Garlic Parmesean Risotto, Herb Roasted Carrots & Kebobs!

Sounds expensive right? Nope. Hard? Nope. Risotto is one of my most favorite dishes and it's very easy. Many people seem to think it's hard - because you to have to stir it a lot - or some excuse like that. Typically, I am in the kitchen doing something else - whether cooking doing the dishes or cleaning, so I am there and it's not that hard to stir every once in a while. The risotto recipe is heavily modified from the recipe on the back of the bag.

Herb Roasted Carrots :

About 6-7 carrots, sliced
Olive Oil
Dried Thyme
Kosher Salt

Preheat the oven to about 400 degrees. Slice up the carrots. Drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with dried thyme. Sprinkle salt over carrots too. Roast for about 35-45 mins. Done! Cost ~$1. I already had the olive oil and thyme, but if I broke down the cost for it -- maybe 25 cents.


Garlic Parmesan Risotto

chopped onion
4 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 cup Arborio rice (rice for risotto)
5 cups of vegetable stock
4-5 cloves of garlic
grated parm

Melt the butter over low heat, add the olive oil and onion. Brown until the onions are golden brown. Add the risotto. Stir for a min or 2. Add just enough vegetable stock until it covers the rice. As the rice absorbs the stock, continue stirring and adding stock little by little, just covering the rice. This will take about 20 mins or so. Add the garlic as you add the vegetable stock - little by little. Add the cheese towards the end of cooking and stir in. Once all the liquid has been absorbed, the risotto should be done and ready to serve!

This cost a little more. I had the risotto already. The bag originally cost about $3 and each bag is good for 3 batches - so about $1. The stock did cost about $3.50. All of the other little thing would probably be about 50 cents - so $5 for the risotto. It does make a TON. Plenty for dinner and enough for left overs. My son loves this.

Now, a note about the ingredients. Most recipes include chicken stock. Since my son is a vegetarian, I have been making it with vegetable stock. I will admit it's much richer with chicken stock, but he really likes risotto!

The last thing we had were kebobs from a store here in Madison called My Menu. I went there around the holidays to pick up some appetizers for the visiting family ($5.99 chicken wings, if you must know!) and I was given a total of 8 kebobs - for free! So, even though they were free with a purchase, I do consider them free because it was like 40 chicken wings, so $6 was a great deal even without the free kebobs. My son had a veggie burger (~$1) as his "protein" instead of kebobs.

So.... the meal was about $7.25 total for all 4 of us. Provided lots of leftovers and was DELICIOUS!