French Fridays with Dorie - creamy, cheesy, garlicky rice with spinach

My cool burner covers.

Ahhh, comfort food.  What is it about the fall that just demands comfort food?  All I know is that I am always delighted to answer that command.  This week's FFwD recipe is all about comfort food.  Any recipe that starts with the word creamy is going to be ok with me...add cheesy & garlicky and I'm sold. The recipe calls for Arborio rice, which I happened to be out of.  I thought, no worries, Vons will have it.  I am sadly discovering that the Vons in my little beach community is woefully inadequate.  I mean, what self-respecting grocery store doesn't have Arborio rice?  After my first try at Vons, I then stopped at the little grocery store (cutely named "Wally's") to see if they might have it.  After searching high and low I did find the Arborio rice...thank goodness.  I realized I am going to have to look at the recipes at the beginning of the month and make a plan for sourcing the more unusual ingredients early in the month (although, really, in who's world is Arborio rice "unusual?")

Anyway, just a long way of saying that I had to hunt for the damn rice this week...but it was well worth the trips.  Dorie uses one of her favorite tricks with boiling the rice in chicken stock.  This infuses the rice with a fabulous, hearty flavor (it's great to cook pasta this way...as I've discovered in another of Dorie's recipes...her dressy pasta "risotto."  You add some sauteed onions, garlic, spinach, Gruyere (I used the smoked Gruyere...holy toledo was that the right call!) and cream to the rice and you have a dish that everyone in your family will be asking for more of (at least they were in my family...luckily there are only three of us, so there was a bit leftover for lunch, yeah!!)

Pictures aren't fabulous this week.  While make the rice, I was also making a chicken dish that I was creating on the fly.  I had four pots going at the same time (and trying to make egg salad for lunches too).  That old multi-tasking snake is raising her evil head!  The chicken turned out really well (I just sliced up some raw breasts, sauteed them in a little oil with salt and pepper, deglazed the pan with white wine, stirred in a little cream of mushroom soup, heated it through and then finished it with sour cream...darn if it didn't taste fabulous!), but with stirring all the different pots...photographs weren't high on the priority list.  (It's all my stove's fault...damn electric stove is so unforgiving, it makes cooking multiple things difficult because you can't adjust the heat quickly when you need to.  I'm really looking forward to installing a new stove top, sometime soon.)
My son is in his second week of middle school (at his new school) and is settling in really well.  He's going to start running on the Cross Country team this week and I'm excited to go to his meets and cheer him on.  I've been on pins and needles all summer worrying about how he would like his new school.  I'm more than relieved that he really loves it.  I can actually sleep well again!  Moving is always so much fun (not), it's nice to finally feel like we are settling in.

Click here to see all the other amazing FFwD participants this week.  Have a terrific week!