This recipe takes advantage of a simple stove top smoker, details on how I smoke will be coming soon. Smoking the risotto gives the dish an extra level of flavor, an almost sweet umami punch that makes you want to keep digging into the dish over and over again. For the risotto, 15 minutes of smoking time was enough to impart the flavor and 1.5 tablespoons of wood chips was the perfect amount. Once the smoking was done, the real cooking started.

Start heating up your broth over medium heat (I add the bits of the asparagus stems that I trimmed to the broth to help give more flavor). Finely chop the onion along with thinly slicing a quarter pound of white button mushrooms and sauteed together for 5-10 minutes in a tablespoon of Earth Balance butter over medium high heat until the mushrooms start to brown. Then add the garlic, pepper, and risotto to the pan and toss around to coat the rice in the oil.

As soon as the garlic get fragrant, toss in the wine (some for the pan, some for your belly), and lower the heat to medium, and the risotto was stirred until all the liquid had either absorbed or evaporated. Ladles of simmering vegetable broth were added one at a time, with regular stirring, until most of the liquid is absorbed before adding the next broth addition.