Brown Rice Risotto

Who doesn't love risotto?! With a creamy texture and ability to absorb flavors, it's one of my favorite foods. Unfortunately, something like 99.5% of recipes call for a white rice. Because it's such a great dish, with lots of leftovers for lunch the next day, I have been looking for a way to make it more healthy according to South Beach Diet guidelines. I found some information online, which suggested short grain brown rice. Sounds easy, right?

Oh wait, I forgot to tell you. My community's grocery stores are very basic and don't carry many exotic or unique foods. They only had long grain brown rice.

Thankfully, I was in Durham last week for an appointment. I found some short grain brown rice at Whole Foods. I also adapted one of their recipes, found here.

Annnnnd this is what I did Saturday night:
1 quart chicken broth
5 cups water
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup finely minced onion
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 cup sliced mushrooms
2 cups uncooked short-grain brown rice
2/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tsp. Morton's Seasoning

I mixed the broth and water and heated it while heating the olive oil in a large saucepan. I sauteed the onion, garlic and mushrooms in the oil until soft, then added the rice and toasted it for about 5 minutes. I then added the liquid, a ladle at a time, constantly stirring. After about an hour, the rice was soft and thoroughly cooked. I added the cheese and sprinkled the seasoning over the risotto and stirred.

The results? INCREDIBLE. It was so creamy and flavorful. The mushrooms really infused flavor throughout the dish, which is odd because they have such a mild flavor. I suppose the long cooking and simmering time would be responsible for that. I took a picture, but it came out looking like oatmeal. Just look at the picture in the Whole Foods link and imagine it without the green, and with thick slices of mushrooms. Mine did come out a little salty, not unpleasantly so, but definitely had no need for added salt.

I would caution though, if you choose to make this risotto, make sure your other dishes are not very involved. I tried doing fried zucchini and squash while doing the risotto and it was more stress than I like to feel in the kitchen. Yes, it is a pain to stand over the stove for an hour and constantly stir and sometimes it felt like it would never finish cooking. But the end result--definitely worth all the trouble and lack of SBD guilt.