We all have Sad Food, right? You know: the thing you make after a long day, or when you are feeling a little emotional? My go-to meal used to be pasta with butter and cheese. The healthier I get, the less I go for Sad Food, but I do really miss comfort foods like the glorious combination of cheese and carbs. I’m limiting my dairy to almost nothing these days, so that pile of pasta with cheese just isn’t happening.
I received a copy of Pure Vegan, one of the few vegan cookbook I’ve seen that isn’t focused on the politics of the vegan diet, but instead delivers amazing recipes that are simple and flavorful. I was immediately drawn to the Nutty Mushroom Risotto because it seemed like an amazing, dairy-free replacement for my former comfort food.
I assembled my ingredients and got to work!
Ingredients
6 cups vegetable stock
4 T olive oil
10 oz. mushrooms
2 tsp fresh thyme
3/4 cups finely chopped shallots
1 cup Arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup hazelnuts toasted and skin
Salt and pepper to taste
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Start by toasting your hazelnuts. Put a single layer on a baking sheet and bake at 350 for ten minutes. When nuts are done, transfer them to a clean kitchen towel. Fold the towel over, and rub vigorously to remove skins. Chop finely, and set aside.
Bring your vegetable stock to a simmer over medium heat. You will let this simmer the whole time you’re cooking the rice and mushrooms. In a large saucepan, heat one tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. Add the mushrooms and saute until they’re soft — about two or three minutes. (Side note: I also added garlic to the mushrooms because I don’t eat anything without garlic). Add the thyme and saute for an additional minute. Transfer to a bowl.
Add the remaining olive oil to the pan. Add shallots and saute until they’re transparent. (Second side note: my Whole Foods only had RED “Spring Shallots” so my risotto is BRIGHT RED. Still delicious!). Add the rice, and cook, stirring consistently. Add the wine, and let it cook, continuing to stir until nearly all the wine has been absorbed.
Next, add a ladleful of the simmering stock to the rice and continue to cook, stirring constantly, until all the stock has been absorbed. Repeat the process until all the stock has been used. Do NOT stop stirring. In the end, the rice should be creamy, but firm — an “al dente” texture.
Add the mushrooms and hazelnuts and stir to combine. I would advise tasting at this point and adding spices as you see fit, including salt and pepper to taste. Serve garnished with thyme sprigs.
The final product — your risotto shouldn’t be red unless you use red shallots, too! They were delicious!
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Do you want to win your own copy of Pure Vegan? Leave me a comment describing your comfort food of choice. I will pick a winner on Friday, June 29. Good luck!
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*I received a copy of Pure Vegan (and an additional cookbook) to review, but my opinions are my own. This risotto is delicious, I promise.
My favorite comfort food would have to be my moms meatloaf, homemade mashed potatoes and Velveeta Shells and Cheese (it just taste better with the Velveeta lol). I would LOVE to win this cookbook!! That risotto looks so yummy. I’ve always been afraid to make a risotto for fear of burning it. Guess I’ll have to give it a go!!
YUM! That sounds awesome. If you have leftovers, you can make risotto cakes, too. Nomtasticals.
My comfort food depends on the seasons, which might sound odd. In summer it’s froyo. Lots of froyo. I have horrible S.A.D. though. In winter it’s spaghetti or thai soups or pizza or chocolate cakes (like the recipe you sent me!!) and other baked goods. This is why I’ll never be hard on myself for gaining up to 10 lbs in the winter in the future. My trainers even say that it’s totally acceptable because our bodies want to hibernate and cope with the sads. :)
I love your blog and visit it often but have never left a comment…that is, until now! My favorite comfort food is a sheperd’s pie made with mashed potatoes, carrots, peas and turkey and lots of cheese. Needless to say I only eat it about once a year, around Thanksgiving when there are lots of left overs. It’s just soooo good!
My comfort food of choice is warm carbs, whether that’s pizza, some yummy bread and butter, crunchy chips, etc. I love me some carbs.
My comfort food would definitely be Bruchetta! I reeeeeally love tomatoes,basil and fresh mozzarella. Sometimes, when I make it for myself I just eat it all raw with out baking it. Y-U-M
Xo Kayla
Comfort food of choice: spaghetti with meat sauce or mac and cheese. Hi, pasta much? If I could find a good vegan mac and cheese, I’d be sooooo happy. Came close once with spaghetti squash, silken tofu, and nutritional yeast… but…. not quite as indulgent.
I think mashed potatoes will always be my main comfort food. For a short while, Lima beans with garlic and parm took over as a secondary fav… But they’ve been replaced by elote. I’m glad I got over my “eat your emotions/stress in pizza” phase. There’s just something about carbs. Like a hug from the inside…
Comfort food – tater tots! Mmmmm… good… Though I don’t eat them much anymore. In fact, I’d say it’s switched to sweet potato oven fries now. Much healthier and I love them just as much!
That cookbook sounds awesome. I am a pescatarian (no meat, except fish, but I do eat eggs, milk and butter). It would be nice to have a vegan cookbook. I am getting tired of my same three or four recipes every week!
#1 comfort food forever and ever: Mac and cheese. I normally incorporate a lot of vegan meals into my diet, but there’s really no good vegan sub for mac and cheese, in my opinion. I like one recipe from VegNews online, but it’s still not the same. I’d love to try out this cookbook!
I was just flipping through this book yesterday at a bookstore. It is beautiful, and the recipes look amazing!!!
My fav comfort food is lasagna. There is just something so warm and filling about it! I love to make it with tofu “ricotta” and loads of roasted vegetables.
Comfort food USED to be either cheese pizza rolls or a huge bowl of pasta with a mix of red and alfredo sauce and lots of cheese. Since I changed my diet, my comfort food is Boca chicken patties… in a salad, on a bun, with pasta, doesn’t matter.
I’ve also been trying to cut out diary in my diet because it makes me feel better. It would be awesome to have some new recipes to try!
Oh that looks delicious! I am gravitating towards a vegan diet too (vegetarian for many years) because I can really feel that too much dairy is not good for me.
My comfort food is definitely the vegetable soup my grandma used to make for me: kohlrabi, potatos, zucchini, string beans, peas and carrots cooked in vegetable stock… the trick: adding a bit of sour cream in the end!
(by the way: YES! I want to win!)
My comfort food is very much mac and cheese. If I’m ever totally sad or just feeling blah, mac and cheese is guaranteed to make me feel a whole lot better.
Potatoes…boiled, baked, mashed, roasted, curly fried – cooked any old way, I don’t care. Lots of potassium for all those miles I run!
I have never tackled risotto always thinking it was so complicated but the recipe sounds delicious and doable. Thanks! My comfort food is the little plastic trays of 7 layer dip in the department store with multi-grain tostitoes. They make me feel so righteous ;).
mac and cheese
I haven’t tried cooking risotto after the absolute disaster a couple of years ago but after looking at that recipe I’m beginning to think that I should give it another go! Risotto is always so good when it’s cooked right AKA not the way I did it all those years ago. My comfort food is definitely toasted sandwiches! My favorite one is when you have a layer of cheese, pepper and salt then a layer of corned beef then another layer of cheese, pepper and salt then you add honey mustard in the sandwich then put that bad boy in the sandwich press! It makes the best sandwich, every single time you do it. It’s addictive though :]
A prize like that will get me out of my silent creeping!
My fav comfort food is my mom’s tuna noodle casserole. I will still pull out the recipe that I copied down when I was 12 and make it at the end of a rough day :)
Definitely lasagna with pepperoni! Or tacos, but only if my Mom makes them, of course :)
That looks SO good! I’ve been thinking about trying some vegan recipes. Right now, though, my favorite comfort food is chicken Alfredo!
I have to say, it’s gotta be cheesecake…yep…creamy, rich, wonderful cheesecake! :-)
Always pizza. The ingredients are never the same, but always pizza. With red wine. And has the day been extra bad? Then some ice cream for dessert.
Yum! That looks delicious! I love mushroom Risotto. I made it using a recipe from a vegan blogger, oh she glows, and it was amazing. one of my favorites.
For comfort food, I’d have to say mashed potatoes. Just plain, no gravy or anything.
Oh this made me laaaaaaugh! I literally read the forst line of the post, started fantasizing about my quick comfort food (which is macaroni with bitter and parmesan cheese!) then read the second line and saw that was yours too!!
Mama needs some new recipes. Obviously!
My comfort food is anything with peanut butter! The flavor just reminds me of childhood. That and froyo. Froyo cheers me up on the worst days.
warm carbs of the savory variety. i used to be a mac and cheese girl, but since the dairy allergy, i’ve had to rethink and now i make a garlicy creamy sauce with nutritional yeast and it’s almost as good as i remember the original to be.
want this book!
Grilled cheese with tomato is my comfort food. My dad would always make it for me when I stayed home sick – I always burned them because I didn’t have the patience to put the stove on low heat!
Mmmm, my comfort food is toasted bread with REALLY good butter. Like Kerrygold’s butter or something like that. All melty. Love.
My comfort food is pasta and potatoes, hot, soft and tasty!
Thanks, great giveaway!
My comfort food is potatoes. There are so many yummy ways to fix them.
My comfort food of choice is chips and salsa with tons of nutritional yeast on top, or kale chips with Braggs and nutritional yeast!
Hmm … mac & cheese. Or mashed potatoes, which reminds me of being a kid. Or pizza, which is actually what might happen for dinner on a really awful, long day.
My comfort food is baked ziti – cheesy and delicious!
meatloaf, mashed potatoes and corn. mmmm. so comforting, so not healthy!
Forever & always, it will be spaghetti. I recently went vegan myself, & am still adjusting to not putting cheese into my meals. I am happy that with a good quality sauce, I don’t even miss the cheese.
My comfort food of choice tends to be sweets, such as homemade cookies or cake!
vegan mac and “cheese” made with pumpkin nutritional yeast pumpkin “cheese” sauce….YUMM
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