Quinoa

When the lady at the Tesco check out says "Oh, what do you do with this?" you know you're buying weird food. So I told her that some people bake it into patties and others use quinoa flour to make chocolate brownies. I use it like cous cous in salads.

Because I try as hard as possible to avoid eating wheat for health reasons. Occasionally I'll slip up and eat a whole lot of bread or a whole pizza and then two days later I'll just feel completely exhausted. So I try not to do that so much. 

I had to find alternatives to all the things I used to eat that had wheat in them, and Quinoa rather conveniently solved the cous cous problem. 

And here's my Quinoa and Halloumi Cheese Salad.

What you need to serve one:

One Little Gem Lettuce.

One cup of dry Quinoa.

Half a block of Halloumi cheese, cut into thin strips.

Honey Mustard Dressing.

Salt and Pepper.

Mint leaves.

What to do:

1. Wash your quinoa in cold water. Use a seive.

2. Bring five cups of water to the boil in a saucepan. Add quinoa, turn down the heat a little and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the quinoa has absorbed all the water.

3. Chop the lettuce and the mint. Make the honey mustard dressing.

4. Let the quinoa do its thing. Keep stirring occasionally to see how much water has been absorbed. 

5. When the quinoa is done and all the water is absorbed, take it off the heat and let it sit for ten minutes.

6. At this point, start on your halloumi cheese. I recommend dry frying it - place the strips in a hot frying pan with no oil or butter. When one side is golden (takes about two minutes), turn it over and do the other side.

7. Stir the dressing, the lettuce and some salt and pepper into the quinoa. Place in a bowl, add the strips of cheese and the chopped mint leaves and serve.

The Food Of The Gods: RISOTTO

Or the god of students anyway. But when life kicks you in the teeth there is nothing you can do but try and cook (and eat) your way out of it, and use it as an excuse to indulge in things like butter which you normally try not to have too much of.

And so, risotto is a natural choice. Especially when you just so happen to have made up a new recipe for one a few weeks ago which was the best ever. Win.

I'm going to vaguely call this 'green vegetable risotto'. I made enough for five people (note: Zosia believes this was more like enough risotto for eight people. Bryony loves to feed the world. Just sayin. :D), as there were three of us and I wanted some leftovers (the amazing things made with said leftovers will be posted in the next few days, so stay tuned folks). Soooo, I used:

- 1 large onion
- 1 medium-sized leek
- 4/5 spring onions
- 2 cloves garlic
- a good handful of French beans
- 375g/15oz arborio rice (75g/3oz per person)
- 2 glasses of white wine
- 1 1/2 litres veg. stock (75g rice = 375ml stock)
- approx. 100g parmesan, to taste
- and the SECRET INGREDIENT. Which is, one Tesco Finest green vegetable side dish. It sounds unimpressive, but everything in there is beautiful and it's miles cheaper than buying all the vegetables separately - plus it comes with the most gorgeous herb butter. Trust.
 


 Put some olive oil in a pan, and add a generous knob of butter. Chop up your leek, onion, spring onions and garlic and throw them in. Let them soften for about 5 minutes, then add your French beans.


Add the rice and stir to coat, then pour in the wine and simmer until slightly reduced. Now begins the epic stock-adding mission. As annoying as it is, stock should be added a ladle-full at a time, and the rice should have completely absorbed it before any more stock is added - meaning that you will be doing this for about 45 minutes. You also need to stir your risotto relatively regularly or it will stick, so pull up a chair and put some music on, and think of it as a work-out for your arm.

The 'Parmesan Grating Stance'

The strange 'before stock' stage

 
Once all the stock is in and has been absorbed then add your Secret Ingredient - but NOT the herb butter yet. Let your risotto cook for another 5 minutes or so, then add the parmesan and herb butter, and season.

And VOILA! It is time consuming but it's so easy, and certainly worth the effort. I served it with fresh herbs to garnish and some home-made garlic bread (mix spreadable butter with a clove of garlic per person, a squirt of lemon juice and some parsley, and spread over part-baked bread. Stick it in the oven - usually for about 10 minutes, until the edges of the bread are becoming golden and the butter has melted. Heavenly.).

Check back here soon for the best 'what-to-do-with-your-left-over-risotto' recipe ever. Trust me - it's well worth it.

Purple Rainbows

Or red onions. Either way, aren't they lovely looking?

Dear old Bryony's away this weekend and I've been sat here trying to learn things about the Waldensians and the Cathars and the Humiliati and the Beguines and the Albigensian Crusade of 1209. 

Except I keep getting distracted by Pinterest and cooking risotto and reading blogs and generic doodling.

Not gonna lie, revision could be going better.

The risotto was pretty much perfect though. It would have been ever so slightly better with some white wine but for once we've run out...

So here's my recipe for Rocket, Red Onion and Mushroom Risotto.

What you'll need for one serving:

1 Red onion.

50 grams of Butter.

75 grams of Risotto Rice (about three handfuls).

750 millilitres of Water.

1 Vegetable Oxo cube.

1 Tablespoon of dried Rosemary.

4 Mushrooms

1 Tablespoon of fresh Lemon juice.

Fresh Rocket.

Goat's cheese.

7 mint leaves.

Salt and Pepper to season.

1. Chop up the onion. Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the onion. Simmer for two minutes while you boil the water in the kettle.

Side note: How amazing is the new Tesco Everyday Value packaging? So much more classy than the old Tesco Value stuff...

ANYWAY.

2. Add the risotto rice to the pan and stir. Pour in the water.

3. Add the oxo cube and the rosemary. Roughly chop up your mushrooms and add those too. Leave to cook for ten minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. After your ten minutes is up, add the lemon juice. If I'd had some, I would have added about a glass of wine at this point but, alas, it was not to be...

5. Keep cooking the risotto for another ten minutes or so, stirring more frequently so that the rice doesn't stick to the pan as the water evaporates. 

6. When the rice has absorbed all the liquid, take it off the heat and stir in some rocket. I used nearly a whole 6o gram pack because I love my green veg but if you're less of a fan than I am, add about a handful.
7. Chop and stir in your mint leaves.

8. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle on goats cheese to serve.

9. Realise that, actually, you really need more goats cheese. Go back and add about half a pack. Because you're greedy like that...

Risotto could well be my favourite food at the moment. It's super simple, super tasty and very filling, without being too expensive. It's the perfect way to use up whatever vegetables you have lying around and if you have risotto rice in the cupboard you really don't need any fancy ingredients to make a filling, healthy supper.

Rainy Saturday Cocktails

It's Saturday night and it's raaiiiinnning.

You've just eaten an epic meal cooked by the lovely Bryony and you can't be bothered to go anywhere or do anything. What do you do now?

Our fridge just happened to be full of other peoples' alcohol after friday night dinner-and-pre-drinks, and we maaay have decided to charge a little rent. In the form of three shots of gin and two of grenadine. (THANKS ED/JAMES :D)

And we came up with a super sweet cocktail I'm calling the Rainy Saturday.

Whatchoo need for one Rainy Saturday:

1 and 1/2 shots of Gin.

1 shot of Grenadine Syrup.

EITHER the juice of 1/2 a lime OR the juice of 1/4 of a lemon. (If you want it extra sweet, go for the lemon.)

Lemonade.

4 Mint leaves.

2 Frozen Raspberries. (Just put a pack of fresh raspberries straight in the freezer.)

3 Slices of Cucumber.

What to do:

Put the gin, grenadine syrup and the lemon/lime juice in a glass.

Grab the mint leaves to crush them ever so slightly. Add to the glass along with the raspberries and two slices of cucumber. 

Top up with lemonade, add ice and stir thoroughly.

Cut a slim triangle out of the remaining cucumber slice and stick it on the side of the glass. So it looks pretty.

And ta daaaa one rainy saturday cocktail. 

I have to admit it was slightly too sweet for me so next time I'll try it with carbonated water or something instead of lemonade. Its was still raather yummy though.