BLT Risotto

Mmmm...risotto. That creamy, delightful marriage of melty onions and garlic, firm but not too firm arborio rice and cheese. Melty, melty cheese.

As I've said in my first post, I was not always the most adventurous eater. There was a very long period of time when I had a very deep and profound distrust of rice. For whatever reason. Then Italy came along and blew my fricken mind and I've been obsessed ever since. Generally speaking, risotto is my favorite vehicle for leeks, peas, spinach and roasted chicken. But tonight is a night for bacon. I've been assured by my [insanely talented] friend that "you only live once", erego I'm not going to apologize for the amount of bacon I've consumed today. Don't wanna. Not gonna.

So yes, bacon, roasted tomatoes and arugula together make my BLT Risotto one of my new favorites. And I promise, if you try it - it will be yours as well!

BLT Risotto

5 strips of thick cut bacon
1 medium onion
2 large cloves of garlic
1 cup arborio rice
3 cups chicken stock
About 20 cherry tomatoes
1 cup arugula
2-3 tbsp goat cheese


Start with the bacon. Because it's the best part. Also because it's necessary. So crisp those magical strips up in you pan.


Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Quarter up your tomatoes, and toss those on a pan with some olive oil and salt and pepper. You want to let those roast until they look like this:

While those are cooking up, dice one medium onion and mince your garlic. By this time, your bacon should be done cooking. Remove them from the pan, and drain on some paper towels.

In a separate saucepan, heat your chicken stock.

Now that you've removed your bacon, you're going to want to drain most of the fat from the pan, while leaving enough to cook the onions and garlic. Cook them over medium heat, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste until the onions are translucent and soft. To the pan, add the rice in with the onions and garlic, and let them get all friendly like.



Here's where the magic happens. This is where "rice" becomes "risotto". Make sure that your heat is medium-low. Any hotter and it'll dry up, and any lower and your rice will NEVER cook through. Ever. Add a ladle of stock at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon until the liquid becomes absorbed into the rice. (Also, maybe check on your tomatoes. They're probably perfect by now. Set those babies aside - you'll add them later). So, keep adding ladles of stock at a time, only adding more when the previous ladle has been absorbed.



Stop, obviously, once you run out of stock. If it looks too dry or too wet, or if your rice needs to get cooked a little more - feel free to add more. The world will not end.

When it's all cooked up, you have the basis of your soon-to-be-eaten yumminess. Now is the time to add the bacon you cooked up earlier - crumbled - like so:



Chopped arugula. A-like so:



And then those tomatoes that you roasted earlier. Finish it off by crumbling your goat cheese in (or, if you don't like goat cheese like some people I know - it's equally good to grate some high quality parmesan cheese, you'll just get a gooier, nuttier kind of creaminess)



Sorry about the picture quality! But, I promise you it tastes much better than it looks!

Fear not the risotto, my friends! If you're brave enough to attempt it, you will definitely reap the delicious benefits.