March Daring Cooks Challenge - Risotto!

Wow, it's been a long time - I have to apologize for my long silence.  We were hit pretty hard by a series of winter sicknesses, killer DC snowstorms, and a long vacation (okay, the last one wasn't very painful).  Even though I haven't been writing much, I've certainly been cooking, and I have a long backlog of recipes to share with you.  What better way to kick that off than with my first Daring Cooks challenge?

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.

 
 
I was very excited to see risotto for my first challenge; this is one of my favorite dishes, but I've not done taken the time to experiment with flavors as much as I'd like.  The challenge required making your own chicken stock (great news - I now have a freezer full of leftover stock) and specified the risotto base, but we were free to choose our own flavors. 

I opened this choice up to John, and he asked for mushrooms.  I used the shredded chicken from making the stock and a mix of risotto and cremini mushrooms, and let me tell you, it was awesome.  I sauteed the mushrooms in butter, then used the same pot to make the risotto.  This created a nice, deep mushroom flavor without overcooking the mushrooms.  The only thing I would change next time is that I felt the dish could use an herb flavor, but I couldn't figure out what herb I would like to add - maybe some thyme?  Let me know if you have ideas on what would work well with these flavors!