asparagus and feta risotto

I didn’t take a photo because, to be honest, I was exhausted from too much Wii Tennis in the heat! So you’ll have to be satisifed with a repeat of the asparagus photo.

I’m a big fan of risotto, although I must confess here to generally doing them in the oven as [whisper] Delia Smith taught me. Friends have insisted that these dishes are most emphatically not risotto, but should instead be described as oven baked rice dishes, which seems a bit purist, but there you go.

However, last night I did this the proper way, and here’s how:

This serves 2 fairly greedy people.

Finely chop a large shallot or two, and sauté in olive oil and butter over a low heat. Take a bunch of asparagus, trim off the woody bits, then chop into lengths of, oh maybe 2 cms, leaving the tips whole. Sling them in the pan and stir about for a bit.

Take 5 oz of arborio rice, and stir that in until the grains are coated.

Now you want 1 pint of liquid, made up as you like. I took the juice of a lemon, a goodly sloosh of vermouth (3-4 fl oz), and made it up with water, and added a pinch of the wonderful Marigold bouillon powder. Set that in a pan, bring it to the boil and keep it on a low simmer.

Now sloosh spoonfuls of hot stock into the rice mix, one at a time, stirring every time until the liquid becomes absorbed. It’ll probably take 20-25 minutes for this; it depends on the rice and the heat of the pan and so forth.

Then add as much feta cheese as seems reasonable, chopped into small cubes, and stir about until melted.

Pour into a bowl and devour.

Ours was followed by a nice mug of Assam tea, and banana muffins, but these aren’t essential. I suppose.

pumpkin and apple risotto

After the aforementioned trying day yesterday, we fancied something simple and easy for supper.

A rummage in the freezer brought forth a promising tub of mush, and so we had pumpkin and apple risotto. We make a lot of what I call risotto, but what purists would insist should be called an oven-baked rice dish, but for this one I do it properly, and stand over the stove, stirring (how alliterative).

Somehow, the ingredient list of pumpkin, apple, onion, garlic and parmesan doesn’t sound that promising, but trust me - it’s gorgeous, and a real comfort food, due to the lovely creamy texture.

The recipe doesn’t mention parsley, but I have a big bunch of flat leaf parsley, so bunged some in at the end.

risi e bisi is fab!

just a note to remind myself how gorgeous this was - so gorgeous, in fact, that I have instructed Pete to save all the pea pods from his bag ‘o’ peas, and I will simmer them down with the rest of the chicken stock, and put it in the freezer.

I’m sure frozen would be fine for the peas, but it really wouldn’t be the same without the pea pod stock.

The recipe is here - go cook it *now*, while fresh peas are in the shops!