Beet risotto with goat cheese

I got an insane amount of root vegetables in my CSA last week and have been trying to think of different things to do with potatoes, beets, radishes, carrots, and the like. Yesterday I made a bit salad with grated carrots, watermelon radish, purple cabbage, celery, and sunflower seeds, seasoned with lemon juice and olive oil. For dinner, I adapted a recipe from Lucas Hollweg’s Good things to eat and made a beet risotto. I realized that this is the third risotto in a roll that I post on this blog. I promise that next recipe will be something different! I had a few cylindrical beets so I used one large one for this recipe. The recipe calls for rindless goat’s cheese but I didn’t have any. So I had to improvise a bit. I also changed some of the proportions from the original recipe. This is what I made:

Ingredients:

1 litre water

1 cup grated beets

2 tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1 stick celery, chopped finely

2 garlic cloves, grated or minced

1 cup short grain brown rice, parboiled for 12 minutes, strained and rinsed

1/2 cup white wine

salt & pepper

goat’s cheese (the recipe calls for 125g; I used 2-3 thick slices only because the cheese I had was very strong – it was the hand rolled chevre logs from Fifth Town Cheese Company.

1. Put the water in a saucepan and bring to a boil with the grated beets. Reduce heat and keep it warm.

2. In a heavy pan, heat the oil and add he onions, celery, and garlic. Cook in low-medium heat until the onions are translucent

3. Add the rice, mix it in well and then add the white wine.

4. Once the white wine is absorbed, keep ladling the beet liquid (scooping up grated beets and adding to the mixture), a ladle at a time until the rice is cooked to your taste

5. Season with salt and pepper (but not too salty because the cheese adds some salt)

6. Mix in the cheese and a tablespoon of butter. Taste and season again if you think it needs it.

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