Sweet corn risotto: $1.36/serving

Is anyone else having as much trouble as I am procuring decent corn this summer? It happened (albeit slightly early) with the corn & prosciutto crisp last month, and it happened again this week: I go to the store expecting bins overflowing with cheap, fresh, delicious corn and find a sad little pile of overpriced, desiccated cobs that look destined for someone’s bird feeder. I specifically don’t grow corn in the yard because it’s always so cheap, abundant and delicious elsewhere, and this is the first year it looks like that decision is going to come back and bite me in the butt. I might have to do without, or at least play pretend with a few bags of frozen corn. So, dear readers, if you have access to plump, fresh, juicy ears of corn, this recipe is for you. It’s intentionally simple to bring out the sweetness of the corn against the savoriness of the Parmesan.

Roasted carrot & thyme risotto: $1.19/serving

We buy 10-pound bags of carrots at Costco (only 50 cents a pound!) for juicing, so since they’re always around, I find myself on a neverending quest for creative and delicious ways to use them in meals (see: carrot ragout, carrot ravioli, carrot soup, carrot pickles, carrot muffins, carrot sauce for pasta….). This time up, I decided to use one of my favorite blank templates for flavors: risotto. I simply roasted the carrots with some olive oil, salt, pepper, and thyme from the garden, processed them with a little cream until creamy but still slightly chunky, and stirred them into risotto with some Parmesan to highlight their sweetness. I have to say, it was pretty darn good, especially for only costing less than $2.40 for the entire pot.

Citrus risotto: $1.03/serving

Risotto is a lot more versatile than people realize. Like soup or soufflé, it’s an inexpensive blank canvas for whatever you happen to have on hand—including, as I proved last year with strawberry-basil risotto, even fruit. The idea of incorporating citrus came from Judy Rodgers’ Zuni Cafe Cookbook. Between the quality of fruit I used, my inauthentic risotto method, and my jury-rigged mascarpone, Judy would be perfectly justified in coming up here to slap the book right out of my hands and hit me upside the head with it, but for a slightly modified budget meal, this was just as delicious, different, and refreshing as I had hoped. It’s probably best made during the winter, when citrus is at its peak (at least, it is around here), but if you’re going to make it now, ensure you at least find fruit that’s thin-skinned (less pith) and quite heavy for its size (more juice).

Caramelized pear & gorgonzola risotto: $2.47/serving

I never get tired of risotto. It’s the ultimate starchy comfort food, it’s cheap (provided you buy your arborio rice in bulk), and it can be made in infinite varieties. This particular recipe, adapted from Closet Cooking, is an old favorite. Something about the sweet pear, sharp cheese, and creamy rice really pushes some sort of primitive pleasure-reward button in my brain, and I’m ashamed to admit I once ate an entire pot of this all by myself. I was physically unable to stop myself, so I recommend having at least one or two other people around to assist.  (B. is not quite as fond of risotto as I am, but I caught him actually scraping individual grains of rice out of the bottom of the pot after we were done eating, so be forewarned I’m not kidding about how addictive it is.)

Lemon risotto with chicken, olives and fennel: $1.66/serving

There’s nothing like a good, creamy risotto, and this just happens to be a great one, full of interesting flavors and textures. If you’ve never made risotto before, the method I prefer only requires stirring at the end, so you won’t be left tending to the stove for 20 straight minutes. Sure, the process may not be 100% authentic, but the results are, in my opinion, nearly indistinguishable from a product obtained by constant stirring. Be sure to buy Arborio rice from the bulk bins, preferably from a store that specializes in bulk, like Winco or a co-op; for some reason it’s prohibitively expensive on the shelf.

Butternut squash risotto with spinach & pine nuts: $2.28/serving

Not an easy week this is, with so many dinners over $2. However, some meals are worth surviving the rest of the day on bread and coffee for, and this is one of them. Butternut squash used to be a hard sell for me (texturally, it still kind of is) until I had it in a risotto at a restaurant not long ago, in which the sweet chunks of squash against a savory background made me a believer. That particular risotto, though, was so heavily loaded with butter and cheese that it took me nearly two days to find the strength to even walk the dog. To say I felt disgusting is to describe the Republican-candidate debates as mildly alarming. Good food needn’t always be an assault on your system; this version gets big flavors from stock, vegetables, and cooking technique, not fat.

Strawberry-basil risotto: $1.22/person.

Yes, I realize it’s not strawberry season, but this spring our strawberry patch yielded THREE POUNDS of strawberries. And they weren’t particularly good strawberries, either. They were a bit on the small size, and tart. I made a few halfhearted batches of strawberry frozen yogurt and ended up freezing the rest.

Come September, all that was left was a sad little baggie of about 2 cups’ worth, threatening to die a sad and lonely death of freezer burn. Because of the tartness I figured they would lend themselves better to a savory application, and I was right. Granted, I love risotto so much you could make it with roofing shingles and cat turds and I probably wouldn’t notice, but I have to say this wasn’t bad.