Mushroom-Leek Risotto

I anticipate a lot of risotto in my future.  There are many reasons for this - next to soup, it is my favorite whatever-vegetables-you-have dish.  I like standing in the kitchen and stirring a big pan and watching it absorb the liquid, and my kitchen is set up in a way that allows me to both watch tv and stir the risotto  constantly.  Plus Risotto has a ton of flavor.

I used up all of my Arborio rice, but there is so much other rice - especially brown rice.  I read in Bittman's vegetarian book that cooking brown rice for awhile before using it in a recipe allows you to replace white rice for it in recipes, and that included risotto.  And another cookbook I have advised me, when cooking brown rice for dinner that day, to pour boiling water over it in the morning and let it set so that when I get home at night it only takes 15 minutes to cook.

Sometimes I add a bit of cheese to risotto but it was so delicious it didn't need it.  I did ask a roommate's advice on the herbs, and she was totally right - the rosemary and thyme complimented the leeks and mushrooms beautifully.

the recipe --

A bit of olive oil
1 large leek, chopped pretty small
about 1 c chopped button mushrooms (the smaller the better)
1.5 c Arborio rice
3/4 c red wine
4 c vegetable broth
1 c water
thyme
rosemary

i cooked the leeks and mushrooms in oil first, and forgot to add the rice before i added any liquid, but i don't think it was a huge deal.  risotto calls for white wine, and i actually wasn't planning on using any wine, but my roommate had some red she didn't wasn't going to drink, and since the vegetable broth i used is pink anyway the color didn't seem to make a difference.  i did warm the broth, which is recommended but I haven't ever really done before.  This was in part because the broth had been in the freezer.  I could probably have gotten an intensely-delicious risotto replacing half of the vegetable broth with water.  After using 4 c of the broth I switched to water - the risotto was almost done but it just wasn't creamy enough so I added some water and cooked it a bit longer.

Oh, I meant to use up a lemon I had in this recipe, but it certainly doesn't need it.  I only remember because I found the lemon in the crisper drawer today.

Yum.