Fall means warm and hearty meals. It's time for me to start embracing that in my cooking with hopes that the weather may start to follow suit. On Friday, I tried this One Pot Creamy Risotto with Lemon Pepper Chicken. While it was pretty tasty, it was also a little bit of a fail, as I apparently forgot to buy or assumed I already had some pretty important ingredients. I did not have lemon pepper seasoning or parmesan cheese, so I had to make due with what I had. Also, for the amount of effort this dish took, despite only using one pot, Mike felt that my old standard chicken and rice casserole was better. I started by preheating the oven to 350 and seasoning my chicken with poultry seasoning. I heated up some oil in my Le Creuset pot and cooked the chicken thighs for about 4 minutes on each side. I set the chicken aside and wiped out the pot. Next, I added butter, onion and garlic to the pot and cooked for a few minutes until the onions were translucent. I added in the arborio rice and cooked it for about 2 minutes. I didn't have white wine for cooking, so I used some water and cooked it another few minutes until it was soaked up. Then, I added in chicken broth, milk, salt and pepper, stirred and topped with the chicken thighs. I put the lid on and put the pot in the oven. I made sure to use my cast iron, as it can go from stovetop to oven, unlike many other pots. I let the dish cook for 20 minutes covered, uncovered it and let it cook another 10 minutes. I pulled it out of the oven, removed the chicken, added in milk and a little bit of leftover parmesan from another meal, added the chicken back and we were ready to serve. The flavor of the chicken and rice was pretty tasty, but maybe a little bland without the lemon pepper and very much parmesan cheese. It was nice to try another one pot dish, but I have a feeling that I will not be repeating this any time soon.

The New Austonian