Risotto is severely under rated, I promise it is more than ‘wet rice’ or ‘savoury porridge’ (although The Katering Show‘s episode about this is a hilarious must watch for any foodie, as are all their episodes ). Once you’ve made it a few times it also becomes pretty easy and you can totally multitask and don’t need to spend the whole time laboriously stirring the pot! The other thing they have going for them is that you can make an impressive meal for very little money. And I’m a teacher so being frugal is kind of important haha. The below recipe is for a basic mushroom risotto with spinach and peas. I’ve added thyme and sage as these are lovely with mushrooms, and lemon as this is so good with the peas. You could add chicken as well! Get stirring…
‘POPCORN’ CAULIFLOWER FLORETS WITH YOGHURT, FETA AND BASIL SAUCE
WARNING: these are very addictive, I almost ate a whole head of cauliflower by myself and that amount of cauli would do bad bad things to me… a narrow escape… Very narrow, I kept moving them further and further away from me and eating more each time I moved them. Idiot.
KALE, LENTIL AND POMEGRANATE SALAD
For me, summer means salad and BBQs and this salad is delicious with barbecued anything! It has great flavours and textures and is full of a variety of nutrient dense ingredients. I think kale has such fantastic flavour and texture when it’s treated correctly… but sometimes big undressed pieces of it can seem grassy or have a bit too much bite. Whenever I use it raw in a salad I like to roughly shred it and allow it to soak up flavour, it keeps its great texture still but doesn’t over power other ingredients. The lentils and quinoa keep mean that it works as a whole meal as well as in smaller portions as a side.