Confession

I have something to confess...I've been afraid of risotto. Well, not "afraid" in the phobia sense. It's just always seemed like an intimidating dish, so I've avoided it.
That is, until this week.

The stars were all aligned for this dish. I had to use up the rest of this stock and we had some broccoli that needed to be used up. Broccoli risotto. Well, ok...time to wing it.

As usual, I don't really use a recipe. I had an idea of what I needed: onion, garlic, wine, stock, parmesan, arborrio rice. What order? No idea. What quantity? Again, no idea. But hey, look at that, there's an ingredient list on the side of the rice box (Trader Joe's rice too...I love them more all the time).

So anyway, using their ingredient list and ignoring the quantities, I followed the order of operation. The result...


...was...


...uhh-maz-ing!
Seriously, why have I not made this before??


Here's the play-by-play, in case you haven't made risotto either.

Begin by heating up 2-3 cups of vegetable or chicken stock in a saucepan until simmering.

In a large pot, melt some butter on medium heat. Maybe 3 tbsp? Then, add some minced onions, say 1/4 cup. Sweat them until they become translucent. Add a tbsp of garlic and saute until golden. Now, add the rice. I used 3 palm-fulls (the recipe said 12 oz). Stir the rice in with the sauteed onions and garlic until the rice is clear. If the mixture starts to stick too much, add a little more butter.

Now the fun part--add the (white) wine. I had to break open my favorite seafood wine because everything else we had was red (if I had more options I'd probably use a sauvignon blanc). I used about 1/3 cup. Continue to cook on medium heat until the white wine is absorbed. Add the heated stock, one cup at a time, until the rice absorbs it. Continue this process for about 20 minutes, until the rice is fully cooked (you are looking for a smooth, not runny or pasty texture). I added the broccoli florets about halfway through this process so they would be perfectly cooked by the end.

When the rice is cooked, take it off the heat and shred parmesan into the pot, about 1/8 cup. Stir it quickly into the rice so it doesn't clump together. As the cheese melts it will add a great texture to the dish.

My husband rates my dishes (don't worry, I ask him to). It is a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being best. This dish got a 9. Need I say more?