On road trips I often ask my husband if he would like me to drive and he always quickly responds with, “No, I want to live.”  My driving skills have become somewhat of a contentious topic in our household.  The first week I owned my car I backed it up full speed into my husband’s truck, moving it 10 feet from where it was parked.  My excuse – my stiletto got caught under the pedal.  My car has been stuck in three feet of mud in the middle of a ranch in Montana, driven cross country four times, vomited in by my dogs on countless occasions and ticketed, well let’s just say a lot.  The most recent addition to the saga of my car is the bumper.  After two years of bailing into the trash cans outside of my garage in an effort to avoid hitting my husband’s car, the bumper finally gave away and fell off.  I subsequently, and accidently drove over the bumper.  The result is me as a temporary pedestrian with an adamant refusal to walk to the grocery store a mere ½ a mile away.  This dish is the outcome of that refusal and a thorough scrounge through my pantry and refrigerator.   Finally, my poor driving skills yielded something really good!

Ingredients:

- 4-6 cups store bought chicken stock, use more stock if you like a soupier risotto- I like to use 4 cups.

- 1 tablespoon olive oil

- 1 medium sized white onion, finely chopped or run through a food processor

- 1 cup Arborio rice

- 1 cup dry white wine

- 6 ounces bacon, cooked until crispy and roughly chopped

- ½ cup finely chopped parsley

- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt

- 1 cup finely grated parmesan cheese

- 1 tablespoon freshly grated lemon

- 1 tablespoon butter

- 1 egg, lightly beaten

Instructions:

Heat chicken stock in a medium size saucepan over low-medium heat.

In a large stockpot, heat the oil over medium- high heat.   Add the onion and salt and sauté until transparent and tender, about 5 minutes.  Stir in rice and cook for 2 minutes.  Add wine and cook until wine reduces by half.  Ladle ½ cup of warm stock onto the rice and stir constantly until liquid is absorbed by rice.  Continue this process of pouring ½ cup portions of stock onto the rice and stirring until the rice reaches a creamy texture and you have used the majority of the stock- this takes about 20 minutes in total.  Feel free to taste the rice every 5 minutes to determine if it is done and be careful not to overcook as risotto continues to cook for sometime after it is removed from the heat.  Remove the rice from the heat and immediately fold in the cheese, bacon, parsley, lemon juice, butter and egg.  Stir until the egg is completely incorporated into the rice.  Serve immediately.