Hey Pesto

Pesto is one of my favourite things ever - I usually have jars of both red and green in the fridge at all times, plus spares in the cupboard. And for some reason that I don't quite know, I'd never made my own until this week. Our basil plant was growing out of control, and there was only one thing to do...

Ingredients:
- 50g pine nuts
- 50g fresh basil
- 25g fresh parsley
- 2 cloves garlic
- 150ml olive oil
- 50g veggie parmesan
- 2tsp lemon juice
- salt and pepper

1. Fry the pine nuts (without any oil) until lightly toasted and golden brown.
2. Tip everything into a food processor and blitz! Season to taste, and enjoy.

If you have a bit more time on your hands, you could always roast the garlic first - or even try using wild garlic if it's in season. Pesto is super versatile - use it as a dip, stir it through some pasta or add it to a pizza. It'll also keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

Ultimate Beans on Toast

Everybody loves beans on toast. It's a student staple, and is perfect for a quick hunger fix at the end of a long day. But it doesn't have to be just emptying a tin into a saucepan - with a few more basic larder ingredients and an extra five minutes, you can transform it into something spectacular.

Ingredients (serves 2):
- 1 small red onion, chopped
- 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
- ½ a red chilli
- 1½ x 400g tins baked beans
- 200g tin kidney beans, drained and rinsed
- handful fresh parsley
- 4 slices bread, toasted and buttered
- handful grated cheddar cheese

Alternatively, you could just use two tins of Heinz 5 beans, though they're a bit more expensive unless you can get them on offer.

1. Pour a dash of olive oil and a knob of butter in a saucepan, and add the onion, garlic and chilli. Cook for five minutes until beginning to soften, then tip in the kidney beans.
2. Add the baked beans and simmer, stirring regularly, until they're beginning to go slightly mushy (or however you like them - this is my preference). Add the parsley and a twist of black pepper.
3. Pour the bean mixture over the toast, and sprinkle over the cheese. Enjoy!

Omelette and Chips (the awesome way)

HELLO INTERNET! 

If you're a fellow student (especially if you're a lucky third year like we are) you'll know that it's been a very busy month, and so hopefully you'll excuse our dismal lack of posting. If you're not a student, I ask that you just trust me because everything is insane.

Last week I was on the phone to Mum, and said I didn't know what to make for tea because I didn't have much in. She suggested I made omelette and chips, and gave me the recipe below (or a version of it, because I can never leave a recipe alone...). 

It. Was. Amazing.

 

Ingredients (serves 1):
- knob of butter
- 2 eggs
- 1 small onion
- sprinkle dried thyme
- handful fresh parsley, chopped
- salt and pepper, to taste
- small handful grated cheddar cheese

For the chips:
- a few medium size potatoes (depends how many chips you want!)
- olive oil
- salt and pepper

For the omelette, onion is my preference (and also all I had in), but you could use a red onion, or try some mushrooms instead. Go wild.

1. Start by doing the chips. If you can't be bothered/have no potatoes/are going to use frozen oven chips, skip straight to step 3; otherwise, heat your oven to 200°C and peel your potatoes. Cut them into chip shapes.
2. Put the potatoes into a pan of salted water, then bring to the boil. Once bubbling, cook for 5 minutes, then drain and place on a baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil and crack over some salt and pepper, stir to coat then pop in the oven for 45-50 minutes (turning them half way through). Voila.

3. After your chips have had 30 minutes or so in the oven, make a start on the omelette. You need to cook the onion first, so slice it thinly, then whack it in a small frying pan with the thyme and some olive oil. Cook for about 5 minutes, until softened and starting to colour.
4. Meanwhile, break the eggs into a bowl and beat (not excessively, just to mix). Add the salt, pepper, the fresh parsley and the cooked onion and stir everything in.
5. In the frying pan you cooked the onion in, add the butter and melt it. The pan should be fairly hot when adding the omelette (have it on a medium heat), so it's important that you get it up to heat. Pour in the omelette mixture, and stir gently with a wooden spoon, making gentle cutting motions across the pan. You only need to do this a couple of times - it just helps ensure the egg is cooked through.
6. When the mixture is beginning to brown on the bottom and beginning to set on top, sprinkle over the cheese and fold in half. Continue to cook for another few minutes, or until the cheese has melted.

7. Serve! For me, chips like these are always best with liberal amounts of salt and vinegar, but obviously you can do what you like. This is so much healthier than many other recipes, especially the chips, though I promise you it doesn't suffer for it! Try it and see for yourself.

3 Ways to Make Garlic Bread

I make garlic bread a lot. Like, once or twice every week. We have it with risotto. Or with pasta. Or with savoury rice. Or with stew, sometimes, or vegetable bakes... You get the picture. Anyway, I end A LOT of posts with 'serve with garlic bread' and it's in millions of pictures - and I recently realised I'd never actually blogged a recipe for it. My bad!

The basic recipe is the same for all three variations, all that differs is how you put it together and cook it. It's the easiest thing, and I promise once you've had it shop-bought garlic bread will never seem the same again.

Ingredients:
- butter: enough to cover however much bread you have.
- garlic: one clove per person.
- drizzle of olive oil
- squirt of lemon juice
- handful of chopped parsley (or a good sprinkle of dried)
- salt and pepper

Method:
Chop the garlic as finely as you can and stick everything in a bowl. Mix it up. THAT'S IT. Told you it was easy.

Now, the different kinds...

1. This is my favourite sort, and the easiest.
Grab yourself some part-baked bread (tesco usually has 4 batons for £1, and it freezes like a charm). Cut open and spread with your garlic butter. Bake according to the instructions on the bread packet.

2. This is great if you haven't got any of the part-baked bread, but do have general bread.
Slice your bread, but not quite to the bottom. This way all the butter stays in better, and it's fun ripping it when it's cooked (if you have ready-sliced bread, don't worry, keep reading). Use your garlic butter to spread your slices on both sides then press them together, before wrapping it all up in tinfoil and baking at 200°C for about 20 minutes.

3. This one's for if you have some time on your hands. It will impress, though!
Make yourself some pizza dough. Spread with your garlic butter (not quite to the edges) and cook at 220°Cfor 10-15 minutes, until it's all golden.

ALSO, any of them can be made gluten free. For the first two, quarter a few slices of gluten free bread and then cook in exactly the same ways. For the third, use gluten free flour. It actually couldn't be easier.

Spanish Bean Stew

Or 'Spanish Bean Cassoulet', if you're trying to feed someone fussy (*COUGH* Shannon, *COUGH* Alex) who gets put off when they hear 'stew'. The recipe belongs to my Mum's friend Christine, so I'm hoping I've done it justice and that my alterations aren't frowned upon too much! It's super cheap to make and the flavours are like nothing else I've ever had, and oh lordy the smell.

Ingredients:
- 3 shallots
- 2 cloves garlic
- 3 peppers (not red)
- 2 sticks celery
- 10 new potatoes, washed
- 3 large tomatoes, chopped
- 400g tin green lentils
- 400g tin chickpeas
- 400g tin borlotti beans
- 2tbsp smoked paprika
- 1tbsp sweet chilli sauce
- water to cover
- 1 glass red wine
- 100g curly parsley

The celery is Mum's addition, and the wine is mine. Not just because I'm a student and that's what we do... I think it gives it an extra depth of flavour and helps everything else to come alive. Also, in terms of the beans, you can pretty much use what you like - this time I had cannelini beans instead of borlotti, and they were brill. ALL OF THE BEANS.

Method:

1. Roughly chop the shallots, garlic and celery into small-ish pieces (you're not going to blend it at the end like a soup, so however big you chop everything is pretty much the size they'll be at the end) and throw into a large pan with some olive oil.

2. Cook on a low heat while you chop the peppers, potatoes and tomatoes, and then add those too. Cook for a further 10 minutes or so, until everything's softened.

3. Stir in the beans and lentils, then add the smoked paprika and sweet chilli sauce. Pour in the wine and enough water to cover everything, then bring to a low boil. Cover (use tinfoil if you don't have a lid) and simmer for about an hour and a half, stirring every 20 minutes or so (I usually take the lid off for the last 20 minutes, too).

4. Once it's nicely reduced and you just can't stand the smell any longer, chop up the parsley and add to the pan along with some salt and pepper. Serve with lots of bread and butter.

NB: You can freeze any leftovers, though it does make it go slightly mushy. Still good though!

It Is Risotto O'Clock

Risotto was one of the first things I cooked at home independently. Mum doesn't have the patience for it so I'd only ever had it in restaurants, but it became something of a tradition that when Fraser came to stay, that was what we made. We even had a song (can you guess from the post title?).

In some ways this is an adaptation of a couple of my other recipes - the roasted butternut squash from one and all the leeky goodness from another, but in my opinion this just makes it the best of everything.

Ingredients: (serves 5)
- 1 medium/large butternut squash
- 50g butter
- 1 large onion
- 2 medium leeks
- 4 big cloves garlic
- 375g/15oz arborio rice
- 2 glasses white wine
- 1.5 litres vegetable stock
- between 50g-100g parmesan, to taste
- handful fresh parsley
- generous sprinkle dried rosemary
- salt and pepper, to taste

Method:
1. Peel, chop and de-seed the butternut squash (if anyone has a method of doing this that takes less than half an hour then for the love of god please share it), and cut into rough cubes before placing in a baking dish.
2. Drizzle over some olive oil, then add the rosemary, some salt and pepper and one of the cloves of garlic (finely chopped). Give it a good stir and put into the oven at 220°C. You'll need to take it out and stir every 15 minutes or so, but it should take about the same time as the risotto. Awesomeness.

3. Chop the onion and leeks, and add to a large pan or wok along with half the butter. Then, grate the rest of the garlic and add that too. I don't know why but grating releases double the flavour and is sooooo good. Cook for about 10 minutes, 'til it's all soft and lovely and has shrunk down a bit.
4. Add the rice and cook for a couple more minutes, then tip in the wine and simmer. Once that's been absorbed, you can begin to add the stock, a ladle-full at a time, stirring continuously. The whole stock-adding process should take about 45 minutes with this amount.
5. Once all that's done, add the butternut squash (which should be done by then), the parmesan, the parsley and the rest of the butter. Season to taste, serve with plenty of garlic bread and ENJOY.

Also, do this with the leftovers. You're welcome.

The most awesome macaroni cheese in the world ever.

This isn't really macaroni cheese because it's not made with macaroni. Just to get that out there now. But what else could you call it?

I never really liked macaroni cheese - to the point that when I told Mum I'd made this she was genuinely surprised. But I had an odd craving the other day, and I also had an awesome goats' cheese in the fridge I brought back to London from home. So I made this, loosely based on a recipe from Lorraine Pascale.

 

Ingredients: (serves 3)

- 9oz rigatoni or penne
- 4 spring onions
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 30g bag curly parsley                          
- 30g plain flour
- 30g butter
- ½ nutmeg, grated
- 2tsp French mustard
- 300ml double cream
- 100ml milk
- 75g goats cheese
- 50g parmesan
- salt and pepper
- 100g breadcrumbs 

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Chop the garlic and spring onions, and put into a pan with a knob of butter and the thyme. Cook until soft and starting to colour - about 8 minutes.
2. Put the pasta on to cook. Do for 2 minutes or so less than the packet instructions, as it'll cook more in the oven.
3. Put the butter, flour, nutmeg and mustard into a saucepan, and cook on a medium heat until the butter has melted and it's formed a sort of paste.
4. Take off the heat and let cool for a couple of minutes, then add the milk and cream slowly, beating constantly to avoid it going lumpy or splitting. *IF IT DOES SPLIT* let it cool more, then grab some extra milk and whisk in a little at a time until the sauce comes together.
5. Put the pan back onto the heat and add the cheese, along with about two thirds of the parsley and some salt and pepper.
6. Tip the pasta and spring onion mixture into a dish, and pour the sauce over the top. Mix well and top with the breadcrumbs, then bake for 20-25 minutes until golden and bubbling. 

 You can vary it however you fancy too - such as by adding leeks or pine nuts into the spring onion mix, or using a different kind of cheese. Whatever you have in your cupboard!

Something Different: Roasted Red Pepper Soup

Apologies for the lack of posting this month - I know we always say life's really busy but LIFE'S REALLY BUSY. This should make up for it though.

Every Friday afternoon Jamie and I go into Egham for soup and tea at what we call 'Bar-Divisible-By-Three' to celebrate the end of the week and get into the general Friday-feeling. A few weeks ago I got excited by the prospect of 'roasted red pepper and tomato soup', but when we went to order we were told the cafe had run out. The soup we got was awesome but I couldn't stop thinking about the one that got away... so I made my own. Because stubborn is my middle name.

 You will need:

- 2 onions                                                      - 600ml water  

- 2 sticks of celery                                         - 300ml double cream            

- 1 large clove garlic                                     - 1tbsp red pesto

- 4 large red peppers                                     - 2 handfuls fresh curly parsley  

- 10 cherry tomatoes                                     - plenty of salt and pepper     

- 1x 500ml stock pot, or 2 Oxo cubes                                 

What to do:

1. De-seed and quarter the peppers, then place into a baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle over some salt and pepper, then stir it all up so they're coated. Place into an oven preheated to 220°C, and cook for about 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so so they don't burn. After 20 minutes, add the tomatoes too. This can be done in advance.

2. Roughly chop the onions, celery and garlic and throw into a stock pot (or any big pan) along with a knob of butter and some olive oil. Cook on a medium temperature for 10-15 minutes, until soft.

3. Add the peppers and tomatoes to the pot, and cook for a further 5 minutes. Lots of recipes tell you to take the skins off the peppers, and you can, but leaving them on gives the soup more texture as well as being healthier. Add the pesto, water, stock, and cream (or you could use milk for a healthier alternative) and mix.

4. Bring to a gentle boil, then put on a lid and simmer for half an hour, stirring occasionally.

5. Using a hand blender/food processor/a sieve and lots of determination, blitz the soup. You can obviously make it as smooth as you like, but I think it's best if it's not done too much so you get the textures still. Chop your parsley and add that in, then season to taste.

 

To give it an extra bit of awesome, while you're on stage 4 and it's simmering away, chop a few slices of bread into cubes along with some sun-dried tomatoes (or a few chopped cherry ones) and put into the baking dish the peppers were roasted in. To this, add a bit more salt and pepper, and if you have it some garlic/basil/nicely flavoured olive oil (normal olive oil is fine), then stir to coat and stick in the oven at 180°C. You need to stir this every 10 minutes or so to make sure they crisp evenly, and after about 20-30 minutes you should have some fancy homemade croutons to go along with your soup.

Voila. Super simple, and super tasty. 

A Post-Snow Warm Up

As is the case for most of the country at the moment, over here we're covered with a blanket of beautiful snow. There have been snowball fights, snow angels and even a snow rabbit, and at the end of the day you need something warm and comforting to come back to - that preferably doesn't require a lot of effort. Enter bread and stew.

I always think of stew as being a bit bland and mushy, and generally not the most appealing. I don't know why because I've never really had it, but this blows the generic 'stew' idea out of the water. It's a take on one by Nigel Slater, and is full of spices and textures and goodness. And as for bread, I've adapted a family recipe to make gluten-free bread rolls. So. Much. Good.

Stew - mine's basically the same as Nigel Slater's recipe, but a vegetarian version with a few extra bits
Ingredients:
- 4 medium onions
- 3 small carrots
- 1 large stick celery
- 1 clove garlic
- ½ tsp mild paprika (you could also use smoked)
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ½ nutmeg, grated
- 300g Puy lentils (green work fine as a substitute)
- 500ml veg stock
- large handful fresh parsley
- 1tsp sugar
- couple of knobs of butter
- crème fraîche (to serve)

1. Melt a knob of butter in a large pot or saucepan. Roughly chop two of the onions, along with the celery, carrots and garlic, and add to the pan. Cover and let steam for a few minutes, before adding the spices. Stir to coat and cook for a few more minutes. 
2. Add the lentils, stock and 500ml of water. Cover and leave for 30 minutes - stirring occasionally - until the lentils are all soft and nice. 
3. While that's cooking, stick another knob of butter in a small pan. Chop the two remaining onions into fairly large pieces, then add along with the sugar. Allow these to cook slowly and caramelise, and then finish with a grate of nutmeg. 
4. Add your handful of chopped parsley to the lentils along with some salt and pepper, then serve with the onions and a dollop of crème fraîche.

Gluten-free bread rolls - my Mum calls these 'milk rolls' for reasons which will soon become apparent. The gluten-free version makes 8-10 rolls, but you tend to get more out of the regular version.
Ingredients:
- 300ml milk
- 50g butter
- 7g sachet dried yeast
- 1tsp caster sugar
- 500g gluten-free plain flour
- 1tsp salt
- 1 small egg, beaten

1. Place the milk and butter in a pan and heat until lukewarm.
2. Sieve the dey ingredients into a bowl and mix together. Make a well in the centre and pour in the liquid along with the egg. Mix to a soft dough, then spend a few minutes attempting to knead some air in. If you're making the regular gluten version knead well until smooth and elastic.
3. Cover with a damp cloth and leave to rise in a warm place for 30 mins, until increased in size.
4. Turn onto a well-floured surface and have another attempt at kneading for a few minutes. Cut into pieces and shape into rolls.
5. Place on a greased baking sheet, cover and leave in a warm place for another 10-15 minutes. Grab another egg and beat it with a splash of milk, then use this to glaze the rolls. Sprinkle with various seeds to make them all pretty, then bake in a preheated oven at 220°C for 20 minutes.

Voila. I know the snow is causing a lot of disruption and all, but I kind of hope it stays a bit longer. 

Days like these are the best.

Aubergine Not-Cannelloni

This one's for Rebecca. Because I have loads of other things still to blog and now I'm all out of sequence but I'm doing this one first because she asked me to and I rock.

This one was an awesome one. Inspiration was taken from here, and once I'd seen it the recipes-part of my brain wouldn't stop whirring 'til I'd done something.

You will need (for 4):
- 2 aubergines
- 300g pot garlic and herb Philadelphia
- 125g pot soft goats' cheese
- large handful of fresh spinach
- 1 large onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2x 400g tins chopped tomatoes
- sprinkle dried oregano and rosemary
- oxo cube
- glug of red wine (or a desert spoon of red wine vinegar and 1 tsp sugar)
- fresh parsley

The aubergines: Begin by prepping these. They should be topped and tailed, and sliced as thinly as you can get them - about 5mm is ideal. Sprinkle with salt and leave to the side for about 20 minutes, until water droplets begin to appear on the surface. Rinse off the salt and pat dry, then brush both sides of the aubergine with olive oil and grill for approximately 4 minutes each side.

The sauce: Chop the onion and garlic and throw into a large saucepan with a splash of olive oil. Cook for 8 minutes, then add the tomatoes and the dried herbs. When this begins to bubble, put the oxo cube and red wine into the saucepan as well. Cook on a low-medium heat for about 10-15 minutes, stirring regularly, until it begins to thicken. Season to taste.

The filling: Empty the pots of cheese into a mixing bowl, and stir together thoroughly. Add to this a sprinkle of black pepper, some fresh parsley and the spinach leaves (when I made it I had a mixture of spinach, watercress and rocket, so they all went in). Stir again so that everything is incorporated.

The assembly:
1. Put a spoonful of the cheese mixture onto each slice of aubergine, and roll the aubergine around it.

2. Pour enough sauce into a baking dish to cover the bottom of it, then place the aubergine slices on top, with the end of the roll facing down. As you can see with mine I used a courgette as well, as I only had one aubergine. It wasn't bad - I'd recommend sticking to the aubergine but if you have any fussy eaters who don't like it they can be easily appeased this way.

3. Pour the remaining sauce over the aubergine rolls, and bung the remaining cheese mixture on the top too. You could also sprinkle over some breadcrumbs or seeds.

4. Bake at 200°C for 30 minutes and then enjoy thoroughly. I like serving it with a mixed leaf salad with a balsamic and olive oil dressing, but you could do anything at all.

Goats Cheese Stuffed Peppers

As Zosia said in her explanation of Life Lately, everything has been manic. I have been running through poppy fields in France for a week (expect posts about French food in the near future), so I have something of a blogging-backlog which I shall now attempt to sort out - especially as before I went away I was on cooking duty at home for a fortnight. LOTS OF COOKING.

Things were a bit mad in the week before we went away too, what with millions of people having birthdays (cake post also coming up) and trying to pack, so we were trying to use up things we had in the fridge and think of things to make that didn't take much effort but would still be lovely. Enter stuffed peppers.

 These are brilliant to make at uni too for the same reason - and you can pretty much stuff them with anything you like. You don't even have to use peppers - Zosia tends to hollow out tomatoes and use the filling as part of the stuffing, and if I liked mushrooms (don't judge me) I would use those too.

These are the quantities for 1 person, so you can multiply to however much you need:

- 1 large pepper

- 75g goats' cheese

- 2tbsp creme fraiche

- 1 small red onion

- 1 clove of garlic

- 3 spring onions

- 4 cherry tomatoes

- 4 sundried tomatoes

- 2 tsp red pesto

- fresh herbs. I used thyme, parsley and chives

- salt and pepper

1. Start by preheating your oven to 200°C. Wash the peppers, remove the stalks and cut them in half, then stick them on a baking tray and put in the oven for about 15 minutes while you make the filling. This will make them softer and, in my opinion, more yummy. That's a technical term.

2. For the filling, start by chopping up your red onion and garlic and frying them in a bit of butter for about 5 minutes, until they're soft and smelling amazing.

3. In a bowl, put the goats' cheese (you can use more if you like - 75g was all we had) and creme fraiche and mix thoroughly to create a sort of goats' cheese mousse. The more you mix the more air will get in and the moussier (also a technical term) it will be, so it's about how long you can be bothered to mix really.

Two stages of the moussey filling. Basically, a bowl full of lovliness.

 4. Prepare the rest of the ingredients that need it - wash and chop the spring onions into small pieces, half the cherry tomatoes, chop the parsley and chives and strip the thyme leaves. Add everything (including the red onion and garlic) to the goats' cheese mixture and stir well.

5. Take the peppers out of the oven and STUFF. You CAN get it all in. Have faith. And determination. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil, add a tad more seasoning and put back in the oven for approximately 30-40 minutes - until the peppers are wrinkled and the filling looks set and cooked.

Before and after cooking. Basil garnish not necessary, but I thought it made it prettier.

6. Serve with something salady like leaves or cous cous, or just eat by themselves.

Improvisation Food

Last Friday we couldn't decide on any specific meal we wanted, so we made lots of random lovely things. Including the 'what-to-do-with-your-left-over-risotto' recipe.

I can't take credit for it - it belongs to the god who is Nigel Slater - and once you've had it you will never throw away risotto again. I frequently make too much just so I can do this afterwards. And here it is: Nigel Slater's Risotto Cakes. I don't tend to bother with the eggs as risotto tends to be sticky enough not to need them, but it probably depends on what sort of risotto you have so it's your call.

And possibly the best thing of all about them - you can make loads and freeze them. You can't get much better than that.

We made these beautiful risotto cakes the other day, along with several other random but amazing things. Zosia made gorgeous grilled halloumi...

And I made a sort of 'vegetable medley bake'. 

Wash and cut the ends off some asparagus and place into a small baking dish. We also used some tender stem broccoli, but I'm not sure how much that added to this particular dish. Finely chop a shallot and a couple of cloves of garlic, and cut a handful of cherry tomatoes into halves and sprinkle over. Put on a couple of knobs of butter, season, and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with grated parmesan.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200°C for 20 minutes, and enjoy the best vegetables you've ever had in your life.

Ever.

A suitably random combination of lovely food that makes you smile when you eat it.

You can't ask for more than that.

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.