recipe: roasted tomato and garlic risotto

I have a love/hate relationship with risotto. It is a huge pain to make, but if it's done well it's worth the arm pain. Since I try to stay away from white rice, I used quick-cooking brown rice and had wonderful results! {Make sure to use quick-cooking or your arm really will fall off! Once I tried to make brown rice risotto with regular brown rice. I was stirring, constantly, for 1 1/2 hours and still had crunchy rice...learn from my mistake}

Roasted Tomato and Garlic Risotto
loosely adapted from here

- 3 cups (1 1/2 pints cherry tomatoes) {I didn't have cherry tomatoes so I chopped up 3-4 heirlooms}
- 3 cloves of garlic, sliced
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- S&P
- 2 teaspoons oregano
- 2 tablespoons ghee or unsalted butter
- 1 onion finely chopped
- 2 cups quick-cooking brown rice (they carry some at Trader Joe's)
- 1 cup dry white wine
- 4 cups vegetable broth
- 1 cup grated parmesan
- 2 teaspoons of fresh thyme
- a few big handfuls of baby spinach
*please use all organic ingredients if possible!*

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the tomatoes and garlic on a rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with the oil, sprinkle with oregano, S&P. Roast until soft, about 35 minutes.

While tomatoes are roasting, melt the ghee in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for 3 minutes. Season with a pinch of salt.

Add the rice and cook, stirring occasionally for 2 minutes. Add the wine, and cook, stirring frequently until liquid is absorbed.

Add the broth 1/2 cup at a time, stirring frequently, waiting until it's absorbed before adding more. This will take ~30 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir in the parmesan. Season with S&P to taste. Stir in the spinach until slightly wilted {or serve on a bed of spinach, as pictured. Next time I will wilt my spinach slightly}. Stir in tomatoes and thyme and serve.