Basil Pesto and Chicken Risotto

For the last week I have been completely unmotivated to cook. I have survived on honey on toast, Vegemite on toast, and cheese and biscuits. The most effort I put in was to make nachos - with mix out of a jar - and I was not very happy about doing that. It was just one of those weeks. Then today at lunch one of the girls I was sitting with had a lovely basil pesto and chicken risotto and looking at my ham and cheese toasty and then at her meal I was very jealous (because of course no cooked dinners means no leftovers which means boring lunches). At work all afternoon I was dreaming about this risotto and how i wish I had bought my lunch from the cafe today and had the same thing. Finally I was inspired to make it myself for dinner. Having never actually eaten the dish I just made something up that sounded good. It tasted good too! Here is my recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 smallish chicken breasts, pounded on both sides with a meat mallet
• olive oil
• 1 spanish onion, finely diced
• 6 button mushrooms, sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 cup aborio rice
• 1 L chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon basil pesto
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan
• 1/4 cup grated tasty cheese
• ~10 semi dried tomatoes, roughly chopped
• handful of fresh basil leaves to serve
• cracked pepper to serve

To Cook

• Heat some olive il up in a griddle pan. Grill the chicken on both sides until almost cooked through.
• Whilst the chicken is cooking heat some more olive oil in a large saucepan (or casserole dish) and saute the onion, garlic and mushrooms. Add the rice and stir to make sure the rice is coated in all the yummy flavours.
• Put the stock in another saucepan over heat and leave it there (it needs to be hot when you add it to the rice).
• When the chicken is cooked, remove from the pan and slice up into bite size chunks. Add the chicken to the rice mix. Add a ladle of stock to the rice mix and gently stir. Once the liquid is almost absorbed add another ladle full of stock. Keep doing this for 20mins or until all the stock is used up and the rice has absorbed all of the liquid. Make sure you keep stirring gently throughout otherwise the risotto will stick to the base of the pan.
• Now add the basil pesto and mix through the risotto. Taste and add more pesto if need be. 
• Add the parmesan and tasty cheese. Stir gently to combine.
• Add the semi dried tomatoes and stir gently to combine.
• Serve the risotto with pepper and basil leaves on top. Enjoy :)