White chocolate risotto and roasted fennel

Several factors came into making tonight's dinner. Number one, I've wanted to make white chocolate risotto ever since I bought my Hershey, Pennsylvania Cookbook. I've made some sweet dishes from the book, but never savory. Then, also, I've been trying to eat more vegetables, and I happened to pick up a pair of fennel bulbs at the market the other day, so I decided that the delicate flavor of the risotto would blend well with roasted fennel, which I saw Ina Garten make on TV the other day.

The fennel had to be started first; basically you just cut a fennel bulb into wedges and roast with olive oil, salt, and pepper. (The bunny ate the fronds and tops of the fennel - such a nice veggie disposal unit!)

Then, you shave some fresh parmesan cheese, and as I happen to have a block of Parmigiano Reggiano in the fridge, this was easy.


The risotto was easy, just sautee some onion in butter, then add the rice...


Then slowly mix in small amounts of heated chicken stock until the mixture is nice and fluffy. That's when you add salt, pepper, and...white chocolate. Mmmmmm.


I used Ghirardelli white chocolate squares, although the recipe naturally called for Hershey's white chips. The white chocolate made the risotto a tad too sweet for me; I like my risotto nice and savory. So I guess the rest of the package will just have to be eaten by me separately...

As for the fennel, I was truly pleasantly surprised. Fennel is never one of my favorite foods, but the roasted version was so sweet, crispy, and delicious. That's definitely the way to do fennel, for me, from now on.