Risotto Primavera

We're back with another budget dish from Cooking Light. This time, it's the Risotto Primavera from the June 2010 issue. This dish seemed a little heavy for our southern climate back in June, but now that the temperatures are more consistently out of the near triple digits, it's a lot more palatable. There's nothing particularly summery about it, so all of the ingredients should be available wherever you might live.

This recipe rings up at $2.48 per serving, which, if your grocery store is anything like ours, is influenced heavily by the inclusion of fresh asparagus. We'd be willing to bet that you could sub in some of the frozen stuff without anyone batting an eye. Purchasing the Arborio rice in bulk may offset a decision to go with the fresh stuff.

Before you think another minute about making this dish, beware: Risotto requires constant attention. You'll be stirring and reducing for about 20 minutes, so put on some comfortable clothes, flip on the tele, give your stirring arm a quick arm warm-up, and get ready to cook!

The first step is to roast the tomatoes in the oven for 15 minutes. (We recommend lining your jelly roll pan with heavy aluminum foil to speed up your clean-up.) You can use this time to trim up your asparagus, grate your cheese, and measure out other ingredients, because, once you start adding liquids to your rice, you won't have time to even think about measuring, grating, or chopping.

Next, you're ready to combine your water and broth in a sauce pan, heating - but not boiling - them. The onion goes into your Dutch oven first, then rice, then vinegar. Then it's time for your marathon stirring session!

You'll add in half-cups of the broth and water mixture one at a time, stirring until all of the liquid is absorbed. According to the recipe, this should take about 20 minutes, start to finish, which we found to be pretty accurate. When the last cup of the broth mixture goes in, so do the veggies (other than the tomatoes).

You've probably notice that, due to a clerical error in our grocery list-making, we ended up sans peas. We subbed in frozen corn instead; the consensus in our house was that the corn lent the dish a little more snap than the peas might have.

Off the stove came the rice mixture and in went the grated cheese, making the texture of the dish smooth and luxurious. We plated the mixture and topped it with tomatoes and more cheese, then a dusting of pepper and, voila - an inexpensive, hearty dish that required just a little bit of elbow grease!

If you're wondering whether it's possible that this dish reheated well - it certainly did! Just be sure to heat it in short increments and stir until you're happy with the temperature. This isn't something you want to shock in the microwave for 5 minutes!