Easy Baked Risotto

Total Time: 1 hr Preparation Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 40 mins

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups arborio rice
• 4 1/2 cups chicken stock
• 500 g diced chicken breasts
• 200 -300 g sliced mushrooms
• 1/2 cup frozen peas (or fresh)
• 1 -2 zucchini, thinly sliced
• 1 cup pumpkin, finely diced
• 1 cup fresh baby spinach
• 1 brown onion, sliced
• 2 -3 garlic cloves
• olive oil
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
• salt & pepper
• 1 -2 tablespoon butter

Recipe

• 1 preheat oven to 200°c.
• 2 heat fry pan over medium heat. add small amount olive oil (enough to seal chicken breast and lightly cook veggies - not too much). you can add a small amount of butter to fry pan at this time but as you need to add it later, i prefer not to.
• 3 saute onions until translucent then add garlic. add sliced chicken and brown lightly ( you can season the chicken here with whatever you would normally use to season - i actually use steak spice, which has a nice flavour). then add your veggies (but no peas or english spinach at this stage). remember you are not actually cooking the veggies at this point, you are just allowing them to soak up the flavour of the other ingredients.
• 4 in a baking dish with lid (pre-greased), add 41/2 cups chicken stock, 11/2 cups arborio rice, and the content of your pan.
• 5 put it in the oven for 40 minutes and do something else for a while. do not stir.
• 6 after the 40 minutes are up, stir risotto and add parmesan cheese, butter (or olive oil - it still tastes just as nice), any peas or spinach, season & stir.
• 7 enjoy.
• 8 this is also a really nice side dish if you omit the chicken, then you'll get 6-8 serves out of it.