Rice with Mushrooms, Squid and Artichokes

This month we were all treated to learn how to make an authentic Spanish meal that was time consuming, but easy and so worth the hours of slow cooking. Olga of Las Cosas de Olga and Olga's Recipes, was our hostess and wow, what an amazing job she did! Thank you so much, Olga! :)

I really don't have much to say about the recipe, other than it truly was delicious and it made my house smell amazing. I followed the recipe almost exactly - my only changes were to caramelize my onions slowly over low heat for about an hour before adding the rest of the veggies for the Sofregit, I used canned fire roasted diced tomatoes instead of fresh because our garden tomatoes aren't ready yet and I refuse to buy the tasteless tomatoes from the grocery store.

Oh and I used squid instead of the cuttlefish that was the original seafood ingredient, just because you'd have a better chance of meeting Elvis at the local library than you would of finding cuttlefish at the grocery stores/fish markets in these parts. ;)

I really took my time with the Sofregit.. mainly because of what other members were saying about theirs and I knew it'd make way too much for what the recipe called for, so I wanted the remainder to be really concentrated in flavor so I could use it to spread of bruschetta for a lil get together I'm having in a few weeks. And I'm glad I did, that stuff is amazing. I'm almost thinking of just serving it in a big bowl with a loaf of crusty bread torn up around it so people can just dip.. YUM.

I was concerned, initially, about rubbery squid. From many past experiences I know that you've got two choices with squid - cooked quickly, or cooked for hours and you will get tender slices.. cooked in between those two times and you're just asking for a mouth full of rubber. Although you don't cook the squid for tooooooo long in this dish, it's longer that what I've had success with in the past and much, much shorter of a time than my dad's Christmas Calamari sauce that I cherish. But to my surprise it came out super tender! It was fantastic!

I used Arborio rice since we needed a short grain rice and it made the dish extra creamy and delicious. This is definitely a dish that needs a good starchy short grain rice to give it an extra kick of wonderfulness. I now realize why the paella I made years ago was just "okay" instead of really good like this dish. I used regular long grain rice that I always have in my pantry. Now I'm rarin' to make Paella again using the Arborio. I'm looking forward! :)

If you like Spanish cuisine, I highly recommend this dish. Try it! :D

Check out the other Daring Cooks' versions of this recipe.. I guarantee you'll be listing the ingredients on a grocery list in the not too distant future. ;)

xoxo