Barley Risotto with Peas and Asparagus

We all loved the Spring Green Risotto I had made awhile ago.  What I didn't like was that there was not a lot of fibre in the dish.  I had read about making risotto using barley.  It sounded interesting and I always have barley around for making Haleem.  So I gave it a try and it turned out great!  I changed the method for this using a bouillon cube instead of stock.  I found this method at Aurora Importing.  Also, I didn't have all the ingredients so made some substitutions.  Either way it will turn out well.

Mushroom Risotto

We really enjoyed the Spring Green Risotto I made a little while ago.  I had some arborio rice left and thought I would try to make a mushroom risotto.  I used the Porcini and Cremini Mushroom Orzo "Risotto" as a guideline.  It turned out really well and my 1 year old son loved it!  The next day it held up much better than the Spring Green Risotto.  I didn't put any cream cheese in it which helped it to not turn into a big pile of mush the next day.  I'm looking forward to trying more risotto recipes but it is something I wouldn't make regularly since it has a lot of starch.

Spring Green Risotto

I have eaten Risotto twice.  Once it was so delicious.  The other time it was extremely bland.  I have always been daunted with the idea of making Risotto.  I've  heard it is very time consuming.  Lately I've been looking at a few Risotto recipes and decided I would like to give it a try.  After reading a few recipes I realized compared to Indian cooking it really wasn't that time consuming.  The other thing I discovered was dry white wine is always added to Risotto.  So if you ever eat Risotto outside check if there is any alcohol in it.  Instead of wine I just used water.  I settled on this Risotto recipe because I had some asparagus in the fridge and needed to cook it before it went bad.  My changes to this recipe was mainly to reduce the fat but replacing the butter with olive oil.  I also used light cream cheese instead of mascarpone and significantly reduced the Parmesan cheese.  Even before adding all the cheese this was very tasty.  I also added garlic.  I don't think I cook anything without garlic.  I also used vegetable broth instead of chicken broth.  I reduced the lemon zest and lemon juice as well.