Vegetarian Risotto with Asparagus, Mushrooms and Bell Pepper

I’ve decided my current antibiotic is secretly a dangerous weight loss drug. Some of the listed side effects are: Severe Headaches, Severe Nausea, Vomiting, Anorexia. On the internet a lot of people have said that those effects only lasted the first couple days, so that’s what I’m hoping because it’s miserable! Yesterday I was too sick to make it to work, then thought I felt a little better and decided I wanted risotto.

I made this gorgeous risotto, and halfway through making it had to pull a chair up to the stove and could barely stomach the smell. Don’t get me wrong, it smelled delicious, amazing even! But it also smelled like food, and apparently all my stomach could handle was saltines and ginger ale. So sadly, I did not get to enjoy it right after I made it, but Eric had some and loved it, and I was able to have some later in the afternoon.

I’m so glad that this risotto worked out. The first and only time I’d tried making it before was not such a success. The recipe said that there’s no need to continually stir, and it took over two hours. This time I just made up my own recipe and stirred continually, it was perfect! It’s funny how I often cook better when I don’t try to use a recipe. I just went with some veggies we needed to use up and sautéed them before adding them to the risotto. I stirred it until it was done and it was definitely worth the half hour of stirring. In fact when our refrigerator delivery guy showed up, he walked in the house and said “It smells amazing in here!” I made it with homemade vegetable stock, but you can make it with any kind of stock you want, and the truffle oil is totally optional if you don’t have any.

By the way, last night was our first night taking care of my autistic brother Jason while my parents are in Ohio for my Uncle’s memorial. It went pretty well, my family’s care group at their church was having a game night so we took him to that and had a really good time. Unfortunately, Jason had been up since 2 am and so was rather zombie like by the time we forced him to leave. He was right on the verge of a tantrum but Eric is really great with him and so we got him home without incident, hooray! Oh and yes, we did get a new refrigerator yesterday, but that’s another post 🙂

Vegetarian Risotto with Asparagus, Mushrooms and Bell Pepper
serves 4-6

Ingredients

4 cups vegetable stock
4 stalk asparagus
1 red bell pepper
4 mushrooms (button, cremini, etc.)
1 TBS Olive Oil
2 cloves garlic minced
4 green onion stalks chopped
1 sprig of fresh thyme
1 TBS chopped fresh parsley
2 TBS olive oil
1 cup Arborio rice
¼ cup white wine
sea salt and pepper to taste
a few drops high quality truffle oil
2 TBS freshly grated pecorino romano cheese

Instructions

Heat the vegetable stock on the stove and keep it on warm. Chop your asparagus into 1 inch pieces, bell pepper into 1 inch slices, and mushrooms into about 8 slices. Heat 1 TBS oil in a frying pan on med-high, add half of garlic and green onions, sauté for one minute but don’t let the garlic burn. Add veggies and sauté for another 3-4 minutes or until they’re slightly softened. Remove veggies to a plate.

Add 2 TBS oil to the frying pan, heat on medium. Add remaining garlic and green onion, add rice. Mix well to get rice completely coated with oil. Add white wine and mix. When it’s nearly evaporated begin adding heated vegetable stock a ladle full at a time. Continually stir the rice and as the stock is nearly all absorbed add some more. Continue this process.

The rice will begin to swell and get creamy. As you approach using the last of the stock, begin testing the rice (you don’t want to use too much stock and make it mushy). As the rice is absorbing the last of the stock return the veggies to the pan and mix them in. Turn off the heat and drizzle with truffle oil and sprinkle with cheese. Mix once more and serve.