Delicious, healthy meals: Chicken and vegetable risotto.

My kids and I are all big risotto fans, and contrary to the hype, I believe it's one of the easiest meals to prepare. The only downside with risotto is that it's volcanic in temperature when it first comes off the stove, and you have to wait for it to cool down.

Let's get to it, you can substitute the chicken and the vegetables for pretty much anything. I'm a big fan of chorizo and beans, with a little mexican spice mix instead of oregano, but let's go with what we've got pictures of right now:

To feed a family of 4, you're going to need the following ingredients. If you want to stretch the meal a bit firther, you can add more rice or vegetables. The quantities don't actually matter.

Chicken (breast or thigh, depending on what you prefer) - I used about 2 large breast fillets, diced.
Vegetables of your choice - for ease, I used frozen spring greens mix, but you can add whatever fresh, frozen or canned veges you like. About 2 cups of chopped vegetables will suffice.
Arborio rice. This is important. The ONLY rice to use for risotto is ARBORIO. Any other kind of rice will not give you that fat, glossy, sticky consistency. A cup and a half of rice, in this mix, will feed 4 easily.
Chicken or vegetable stock (you can use beef or fish stock, depending what meats/vegetables you're using. I used vegetable stock cube(1) dissolved in a litre of boiling water)
For chicken and vegetable, you'll need a good whack of oregano. For other meats/vegetables, other herbs or spices are appropriate (For example, cumin works quite well with pumpkin, and if you're using beef, cracked black pepper is nice)
Parmesan cheese. You can use any cheese you like, but parmesan is sticky and melts into the risotto beautifully. it also has a lovely sharp taste which I am particularly fond of.

So, first things first, we're going to brown the chicken in your biggest pot with a tiny bit of oil or cooking spray and about 2 tablespoons of the oregano (if you're using different spices and herbs, just add a little bit at a time, quantities vary, dependent on the spice). You want the chicken to be pretty much cooked before you add the rest of the ingredients, because chicken in particular is one of those foods that harbours really nasty bacteria if it's not cooked properly.

Once the chicken is cooked through, we'll add the vegetables and the rice and stir it all together.
Then add all of the stock, and give it a good stir. A litre is a good starting point for stock. You'll probably need a bit of extra liquid in it towards the end, once it's absorbed all of the yummy stock into the rice.

When the stock goes in, it looks like this:

Now you want to crank the heat up on your stove as high as it will go, and let it boil the hell out of itself. You'll need to keep an eye on it, and stir it every few minutes to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pot. As the rice starts to absorb the stock, you begin to get a thicker, rice-ier looking mixture, and as the rice swells, it begins to look like a risotto, and not the soup-looking thing that you started with.

The more it looks like risotto, the more often you need to stir it. The way to check if the rice is cooked is to taste it. You need to use a CLEAN spoon EVERY time you dip into it, and make sure you allow the grains that you pick up to cool before you stick them in your mouth. It's amazingly hot, and we don't want anyone to burn themselves.

The rice should be soft, no crunch left to it at all. If you get your risotto looking like the picture below, and the rice still isn't cooked through, you need more water in there. Use boiling water, 100ml at a time, stirring until it's absorbed, then test the rice again.

Once the rice is cooked and the majority of the liquid is soaked up or evaporated, you need to add a really good handful of cheese to the risotto and stir it in, letting it melt into the risotto. At this point, you should take the pot off the heat.

Serve in bowls, with shaved parmesan on top, according to your personal taste, you might also like a little salt and pepper.

That's it, it's really that easy. Don't be scared of risotto any more! It's the easiest thing ever! The dishes, on the other hand....you may want to rinse them immediately to make sure you don't have a hard time scrubbing plates and pots.