Brown Rice Risotto

I made a brown rice risotto with mushrooms, zucchini, celery and the ten fava beans, oooh if you look really closely you can see the wee fabaceae. I love fava beans, (broad beans in the UK) and try to grow them every year, with little success, and this year was no exception, but I will persevere, I am due for a glut. Risotto is another favorite, I love to cook it, I enjoy the fact that it needs my undivided attention and find it a very calming and meditative experience, the constant stirring and pouring of broth....hubble, bubble, toil and trouble, maybe it's the witch in me that finds it so appealing. One of the best risottos I ever had was at a friend of a friend's house in Eastbourne, (I know, hard to imagine) she was Italian, which made all the difference, it was a simple dish of broad beans, pecorino and lemon, unforgettable. I make a quick risotto, or pilaf on a regular basis using brown rice, I cook the rice until it is almost done and then add it to whatever mix I have with a little broth and finish cooking. I make it with spices such as cloves, cardamom and turmeric and toasted almonds, or with tomato and saffron, more like a paella, and other times with mushrooms and peas and a sprinkling of mint, the list is endless, rice dishes are so wonderfully adaptable. The truth is I would eat the starchy, creamy arborio ALL the time, with mountains of pecorino if my cholesterol would allow, but my brown rice version offers up a lovely nutty, wholesome alternative, and there is still a bit of stirring involved. We sliced the pears and ate them with ginger ice-cream.