Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Risotto!! Easy, Delicious and Good For You!

I have found the perfect risotto recipe!! Perfect in every way. Easy, Tasty (even hubby likes it, and he doesn't like either of the main ingredients in anything else.) and best of all it's super Healthy!!!

I'm not sure how much of a problem it is for copyrights to post a recipe here. I do recommend buying the whole book as there are tonnes of yummy healthy recipes in it. It's called
"The Ultimate Healthy Eating Plan
that still leaves room for chocolate"

by Liz Pearson and Marilyn Smith

(Liz Pearson's website is here. She has a new book out, Ultimate Foods For Ultimate Health, which appears to be the old book updated with new chapters added. I hope it still has this recipe.)

For those of you who haven't made traditional risotto from scratch, know that it's a labour intensive project. Yes, project. You have to stir and stir and stir for at least an hour. You get a book and a stool and sit at the stove and stir. It's made mostly of white rice which is nutritiously little better than Styrofoam. There's butter and heavy cream involved, which I'm not totally against, just not so good for the waistline - and I'm trying hard to get me one of those back. waistlines, I mean.

This new risotto recipe is nothing like it's predecessor.
Brown rice, Butternut squash. Simmer for an hour.
You don't even really need to stir it until the end when you add some high quality Parmesan. Brilliant! Absolutely Brilliant.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The recipe sounds interesting, though I do have to comment that risotto is made with arborio rice and not "white rice" - more or less the same nutritional value as basmati rice (less fat and more iron than basmati). I also have never seen a risotto recipe with cream, and I am more familiar with olive oil than butter as the oil in risotto. One thing the recipes have in common - you MUST have good parmesan to finish it off. Or else.

tired of smiling said...

I stand corrected!
I'm not sure why I was thinking there was cream in risotto! Absolutely, thank you, Anonymous!

I do have to say that aborio rice is a type of white rice, with germ and bran removed. Basmatti rice can come either brown or white.
Info on brown rice can be found here: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=128
And the differences, nutritionally speaking, between brown and white rice here: http://www.lammd.com/opinion/brown_rice_vs_white_rice.cfm