the hungry pear

I'm a sucker for pretty face. Who isn't? When I saw this pack of local long island purple (and green) cauliflower, I splurged the $5 and rushed it home. I mulled it over a couple days and decided risotto would be a nice, quick dinner to make out of it.
I cleaned the pretty little babies and dumped them into my tabletop steamer, set them for 15 minutes and assembled the rest of my ingredients; one cup of arborio rice, a quart of vegetable stock, earth balance, two medium shallots and about a 1/2 cup of white wine. I set the stock on medium low with a lid to come to temperature and chopped my shallots.
The cauliflower dinged and I transfered the vegetables to my food processor along with two heaping tablespoons of earth balance, a generous amount of salt, cracked pepper and a splash of soy creamer. Pulse, pulse, pulse, voila: blueish purple (highly flavorful) mush.

Back to the stove. I melted another tablespoon butter over medium-high heat, threw in my shallots and let them saute for about three to four minutes. I added my rice and stirred it into the butter to get it fully coated and let that saute for a couple minutes more, until it smelled nutty and had a pearly shine to it. I added in the wine and let it fully absorb into the rice. Once that was absorbed, two ladle-fulls of stock were added, my heat was adjusted to medium and I stirred here and there until that absorbed. At this point, my pan of rice was expanded but still a bit crunchy. I should also note, I'd really like a TV in my kitchen (pffft) because stirring for a half hour is a lonely task.

I continued adding stock, about two ladle-fulls at a time, stirring, letting it absorb and repeating for about 25 minutes until my rice was gooey and tender. Heat of your pan is important in this; too high and the stock will evaporate without cooking the rice, too low and you'll be sitting at the stove 2 hours later wishing you'd ordered thai. Medium to medium-low is ideal.

At the finish, I added in my pretty mush, checked for seasoning and added some of the extra little nibbles I had simmering in my stock. Total cooking time was about 30-35 minutes. Not bad. Husband loved the risotto...
Ruby loved the blue mush.





Spoonlicker.