Lemon Risotto Riff

What do you make with a half cup of salad shrimp left over from having a friend over for lunch? NamasteNancy had graced me with a lunchtime visit for which I made a simple shrimp salad, but I had just a handful of the little darlings left over and no real idea what to do with them besides pop 'em as a snack like pink Cheetos which, while it would have been delicious, seemed somehow like a waste of a luxury ingredient.

Then, as I was watching an episode of "Follow That Food," the wacky Aussie host was talking about carnaroli rice and I remembered that I had some in the cupboard - risotto!

I had only made risotto once before and I had no seafood broth on hand but decided to wing it with chicken broth. I also had no open bottles of white wine, so I subbed in (believe it or not) a little lemonade tartened up with a generous squeezing of fresh lemon juice 'til it was about as acidic as white wine would be. As odd as that sounds, it really added a lemony zest to the rice. I sizzled some onion and garlic in a knob of butter, added the rice and stirred, then the lemonade and began ladling in the chicken broth once the lemonade was absorbed.

Stir, ladle, stir, ladle, yadda until all the chicken broth was gone, then added a nice handful of freshly grated ParmReg, another little knob of butter, some strips of dark green Swiss chard leaves from my garden (still booking from last year!) and, when they were just wilted, stirred in the salad shrimps only long enough to heat through and sprinkled the top with chopped green onion tops.

Creamy, subtly lemony and rich with shrimp, it was a killer risotto and I was kicking myself for not making this for my luncheon guest.