Beet risotto
Uploaded on February 24, 2007 by Kitchen Wench

I made beet risotto for dinner last night and am looking forward to having it in my lunch in a few minutes. Thanks to a canned beet experience as a toddler, I've always avoided them until having a beet and carrot salad at a rodizio. It was soooo good that I reversed my position on not liking beets.

Peeling and dicing were probably the messiest parts, but the end result was very tasty! I made a few tweaks to the recipe based on what I had at hand - brown rice, olive oil instead of butter, lots of rosemary, fennel powder and a package of Trader Joe's smoked applewood sausage that was going to expire on the 10th. The basic process was to saute three shallots in olive oil, then add uncooked brown rice, diced beets, 3 cups of boiling water, the diced sausage and the spices. It probably took about 30-40 minutes to cook, so pretty fast! I'm adding in the goat cheese and a diced leaf of kale into individual portions, like when I heat it up in the microwave. Between that and the pumpkin oat bran cranberry quick bread, I'm eating really well this week.

Now that I'm no longer anti-beet,  I'm looking forward to making them over the coming winter months. Maybe next time it'll be borscht.