Rarebit Risotto

Okay, so I'm putting up a quick post tonight so that I can keep to my promise/goal of doing at least one post per week, but I have to admit it's a struggle! It's been busy as usual and the next few weeks will be even busier. I'm so ready for school to be out and work to be over! I like my job and I only work part time, but I'm ready to have no schedule for a while. What can I say, I got spoiled being a SAHM for 10 years.......

Anyway, the recipe for tonight is one a tried a few weeks ago as I was trying to sneak in a cool weather recipe - I love risotto, but it's not something I look forward to making once the weather turns warm.

Rarebit Risotto

This vegetarian risotto (from Simple Suppers) sounded comforting with the rice and cheddar cheese and interesting because of the use of beer. Most risottos call for wine; I don't recall ever seeing one that called for beer. And with the broccoli and tomatoes, one could almost pretend it's halfway healthy.

Overall I liked the risotto, but it's probably not going to be a repeater as there are so many other risottos that I like better. Though the beer was an interesting addition, I think it gave the risotto an off flavor that I had a hard time getting past. I do like beer, so that wasn't the problem, I guess I just didn't think it fit. I used a lager, so maybe it was just too strong a beer for this particular risotto. I might, however, be inclined to try it again using white wine and see how that goes.

The four cups of cheese seemed like overkill and I was afraid the risotto would be a gloppy mess, but it actually worked pretty well - perhaps because cheddar has a healthy amount of oil compared to other cheeses. Still, I'm sure that if you used a really good quality sharp cheddar, you could still get great flavor using less cheese.

I was happy to finally fit in a little broccoli into a meal. My oldest son really HATES broccoli so I don't fix it too often but I love it, especially in the main dish, but I snuck this one in while he was gone for the night. When the youngest is gone, I like to sneak goat cheese or other things that HE really doesn't like. Whatever works.

This may be the last post for another week but who knows, maybe I'll be able to sneak one in before then............