Kielbasa Risotto

Happy Easter everyone!! Us K's have been pretty busy here over the last few weeks. The second round of our season has started and Levi has been having games twice a week instead of once. He also happened to have a pretty bad ankle sprain during one of those games so he's been out and slowly recovering.

In all that chaos, a guy's gotta eat (ok and me too). Since cooking and grocery shopping are my job, it was really important that I get everything I needed for Easter. As is typical in Europe, everything is closed during holidays. Easter was no exception and they decided that because Easter is on Sunday they needed a business day off as well. So absolutely no stores open for 2 days. This doesn't really seem like that big of a problem until you realize that I go grocery shopping everyday. Our apartment and kitchen are small. So having a whole bunch of extra food on hand just doesn't work.

That being said, I spent Saturday doing a bunch of grocery shopping. This is also not as easy for us as all the grocery stores here carry different things. So I had planned on going to 4 different ones to get all the things I needed for the holiday weekend. Little did I know that stores also decided to close at 4pm on Saturday. So I only got half of the food I had planned on getting. So I was pretty frustrated when I couldn't buy any meat for my large, carnivore husband for the whole weekend.

Thus, this recipe came out of necessity. When you only have kielbasa in your freezer, this is a great way to make something special. I was honestly surprised by how good this was. It's now my favorite kielbasa recipe. This recipe was adapted from http://singleguychef.blogspot.com/2008/01/creamy-cauliflower-risotto-with.html to fit what I had and to make it dairy free.

Kielbasa Risotto

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 tbsp Olive oil
• 1 Garlic clove, minced
• 1/2 White onion, diced
• 5 Button mushrooms, sliced
• 1 cup Arborio rice
• 1 cup Rose wine (or dry white wine)
• 2 Kielbasa sausages (each about the size of a hot dog), sliced 1/2 inch thick
• 1-1/2 cups Chicken broth
• 1 tbsp Butter (or vegetable shortening)
• 1/4 cup Heavy cream (I used rice cream)
• 1 tbsp fresh Parsley, chopped

METHOD:

1. Heat the olive oil in a sauce pan over medium-high heat. Saute the garlic and the onions until the onions are translucent, about 4 minutes.
2. Add the mushrooms and cook another 2 minutes.
3. Add the rice and cook for a minute to toast it. Turn the heat down to medium.
4. Add the wine. Cook, stirring often, until most of the wine is absorbed.
5. Add the sausage and 1/2 cup of the chicken broth. Again, stir until most of the liquid is absorbed.
6. Continue to add the chicken broth 1/2 cup at a time, stirring until it's absorbed and the rice is tender but not mushy, about 15 minutes.
7. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the butter and cream.
8. Finally, stir in the parsley.

And that's it!! One pot meals are always my favorites (and Levi's since he has to hand wash everything). I hope you try this one. It's super creamy and comforting. A good winter dish for those of us who still have cold weather....

Maura