Dirrrrty risotto

On a recommendation from Miss Mo, I prepared Giada's Dirty Risotto last night. I used bacon instead of pancetta, because our Kroger is totally jacked up both physically (they are doing construction) and stock-wise (they had bresaola, I think, the ever popular prosciuotto, but not pancetta. Wtf?) I used Italian sausage from this random sausage store R and I passed on our ill-fated trip to Waldo, Ohio looking for a new couch. Mom Wilson's Country Sausage. It was interesting, they had a lot of different types of sausage . But my heart remains with Schmidt's (you'll see why).

anyways - it was fine. Kind of meh for me. R enjoyed it. I think part of my issue is the damn crap wine I used (again, the same wine that prob ruined that horrific casserole a while back). Another big part was the v. blah Italian sausage. It had virtually no flavor. Had I known it would be SO very mild, I'd have gotten the hot sausage. Those nasty pink breakfast sausages they serve in Ireland were spicier. But I think the biggest problem was that when I want risotto, I just want rich, creamy goodness. There are some variations I will tolerate - for example, the addition of some roasted butternut squash and sage - boo ya - I'll eat that all day long. But I don't really look to risotto for "spice" and "palate interest." I want comfort - creaminess - luxury. I want to taste the mushrooms I put in. The flavorless sausage and bacon kind of masked all that creaminess and then I got weirded out by the whole "meat tube" issue, so I started getting slightly gaggy...all in all, not a great experience. HOWEVER, I repeat, R did enjoy it. And with better sausage ,maybe I would too. However, Giada's attempt to take on the South's dirty rice did not work as I'd hoped.