Weekend Cooking; Tomato Risotto

Good morning weekend foodies!

I spent Friday and Saturday morning at my mother's farm making salsa from all her farm-fresh, huge tomatoes.  This was our second annual event and we had just as much fun although Groovy Girl was not as much help or even all that cheerful as she had an allergy attack.

She loves the chickens though and actually gathered an egg moments after laying.  It was warm and her smile was big.  My hands were full of tomatoes though so I did not get to snap a photo.  If you want to see last year's post with recipe included click the word SALSA.  It is interesting to look back at old posts-I noticed Groovy Girls hair is shoulder-length, it's grown a lot in one year.

This year I brought home three batches of salsa. The last batch I made (mostly) on my own and did a bit of experimenting.  Instead of two cups of sugar I replaced one of those cups with my stepfather's honey.  If it proves tasty next year I'm going to go out on a limb and do two cups of honey.  It should still add the hint of sweetness and I won't be dumping in two cups of white sugar.  It's a salsa revolution!

{NY Times}

In other cooking news this week I made tomato risotto after an email from my sister-in-law said that her and my brother loved this recipe from the NY Times.   It just happened to be the day that the Times was hacked AND I couldn't reach my twitter page.  Because I had my heart set on risotto I found this alternative recipe on Emerill's food network page.  It was delicious and Groovy Girl ate three helpings. Emeril's has cream in it and no basil so she didn't have to worry about picking out "green things".  I'm not including a photo from Emeril's page as the picture is less than thrilling.  Imagine the above photo with out any green.  I added a heavy dose of pepper and freshly shaved parmigiano-reggiano  to the top of the adult plates.

Now I've made risotto before but for some reason this time I really want to know if any other rice can be substituted for arborio rice?  I get that it comes from a special place in Italy but in a pinch can I use another type of rice that I have in my dry storage.  Has anyone ever substituted another kind of rice for risotto?  I'm curious just to know.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Read's Weekend Cooking.  Click her link to find many other food-related posts.  She has an apple cake posted today that sounds wonderful. Have a wonderful Labor Day.