Sunday, May 4, 2008

Beet Risotto

One of the things I've been doing to occupy my time during my massive amounts of free time, has been to go through my food magazines that I acquired last year. I know that many people out there have this problem. Cooking Light is easy enough because they send me a cookbook in January that has all the recipes from the previous year in it. So I pack up my old magazines and give them to my stepdad. Bon Appetit is a little more complicated. But because I have the whole year I've offered them to both my stepdad and my sister Super G and I'm letting the two of them battle out who wants them. All those recipes are on epicurious anyway. The remaining magazines pose more of a problem. There's several Rachel Ray magazines and some Eating Well magazines and maybe some Martha Stewart like little Everyday Food magazines.

So my process has been to tear out the recipes that look really good to me and then I file them in a expandable file by recipe type. It's all very anal and silly, but I'm having the small problem that this file is starting to bulge. It occurs to me that I never cook these recipes that get stuffed into the expanding file. Well tonight at dinner I changed it all up. I cooked from a recipe that I found in a Rachel Ray magazine. kinda sorta. See her recipe was for Beet Risotto with Roasted Asparagus and Ricotta Salata. I had no asparagus and no Ricotta Salata. I'm pretty sure Ricotta Salata would be considered a hard to find ingredient out here. But I did have some goat cheese. So I made Beet Risotto with crumbled goat cheese. Rachel Ray may be super peppy and perky and far cuter than I could hope to be, but she also seems to be pretty easy going and I'm sure she wouldn't mind that I'm changing it all up on her.


It was delicious. Even the Brain, who doesn't "care for beets" ate two helpings. It was rich and creamy without any extra butter or Parmesan cheese. The color is beautiful. And it's not overly sweet like many beet dishes can be. Totally "delish"!


Beet Risotto
very loosely based on a recipe by Rachel Ray

3 Tbsp EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
6 cups vegetable or chicken broth, kept simmering
1 1/2 cups arborio rice
4 baby red beets, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1 small yellow onion chopped
2 to 3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup dry red wine
salt and fresh ground pepper
4 oz. crumbled fresh goat cheese

Heat olive oil in large skillet or medium dutch oven over medium heat. Stir in the rice to coat with the oil, and toast for 2 minutes. Add the beets, onion, and garlic and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Pour in the wine and cook until absorbed into the rice, then begin adding the broth by ladelfulls (about 1 cup at a time) stirring with each addition, until the rice is cooked, about 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Crumble goat cheese on top.

8 comments:

glamah16 said...

This is a new twist on Risottto. I need to organize my magazines,life, etc.

LisaRene said...

That is great to know that Cooking Light compiles their recipes into a cookbook for subscribers, very nice.

Risotto is such a great dish. There is something hearty, warm and casual about it but it also has an elegance and sophistication. You may be interested in my version of beet risotto with fresh cherries. It's on my blog.

Peter M said...

Beets give of such a briliant colour and the feta is a great topping to your risotto.

Deborah said...

I keep saying I'm going to try beets again - I even almost picked some up this weekend. Now I'm wishing I would have to try this recipe!

I have a magazine problem, too - but I can't even bear to give away my CL (even though I own the yearly cookbook) because the magazines have more pictures! I need to follow your lead, though - and give myself some extra space!

Emily said...

Beet risotto sounds delicious. Look at the color! It's beautiful. Plus you have all of that red wine. ;)

Good luck with your magazine clippings. I just stack all of my mags in my closet-it's getting to be a problem.

Anonymous said...

I do the same thing with recipes. Have done so for at least 2 decades. Some days you just weed through and throw things into the recycle bin. Voila, no more bulge, for now...

Cakelaw said...

I love beets, so this rissotto is right up my alley. Nice touch with the goats cheese on top.

Melody Marie Murray said...

I made this tonight, thank you so much for the recipe! It is my new favorite risotto. So good!