Spring Green Risotto.

One day I was looking at recipes and came across this one for Spring Green Risotto from the Barefoot Contessa on the blog Fly With Me. I don't watch cooking shows, not because I have anything against them but because I know I'd want to attempt to make every single recipe which would just be ridiculous. For the full version of the recipe click on the link, I only used what I already had lying around and am going to copy the version I made below. I was really excited to make this because one of the ingredients is leeks and I had never tried them before. What type of slacker vegetarian has never tried leeks? They have a scary name, leek = leak = scary.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 1/2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 - 2 cloves minced garlic
2 leeks, chopped
1 1/2 c. Arborio rice
2/3 c. dry white wine
4 to 5 cups simmering vegetable broth
1 bunch thin asparagus
10 oz. frozen peas, defrosted
1 Tbsp. lemon zest (2 lemons)
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
salt and pepper
1/3 c. mascarpone cheese
1/2 c. grated Parmesan
3 Tbsp. minced chives

Cut asparagus into 1.5 inch lengths. Blanche for 4 to 5 min. Drain and cool immediately.
Heat broth in pot to be used later.
Whisk lemon juice and mascarpone together in a bowl, set aside to be used later.

Heat olive oil and butter on med. in a medium saucepan. 
Add garlic and leeks, saute for 5 - 7 min, until tender. 
Add rice, stir to make sure everything is coated with oil and butter. 
Add white wine and simmer over low heat. Stir constantly until almost all of wine has been absorbed. 
Add broth 2 ladles at a time, stir constantly until broth is absorbed before adding more. This takes about 30 min. 
Once the risotto has been cooking for 15 min, add asparagus, peas, lemon zest, salt & pepper. 
Continue cooking and adding stock, stirring constantly. You want to continue to do this until your rice is firm and edible but don't let it get gummy. 
When done, turn off heat. 
Stir in lemon/mascarpone and the Parmesan and chives. 
Serve and enjoy!

All risottos take what seems like forever to make. The reason it feels like that is because you're constantly doing something, usually stirring, so it's a little more labor intensive than other dishes but so worth it. I love me some risotto.

I'm linking up at For the Love of Blogs for Tasty Tuesday.