What She Cooked: Red Berry Risotto

    For my birthday, Arnauld got us tickets to see Wicked on Broadway. So this weekend we were NYC bound! We used some reward points to land a super sweet hotel room right in Times Square. We spent the afternoon just walking around and enjoying the city. It was pretty cold, not at all spring like!
    Wicked was great. Arnauld and I both really enjoyed the show. I had heard only great things so I was excited to see if for myself. It lived up to everything I had heard and made us both excited to see another show some time soon.
     After the show we headed out for a late night dinner at Bocca di Bacco. Whenever I am at a restaurant now I always try to figure out how the dishes were made and if I can replicate them. Arnauld and I both had great dinners that I would love to try and make. Stay tuned for some experiments!
      Since we are both big fans of breakfast, we spent some time this morning searching and reading reviews for spots for breakfast. We ended up at Norma's. Now when I heard the name, I immediately pictured a homey hole in the wall. Norma's was not what I had envisioned-it was a restaurant within a hotel and had a simple modern feel. Despite my initial disappointment, the food was delicious. The menu had really different choices that all sounded great. I finally decided on Red Berry Risotto. As soon as I took my first bite I knew that this was something I would have to try and make myself. It was oatmeal like I had never tasted before-a little bit like rice pudding and completely wonderful! A quick google search resulted in a recipe from Martha Stewart...who else? After quick trip to the grocery store, once we got back in Connecticut I was ready to give it a shot.

Red Berry Risotto

Ingredients
1/2 cup McCann's Irish oatmeal
1 cup Arborio rice
1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
1 tsp vanilla sugar
1/4 cup sugar
2 cups fresh strawberries, cut

Method
1. In a small saucepan, bring 2 cups of water and oatmeal to a boil and then simmer. I got quick cooking oats so I cooked them for about 15 minutes before setting the oatmeal aside. If you get regular oats, you'll need to cook them for about 25 minutes.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine rice, milk, vanilla sugar, and sugar. Add enough water to just cover the rice. Cook over medium heat. Once most of the water is absorbed, add another cup of water. Stir continuously. Add water 2 more times after it begins to absorb into the rice. This whole process should take about 40 minutes. The rice will be al dente when you are done.
3. Remove the rice from heat and stir in the oatmeal. Add the strawberries and stir until the oatmeal begins to turn pink. Serve immediately.

The Taste Test
I took the liberty to try and make this recipe a bit healthier. Martha's recipe called for heavy cream instead of almond milk and 1/2 cup of sugar instead of 1/4 cup. She also suggested using scraped vanilla bean, which I couldn't find in the grocery store. I had some vanilla sugar which I threw in along with a splash of vanilla extract. My risotto came out a bit thicker than Norma's but not quite as creamy. That's probably because I didn't use heavy cream. All in all, I'm really happy with the results and excited to share this with anyone who wants a taste! I think this version of oatmeal holds a lot of possibilities and can be great with a variety of other ingredients.