Pretty in Pink

Confession time:

1) I am the laziest food photographer ever to make the slightest attempt at chronicling a food blog. I barely remember to snap a quick shot with my iPhone before diving into my creations. I don't even have my proper camera here (it's sadly in Amanda's basement....I need to rectify that). Because many of the items I make are for me, I don't bother with pretty presentation. I suck at this. My apologies.

2) I LOVE risotto. I love the creamy goodness when there's really nothing to make it creamy but arborio rice. And I love that you can just stuff whatever vegetables you want into it. Not to mention the fact that you don't really need a recipe, just a basic jist of what's going on. Perfect for quick, no fuss comfort food.

3) I also love brightly and unusually colored food. I remember this one random episode of a cooking show that used to be on PBS when I was little, "The Frugal Gourmet". I would occasionally watch this with my mom when I was around 5 years old, and the only thing I can remember was this episode when he dyed foods blue, like mashed potatoes and spaghetti. I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Due to #1, it's hard to tell that the above picture incorporates not just #2 but also #3 quite stunningly. That, my friends, is an amazingly delicious, amazingly gorgeous beet risotto. In real life, it is a deep, vibrant magenta. Just beautiful. It makes me want to add beets to everything to give it this color.

So why beet risotto? Well, because when I was at the grocery store last week, they had beautiful, large beets (instead of their usual puny, sickly looking ones), so I had to buy them. But, as you may recall, there is a moratorium on the oven until winter, so I couldn't roast them. So what do you do with raw beets? Well, you could add them to a salad, but I didn't have any other good salad fixings on hand (I have the worst schedule ever, so I'm wary about trying to keep short-lived veggies, like greens, on hand). You can also make them a salad on their own. But today was gray and long and kinda stressful, so that didn't sound comforting enough. Then I remembered I had half a box of arborio rice in the pantry, vegetable stock in the cupboard, and the liquor store is more or less on my way home. So after scanning several recipes, I decided to make this lovely dish. And it is amazingly delicious. Particularly with a glass of pinot grigio from the rest of that bottle. Just right for a comforting dinner to start two weeks of utter insanity. By adding the beets raw instead of roasted, they retain a fresh flavor rather than becoming sweet.

Beet Risotto
Please note, these amounts are my best approximation...I seem to have forgotten how to measure

2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, pressed
1 1/2 cup arborio rice
1/3 cup white wine
5 cups vegetable stock
1 Tablespoon rosemary
3 largish beets, shredded
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese (or Parmesan)

Begin by warming the stock in a saucepan, leaving it to come to a bare simmer. Heat the oil in a 2 qt. pan over medium heat, then saute onion until translucent, 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic and saute another minute. Add the rice, stirring to coat with oil, and let cook another two minutes. Add wine, allowing to fully absorb, stirring occasionally. Add rosemary and one cup stock. Allow rice to fully absorb the stock, then add more, one cup at a time, allowing it to absorb in between. Once the last of the stock is nearly absorbed, stir in beets and season with pepper. Allow to cook another 2-3 minutes, just long enough to take the crunch off the beets. Stir in blue cheese.

Serves 4