Sorry, my camera’s trying to focus on my hand if I put it in the way and then it tries to go back to the rice. I turned off the fan so you can hear me better. But now that we have this cooking a little bit in here, we’re just going to give it a minute, which I have a microwave on top, so I’ll just wait till it gets to it’s 659. We’ll wait till we get to exactly 7:00. And from here, we’re going to start adding the vegetable broth or in my case, my chicken broth. But we’re going to do it a little bit at a time. So, you want to split it into thirds. And what I might do is I might actually measure out one cup into the measuring cup so that I can pour a third because I’m really bad at trying to eyeball it. Ironically, that’s the entire recipe is eyeballing it. All right, so now that it’s been a minute, that rice is all coated in the olive oil. I just raised the heat a little bit and I’m going to throw in the first cup of the broth. So, it boils for a second just as it’s adjusting. Make sure that you’re stirring this as you go because you don’t want any rice to stick to the bottom and start to burn. Pretty much from here, it’s simple. We’re just going to give it a couple minutes to soak up that broth. And once it has soaked most of it up, I’m going to add another cup of the broth. And then I’ll add the spinach. And finally, that last cup of broth. I’m going to cover this up a little bit just so that it takes in all the broth. And while that is going, before we add more, I’m going to rinse off and break up the spinach to get it ready because ideally you want it to be unfrozen, but you can in a pinch unfreeze it last minute if you have to. And yes, I’m well aware we need to do dishes. And that’s my next task as it’s cooking is I can wash some dishes and clear some things out of this sink cuz it looks ridiculous. Just going to run a little bit of warm water here. And you can smash it against the side of the sink if you need to to break it up a little bit. Comes in this nice little box that we’re just going to unfold. And there’s your spinach. I don’t know if you can see that. That’s Baro Defero. He eats his spinach, aka it’s Popey. Popey was our favorite cartoon growing up in Italy. They only played two cartoons before dinner. It was Popey and Tom and Jerry. So, when I saw this Popeye tattoo on Friday the 13th, I had to get it. All right, so we are thawing the spinach. Don’t forget to head on over to your risoto and make sure that you stir that. It is soaking up real nice here. Lay that lid on there. And it doesn’t have to be completely broken down, but just break it into bigger chunks or excuse me, break the bigger chunks into smaller bits just so when you throw it in the pot, it’s uh all ready for you. It’s easier to break down from there instead of trying to throw the whole frozen thing in there. So, this is what my spinach looks like. It is not perfect. It does not have to be. This is a normal cooking channel. This is not frills and pretty stuff. This is how to really cook in a pinch some good Italian food. So, there’s your spinach. I’m going to put it to the side. I’m going to put it on my cutting board that is in the only space for my counter. And I think it’s probably time to add a little bit more broth. So, let’s get to that. So, as you can see, the rice has swelled up a little bit and there’s a little bit less broth. I think I’m going to give this one more minute just to soak it soak it in as much as possible before I add the next cup of broth, which for me it’s in the pot. As I said earlier, you could just use stock from your fridge if you have it. It does not have to be warm to cook with it. So, that is one thing I just want to make a note of. You can also try to put some things away while you’re cooking. This is a lot harder with a camera going, trying to balance cooking with the timing and everything without the with the camera being moved. Okay, now I am happy with that. So, let’s add a little bit more broth to this. I’m just going to do like half of what’s left in my pot. There we go. And again, just stir it to make sure everything is evenly cooking. Can probably turn the heat up a little bit. Now I’m at I’m at a medium heat now on the propane stove. So just keep that in mind if you’re at home cooking on electric or induction. Feel it out. What’s too hot? What’s too cold? Right in the middle. We’re Goldilocks here when we cook. Folks, I just have to show you this. This is the recipe that my dad sent me. Like not a single measurement of anything except he did say one cup of aroreio rice. But even like spinach, frozen spinach will work unthought. That’s that’s that’s follow for you. So, we’re going to let this sit for about 10 minutes, it says. And then add the spinach. But again, this is all relative to how fast it’s cooking. If you come back after 5 minutes and the rice is completely absorbed, then probably time to just move on to the next step or lower the heat a little bit. We are looking good. Still got a lot of broth here. So, I’m not going to do anything with it for another minute or two. Let me show you what I’m looking at. So, we’re starting to get some shape on the risoto rice. So, in another minute or two, I’m going to add my spinach and give it a couple more minutes to cook. As you can see, mine is on like a slow little roll rolling boil rolling boil. I wanted to name this channel Anyone Can Cook, but we are going to do other content stuff that’s geared toward saving money food-wise and otherwise finances and budgeting and things like that. So, also like 10 million people have their channel named Anyone Can Cook, but there’s only a couple of them with more than like three videos. This is starting to look good to me. See how there’s a little bit of broth, but it’s not overwhelming the rice. Probably time to add the spinach. I’m just going to use the same spoon I’ve been using because it’s easier than getting another spoon dirty. I’ll just take all that spinach. Pop it out. And then we’re going to mix it real good. Some of this is still a little bit frozen. So, I’m going to mix it all up and just give it a minute to kind of defrost in the pot. I’m going to put the lid back on. Just give it like 30 seconds. Now, this recipe was passed down from my dad, but I believe it came from his parents. So, I’ll probably name the video after my nona or my non no so we can keep their recipes alive, keep their names alive and honor them with this delicious meal. You’d be surprised how often my family does do that. And they’re Venetian. They’re not like Jersey Italian. Okay. So, the spinach is starting to break up now. I’m just going to mix that all up. I am low on broth now. So, I’m going to add the rest of the broth here. And then, basically, it’s cook from here. One day, I’ll have enough money to get a second camera and I can do a POV shot. By then, we’ll be home back home in our house in Orlando. All right, let’s add the rest of this broth. All right, just going to get that all mixed up in there. And the spinach is breaking down nicely now. And pretty much from here, it’s smooth sailing. Only a couple more minutes and we’ll have a delicious dinner. So, I will shake the pan like this so that it evenly spreads it out after mixing. I’m going to put the lid back on here and I’m going to lower the heat a little bit. Just go to low with it. And while that is cooking, we’re going to grate some parmesan. This is what I have left from uh something I cooked yesterday. So, I think I will use this as the topping parmesan that we’ll keep on the table. And I’m going to grate some more that we actually put in the recipe before we’re done. And here, we try to reuse things as much as possible. So, I’m going to dry off this cutting board so I can use it for the cheese. Obviously, if you have a real live home kitchen, you don’t need to do as much work in between as I’m doing. See how this looks. Yeah, we’re doing okay. Perfect. That’s starting to look like Paulo’s roto. All right. So, for your cheese, you can use whatever you prefer. Parmesan, um, pecorino romano. I think this is pecorino. That’s what we prefer here. Would be good if you use the right side of the grater, Gabby. I have a much bigger cheese grater at home. Again, cannot wait to have my full kitchen. We are currently in Montana as I’m recording this and it is the end of July 2025 and over the next couple weeks we will be trekking back home to Orlando. This is um another one of those pieces that’s kind of up to you how much you want, how much you want cheesewise. I think a fistful is great. It’s plenty. I say fistful and now I’m I’m I’m shredding two fistfuls. But yeah, that looks should be pretty good. And listen, if parmesan is out of the budget, like a block of parmesan, don’t feel bad about getting the pre-graded stuff that you can find in the aisle. I know some people make fun of it and say it’s cardboard. You know, it is what it is. If you are trying to be frugal and save money, I understand that a 10.99 block of Parmesan cheese might not be in your budget. So, whatever works for you. So, here is our pecorino all ready to go. So nice. So, demure. So, now what we’re basically going to do is continue to stir it and check on it every couple minutes until all of the broth has been soaked up. At this point, I will take the lid off of it. And I do like to do a little taste test. So, let’s see how this rice is. Couple more minutes, but it’s definitely time to take the lid off. and turn up the heat a little bit because it is pretty well done. You may not need all of the broth. So, it’s a taste test thing. I prefer to just use it all and then let it boil down. Um, it might make your rice a little more well done than you prefer. So, it really depends how you like your rice cooked if you want it al dente. But now we got a nice boil going, so this will be good to go soon. These stoves are so sensitive. You just barely touch it with your hip and all of a sudden you’re you’re triggering the mechanism to light it. Now, if you also want, you can pick up some Italian bread. You can slice it up and serve it with the risoto. You we actually used to eat this with then another dish, right? Cuz we love to cook multiple dishes for one dinner every night. So, it would be like we start with the spinach risoto and then we also had like a salad and some sort of meat. You good back there? What do you What you want to be in this video? You want to be featured? They can’t stand me shooting a video without them being in it. I’m going to lower this because I don’t want it to burn. Come say hi to the babies. I’m sorry you cannot have risoto. On the right we have Loki who every time he finds out he’s on camera wants to avoid it. Don’t know what that’s about. And Freya. And for some reason they’re both scratching right now. But I promise you they eat like kings and queens. Freya is a girl. She’s four years old. And Loki is our boy. And he is five. Big stretch. Big stretch, Loki. All right. So, once this gets My dad wrote it in the recipe, consume, but I think he meant like once it absorbs, we should be good. There’s still some liquid in here. Let me see. Yeah, that’s a little al dente, which is how I like it. While this is doing its thing, I’m going to go set the table. Okay, so now we’re starting to see that there’s just a little bit of liquid left and it’s mainly all finished, which is great. So now it’s time to add a little bit of butter and that cheese. And then we’re going to turn off the heat and just cover it for a minute and let that absorb. Again, in an ideal situation, you have real butter. We have this country croc homestyle dairyfree butter. So, I’m just going to use a spoonful of it. I actually have one that’s already like set to go. This is probably a tablespoon and a half. So, we’ll just throw that in there. Don’t forget your cheese. And then what I’m going to do is I’m going to shut off the stove and just let it simmer for a minute. Clean up a little bit here. And then we’ll come back and stir it and see what we got. Oh yeah, that looks good. Let’s mix it up. And I apologize. I was like, I’m going to do this all on my own. So, I don’t have Mike to He’s around. I just told him not to worry about it, but I don’t I can’t show you as I’m doing it. But once you stir it all up, it’s going to get a nice creamy consistency. It’s going to look like this. And it smells absolutely phenomenal. And there you have it. Spinach risoto. Now, for portion sizes, I know people are probably like, “Well, how much does that feed?” Here’s Mike and I with our bowls. Let’s see what we got. And I am going to switch I’m going to switch to this spoon cuz realistically, it’s hard to hard to scoop it out nicely with that smaller wooden spoon. So, we got one and one. I did put a little bit more in Mike’s. Two two big heaping spoonfuls for Mike. And here’s mine. And honestly, there’s probably enough in here for a third serving if you were good with smaller portions. I’m gonna be honest. This is probably not going to make it through the night. This probably won’t make it to the end of dinner cuz Mike’s probably going to come back for seconds and finish it up. But that’s basically it. We can sit down with our risoto. We can add a little bit more of our cheese just for the top. Say grace. And basically that’s it. We give thanks to God and bonapito patito.