Tomato Risotto

Andrew Carmellini: Urban Italian; Day 8; Recipe 8

First- tomato risotto in a red bowl was a bad decision, and the photo came out terrible, obviously.  I made this yesterday for lunch and was very disappointed.  I had oven roasted tomatoes with herbs, garlic, olive oil, and also tomatoes cooked on the stovetop.  All those tomatoes and not as tomato-tasting as i would have thought.  I did make two changes to the recipe- one, i did not swirl in mascarpone at the end, as I only needed 1 tablespoon of it, and did not want to spend $5 for it.  I instead used a tablespoon of butter. Next, for the tomato topping, I could not find cherry tomatoes (note: I will only buy tomatoes from the farmers market) so I used the smallest tomatoes I could find which I believe were plum.  I realize these substitutions might impact the recipe, possibly in significant ways.  Did I like my risotto?  Can't say I did. Would not make this again.  It reminded me a in many ways of Mark Bittman's Tomato Paella, except I like the Paella.  Bittman's main ingredients are tomatoes, tomato paste, onion, and paprika.  You start it on the stove top, then add the tomatoes on top- throw it into the oven, tomatoes get roasted, and you get a nice crispy bottom on the rice. It's good stuff.  But unfortunately, with the tomato risotto, I've got yet another failure under my belt.