Shrimp Risotto with Strawberries

When Charlie was in Italy they went to a restaurant (before I came) and he had the "risotto du jour". He LOVED it and wrote it down (with the restaurant name) and somehow my brilliant husband didn't realize that it meant "of the day". Oh Charlie. Well, I had him describe it and had never heard of anything like it, so I tried to copy it anyway!

His description was risotto with tiny shrimp (I used regular sized) and strawberries. Sounded weird, but my husband who would never have eaten fish while growing up or taste anything "weird" LOVED this dish - must be a winner.

I decided to go for it. I love making risotto. It's not hard and you get such a creamy yummy dish with no cream. The key is to get short grain arborio rice and stir, stir, stir. The starches of the rice rubbing against each other get released (according to Alton Brown) and it creates the creamy texture.





I don't know why there are raspberries in that pictures - I didn't put them in the risotto. Maybe it was a snack during cooking?

Have one saucepan with chicken broth simmering, and one for your risotto:





Ingredients:
-1 cup of arborio rice
-1 quart of chicken stock
-2 tbs butter
-1 tbs olive oil
-1 small chopped onion
-1/2 cup dry white wine
-1 pound of baby shrimp, raw
-2 cups of chopped strawberries


Directions:
1. Melt your butter and oil until they are hot, and then add the onion. Cook the onion for about 5 minutes on medium heat. Add in your arborio rice and stir, so that the rice "browns" a bit.
2. While your onion was cooking, heat a saucepan with your chicken broth. When it is simmering, reduce the heat to keep the simmer.
3. Add your wine to the rice, and stir until it dissolves, and then begin adding simmering broth, one ladle at a time. After each ladle, stir stir stir, until the stock dissolves.
4. Keep the heat on medium or medium-low, and keep stirring, adding in more broth as it gets absorbed, until you've added almost all of it in.
5. When you have about 1/2-1 cup left of broth left, add in your strawberries and shrimp. Serve immediately.

You can top it with parmesan cheese if you want!

Okay so here was my mistake, in retrospect, but I gave you the corrected recipe up there. I broiled my shrimp, because I wanted them to have that charred taste. But, I should have known - shrimp cook REALLY fast so then they almost overcooked when I added them into the risotto (I did this at the VERY end), but still. Next time, I'm going to go buy those teeny shrimp, and add them in with 5 minutes left of cooking time. Or, use regular size shrimp, but chop them up, and add them into the risotto raw with 5 minutes left of cooking.

I added salt, pepper, and basil to the shrimp, sprayed with pam, and broiled them:




Joanna and oscar had a snack of the broiled shrimp until it was ready:




Three plates with it and some corn, and hot dogs for Aubrey, who I was watching for Victor and Katy that night. Kinda funny how its a similar color to the risotto!

Charlie liked it!


Aubrey was more interested in Maya:


And taking care of the baby:


Okay - that's the sweetest thing ever. She is a little mama already.




Wait actually maybe that is the sweetest thing ever.
Whoops I digressed from shrimp. Enjoy the risotto!

Brown Rice Risotto with Vegetables

Do you ever crave something that tastes creamy and fatty? Well, if you do, but want something healthy, with literally NO butter, NO cream, and NO cheese, you have to try this recipe. I have always said risotto is one of my best dishes. Once you have the basics, you can make any variety you want. I make butternut squash risotto for Thanksgiving each year for exmple. I also love it with corn and pine nuts. Mmmmm. My sister's boyfriend, Jason likes to make it with tomatoes and basil. They are both med students and so it must not be that complicated of a dish for them to be able to make it!

They key to risotto? Short grain rice!

When I found short grain brown rice at winco, I was super stoked. It didn't work as well as I thought, and took a really long time, but it eventually worked, I just had to be patient.

Ingredients:
1/2 large onion, diced
Extra Virgin Olive oil, to cook the onion in
Kosher salt (measurement unknown)
3/4 cup of short grain brown rice
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/2 cup of wine (I didn't have white which I would recommend so I used red, it worked fine)
1 32 ounce box of chicken broth (I use low sodium from costco)
1/2 cup dehydrated shitake mushrooms, rehydrated (you can use fresh, but I have a huge box of dehydrated ones)
1/3 cup of green beans, chopped into 1/2 inch slices
1 cup of fresh spinach

Directions:
1. Sprinkle enough olive oil in a small pot (with a lid) to sautee half of the onion. Add salt to flavor the onion (I have no idea how much I used, probably 1/2 a teaspoon, but honestly, just eyeball it). Let it cook for about 10 minutes on medium, until it soft and slightly browned.
2. Add your rice and let it cook with the onion for about 5 minutes, to toast the grains. Add your chopped garlic cloves and let cook for another 2 minutes.
3. Pour in the wine and stir constantly until the liquid evaporates.
4. Start pouring in chicken broth a bit at a time, about 1/4 cup or so. Stir constantly. When the rice has soaked in the liquid, add in more.

* I realized after about 15 minutes of adding liquid, that it wasn't being absorbed by the rice like in regular risotto. Realizing it was brown rice which needs to steam, I shut the lid for about 10 minutes,  while on medium heat, and then stirred and added using that technique. When I was about 3/4 of the way with the chicken broth, I did not have to continue to shut the lid*

5. When there is about 1/2 of the broth left, add in the mushrooms. Continue as normal.
6. At about 1/4 of the broth left, add in the green beans. Continue as normal.
7. When all the broth has been absorbed, add in the spinach and stir it in.

Best served immediately.