No-Stir Rosemary and Butternut Squash Risotto

Normally when I buy a package of fresh herbs, a good portion goes to waste. I perused a ton of recipes to find a side dish incorporating rosemary so that what was remaining from the insanely good California Beef Stew with Zinfandel (and subsequent Rosemary-Chicken Lasagna) would not go to waste.

I love risotto, I love butternut squash, I love spinach and I love parmesan cheese. Hence, I decided to make this dish.

There are a couple of changes from Gastronomy's rendition:

1. Better Than Bouillon concentrate instead of straight-out stock
2. Noilly Prat vermouth instead of dry white wine
3. skipped the bleu cheese altogether (per Gastronomy's suggestion)
4. I did a simmer while covered portion of the recipe instead of going uncovered the entire time

No-Stir Rosemary and Butternut Squash Risotto
adapted from Gastronomy

7 c chicken broth (I used Better Than Bouillon)
3 tbsp butter
1 1/4 c finely chopped onion
1 2-lb butternut squash, peeled, halved, seeded, cut into 1/2 to 3/4-inch dice (about 3 cups)
2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary, divided
2 c arborio rice (about 13.5 ounces)
1/2 c Noilly Prat
4 c (packed) baby spinach leaves (about 4 oz)
1/2 c freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Heat 7 cups of water until hot in large saucepan. Stir 7 tsp (or two heaping tbsps) of Better Than Bouillon into hot water. Cover and reduce heat to low.


Melt butter in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add onion and sauté until tender, about 5 minutes.


Add squash and 1 1/2 teaspoons rosemary; sauté 4 minutes to coat with butter.


Add rice and stir 2 minutes.


Add wine and simmer until evaporated, about 1 minute.


Add hot broth; bring to boil. Reduce heat to simmer and cover 12 minutes.


Uncover and continue simmer until rice is just tender and risotto is creamy and slightly soupy, stirring very occasionally, about 7 minutes.


Stir in spinach, and Parmesan cheese.


Season to taste with salt and pepper if you think it's the thing to do.

Transfer risotto to large bowl, or not. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 teaspoon rosemary and serve.


The dish was really pretty and tasted ok, but it didn't rock my world as I'd expected. The rice was creamy, the squash tender but not mushy, the spinach slight flavor-texture bursts throughout. Maybe I was suffering rosemary overdose. After all, I ate a week of kick-ass beef stew flavored with rosemary and then a week of lasagna flavored with rosemary.

I sort of wonder if my Noilly Prat was too old. Maybe the rosemary was too old. I dunno.

I'm going to have to do a retake.

Cost:

• Better Than Bouillon chicken stock: $0.92
• butter: $0.76
• onion: $0.60
• butternut squash: $1.10
• rosemary: $0.50
• arborio rice: $4.98
• Noilly Prat: $0.40
• spinach: $1.33
• Parmesan cheese: $2Total: $12.59 or $2.10 for each of 6 servings.

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