Seriously? Seriously?!!!

Ok, well let me set the record straight. I always have frozen peas in the freezer, ALWAYS. So explain to me on the one night when I need them the most, they miraculously disappear from my freezer! I was set to make yet another lovely recipe from the Risotto chapter, and then I was faced with my sans-pea deep freeze.

61. Pea and Prawn Risotto - *Risotto*

From the title of the recipe above you could see my dilemma. How on earth am I going to make a pea and prawn risotto without the peas?! Well I'm lucky that Tom points out that this risotto recipe is his cupboard standby, and he says that other things could be used instead of his cupboard standby, peas - namely, broad beans (fava beans). I didn't have frozen fava beans either, but they sure look a lot like lima beans, and that I had... so pea and lima bean risotto it was.

Making the risotto is pretty basic so I didn't take step by step pics as I usually do.

I sweated some leeks and garlic in some olive oil for a few minutes. To this I added thawed cooked shrimp (prawns) and frozen lima beans. I then added arborio rice and tomato pureé. I mixed the rice into the other recipes so it would be nice and coated and then I raised the heat and added some white wine to bubble away and evaporate. Once that happened, I lowered the heat and added a third of the stock (vegetable) at a time until the rice was perfectly cooked.

To the cooked rice I added some butter (but not too much!) and let it sit covered for about three minutes. And then the risotto was ready to serve!

And it was scrummy!!! But what else do you expect from me, the ultimate risotto whore! It doesn't take many grains to stir my soul!! Which reminds me of a hilarious cartoon I saw around on the Net on Valentine's Day...