Seasoned Chicken and Risotto

So, tonight we decided to make seasoned chicken and risotto. I have only ever attempted risotto once before, and I ruined it. It's supposed to be simple to make!

Chicken:
4 pieces of boneless chicken breast
3 cups of water

Put the chicken in a pan with the water, cover and let simmer for 20-30 minutes until it is no
longer pink in the middle (it may take longer if you have thicker pieces of chicken).

Add the following spices/seasonings to the chicken:

Garlic Powder- 2 Tablespoons
Ginger- 1 teaspoon
Paprika - 2 teaspoons
Sage - 1/2 teaspoon
Oregano - 1 teaspoon
Thyme - 1/4 teaspoon
Black Pepper - to taste
Salt - to taste
Onion Powder - 1 teaspoon
Ground Mustard - 1 teaspoon
Rosemary - 1/4 teaspoon
Parsley - 1/4 teaspoon
Cayenne - 1/4 teaspoon

Yes, we like LOTS of flavor! All of those measurements are just estimates, as we just eyeball it and toss it in.

Cover and let simmer for another 5 - 10 minutes. We ended up dicing it up because it feeds more people when it's diced - people tend to eat less instead of eating a whole chicken breast by themselves :) Plus, it's more fun to toss on top of the risotto.

For the risotto;

Okay, so here's what happened - I followed this recipe from Bella Online - I did it word for word, direction for direction... and it took me over 3 hours to cook, I stopped listening to the directions when it said "do not boil" because the rice was just not cooking through, it finally did, but my goodness, I was not expecting it to take THAT long. My suggestion is, boil rice as you normally would except boil it in chicken broth, then follow the following directions;
What you'll need:

2 cups of rice

1.5 cups white wine (if you don't have wine you can substitute chicken broth)

1 Tablespoon of Garlic Powder

2 Tablespoons onion powder (or you can saute one medium onion)

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

In a frying pan add a small amount of wine - just enough to get the bottom of the pan wet, but not soak the rice. As it boils out, add more, once you get the consistency that you like add the cheese, warm and serve.

Ours turned out yummy by (mostly) following the recipe from Bella Online, however, like I said, it took for-ev-er.

Hopefully you'll have better luck than we did with it. My husband thought it was good and filled up on it!

We also had left over sweet potatoes from the other night, and some sweet peas :)

Total Cost for this meal (Served 5): $6.98

Leave your comments!

~Cherise