Ok, so I must be up for a challenge this week.  I picked a really carby recipe and figured I’d give it a shot to make.  It sounded really good.  The Italian recipe called Sartù Di Riso gets most of its calories from the arborio rice and mozzarella cheese.   It’s not a healthy dish by any stretch.  However, here at Your Level Best, we strive to make any recipe healthy.  I pulled off a miracle with Polish Bigos.  Let’s see if I can do it with this one.  I’m going to dare myself to not get rid of the risotto rice and to do the recipe in a more accessible way.   I own one bundt pan.  That’s it.  The recipe is typically done in a bundt pan.  I don’t want to limit myself.   I’m going to try to make this in a traditional casserole dish.  Let’s see what happens.  It could be really good or a very tasty experiment (it worked great, by the way).  I also baked this on the grill because I picked an oven dish and it was 90 degrees out.  If you do it this way, be sure to place a couple of bricks on the grate so that the dish doesn’t touch it.  You also need a thermometer to control the temperature.  Here are the original stats.  I used the Tasty version of this recipe for the calculation.

• 417 Calories
• 11g Fat
• 63mg Cholesterol
• 383mg Sodium
• 610mg Potassium
• 66g Carbohydrate
• 17g Protien
• 103% Vitamin A
• 27% Vitamin C
• 27% Calcium
• 12% Iron

Right off the bat the calories are too high.  The vitamin C is low.  One of the ingredients for this recipe is breadcrumbs.  That will have to go.  The protein can be boosted easily.  It’s not impossible.  The original recipe also uses tomato sauce.  I think we can use pumpkin marinara instead.

Here’s what I changed:

• I swapped out the homemade tomato sauce with pumpkin marinara sauce.
• Instead of the Italian bread crumbs, I took some rolled oats and ground them in a food processor.  Then I mixed in paprika, oregano, and dried basil.
• I added boneless skinless chicken breast to boost the protein.
• Increased the servings from 12 to 20 to lower the calories.
• I am roasting some broccoli and carrot for a side dish to round out the vitamin A and C.

Here are the final stats:

• 265 Calories
• 7g Fat
• 61mg Cholesterol
• 287mg Sodium
• 130mg Potassium
• 34g Carbohydrate
• 19g Protien
• 17% Vitamin A
• 1% Vitamin C
• 16% Calcium
• 4% Iron

Here is the final recipe:

Sartù Di Riso – The Your Level Best Way

Serves 20

• 2.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
• 4 bay leaves, divided
• 1 bunch fresh basil, plus more for garnish
• 4 cups (800 g) arborio rice
• 5 cups (1.2 L) low-sodium chicken broth, or vegetable broth
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup (110 g) grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for garnish
• Cooking spray
• 1 cup (115 g) old fashioned oats, ground
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 ball fresh mozzarella cheese

For the pumpkin marinara sauce from Frugal Nutrition:

• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, grated or finely minced
• 1 can pumpkin puree (about 2 cups)
• 1 cup milk
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• ¼ teaspoon dried oregano
• ½ teaspoon dried basil