Salmon "Risotto"

So, I love cooking. Following recipes, however, doesn't exactly work for me. Either I never have all the fancy ingredients or I'm too lazy to churn my own butter or measuring exactly the right amount is just too time consuming. So I just kind of, uh, wing it. B typically loves my creations anyway, so it works for us. Well, at least he says he loves them.

There are two pitfalls to this method, and I'm not sure which is worse. The first (which is probably obvious) is that sometimes what I make turns out disgusting. Like, really bad. The other pitfall is that sometimes it turns out FREAKING AWESOME and I have zero idea what I put in it. Zero. I've been trying to get better about avoiding pitfall #2. Pitfall #1 is just a hazard of being married to me. Sorry, hubs.

I first made this dish a few months ago, on accident of course. I wanted us to start eating healthier- blah. So I thought I'd make a salmon dish with a side of risotto. I've never made risotto before, but being an avid watcher of Chopped, I knew that shit would need more that 30 minutes. Being the innovative chef that I am, I took to Google. While busy googling "risotto easy yum help," I overcooked my salmon. Just a little, but enough that I thought, eh, why not just throw it in my risotto? And that, my friends, is how delicious Salmon Risotto was born.

I found this recipe for "Easy Parmesan 'Risotto'". I liked that is had the word easy right in the title. The Barefoot Contessa's recipe is in gray, but I made some changes.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups Arborio rice (Don't put those fancy words in my mouth! I think I have brown rice?)
5 cups simmering chicken stock, preferably homemade, divided (Some chicken bouillon cubes)
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (Again, some. I didn't have a ton left, and I didn't want to use up the whole green can.)
1/2 cup dry white wine (I'm confused about who has wine leftover for cooking?)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup frozen peas

A hunk of cream cheese

The salmon you overcooked

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Place the rice and 4 cups of the chicken stock in a Dutch oven, such as Le Creuset. Cover and bake for 45 minutes, until most of the liquid is absorbed and the rice is al dente. Remove from the oven, add the remaining cup of chicken stock, the Parmesan, wine, butter, salt, and pepper, and stir vigorously for 2 to 3 minutes, until the rice is thick and creamy. Add the peas and stir until heated through. Serve hot.

Or, you could be cool like me and just make the rice on the stove in a pot. Once it's cooked, add in the delicious ingredients, and stir it for awhile until it is all hot. Now eat it. You're welcome. 

 

Also, if you actually want to eat something yummy, you could just follow the original recipe- you know, if you're boring like that ;).