Saturday

Mock risotto (recipe in the comments)
Arugula salad with grapefruit

Hot tea
Valentine chocolates (J)
Karmel sutra ice cream (M)
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M and I love risotto, but don't love the attention-intensive time it takes to prepare or the typical load of fat in most recipes. We're always on the lookout for ways to make risotto-like recipes without this major detractors. This is our latest shot, from Eating Well, and it was AMAZING. Such creamy goodness! Such rich flavoring! Such a LONG recipe to make. Sad, but not Eating Well's fault. The original recipe called for Instant brown rice and would have taken about 25 minutes to make total. We couldn't find it at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's and went with normal brown basmati rice, using less rice and more liquid. Thus, the long cooking time. We plan to make this again SOON and go to a normal grocery store and get the faster cooking rice. We hope to replicate our fantastic results and will keep you posted, and will include the faster recipe if it works out. I am also excited because you could very easily use any vegetables you had to change the tenor of the dish, adding them a bit earlier for denser veggies (beets) or later for more tender items (peas, leafy greens). M liked this with just a taste of balsamic drizzled on top (a technique we first enjoyed on our honeymoon, subtitled "M and J eat Italy", over a lovely pumpkin risotto), but J liked it best plain.

Prep Notes
Difficulty: Moderate
Chopping: Onion, garlic, pepper, asparagus
Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes or so unattended
Make ahead:

Reaction
J: "Can I die and go straight to risotto heaven????"
M: "Mmmmmmmmmmmm..."