River Cottage Veg Everyday: Tomato and Mozzarella Risotto

Another River Cottage recipe on Wednesday. This time the tomato and mozzarella risotto. 

You first have to make the tomato puree which is made by roasting 1.5 to 2kg of tomatoes with garlic and herbs and then sieve it all. Mr VST helped with this and he put it all through the blender first and then the sieve to get all the pips and skin out. 

While the tomatoes were roasting I cooked up an onion and then added the rice and cooked it in vegetable stock. 

Once the rice is cooked you add the tomato purée and shred the mozzarella and let it melt in. 

It was a tasty risotto, the roasted tomato purée has a lovely flavour and it comes out more the day after. 

Beetroot Risotto

Sunday evening saw the return of a pink favourite, beetroot risotto. The beetroot was very sweet and it even tempted me to think about making beetroot brownies again. Only a thought at the moment though! The risotto was nice and we even managed to get a few salad leaves out of the garden to go with it. 

Wedding Weekend

Mr VST and I were invited to a wedding this weekend in High Wycombe, it was of a friend of ours Big J and his lovely fiancée, now wife. We were fed fantastically well all weekend. At the reception we were greeted with fizz and canapés, including Yorkshire puddings with roast beef and horseradish sauce, I was gutted as I love a good Yorkshire but there were no meat free ones. The wedding breakfast was really tasty too. To start we had a vegetarian tart and salad, simple but tasty and then for the main we had the most delicious, creamy butternut squash risotto. There were speeches and then desert which was individual lemon meringue tarts with strawberries.

 Later in the evening there was a buffet, which I couldn't face but I had a bit of Mr VST's cheese and crackers! There was also wedding cake. The mother of the groom made the fruit cake (which was delicious) and the bride with a little help from the groom, iced it. As you can see it was beautiful.

Someone also made them this wonderful top table cake with each of the members of the wedding party made in icing.

We then got up this morning and had an amazing buffet breakfast with fruit, yoghurt and cereal followed by a fry up. After a short stroll there was lunch served at the bride's parents' house, another packed out buffet and then this evening I made a tomato and pasta bake, which Mr VST and I nibbled on but I really made it so that we would have some lunch tomorrow.

Beetroot Risotto

Bright pink beetroot risotto on Thursday evening. 

Beetroot Risotto

The lovely pink beetroot risotto this evening made by Mr VST. The usual recipe calls for goat's cheese but they didn't have any when I went to buy some so I went for some creamy, herb and garlic le roulé instead. It made a tasty difference and I think we'll be using it in future. We had it with the left over mange tout and salad.

Beetroot Risotto

I forgot to mention when I made this last week that last summer it was Mr VST who was king of the beetroot risotto. He made it again this evening for supper yesterday and it was so good, thicker and creamier than my version last week.

Beetroot Risotto

Last year my colleague had a bumper crop of beetroot and was kindly bringing them into the office to share with me. I'm not a huge fan of beetroot to be honest. I wouldn't choose to eat unlike Mr VST who loves it. When we were given about 6 all in one go I decided to google some beetroot recipes and came up with this one from Ocado. I adapted it slightly as Mr VST and I don't really like blue cheese and obviously we don't eat chicken stock either. So here it is: 

Serves 4 (Small portions) 

50g Butter
• 1 Onion, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 Small Raw Beetroot, peeled and grated
• 150g Risotto Rice
• 600ml Swiss bouillon vegetable stock
• 125g Soft Goat's cheese

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and cook the onion until softened. 

2. Add the beetroot, I grated the beetroot directly into the saucepan, wearing rubber gloves! Cook for 1-2 minutes.

3. Add the rice, stir in well. Cook for 2 minutes.

4. Add about 500ml of the stock, stir in well, simmer at a medium heat for 10-15 minutes, adding the rest of the stock if it gets dry.

5. Remove from the heat and stir in the goat's cheese.

Enjoy! It is a subtle, slightly sweet tasting, creamy risotto and it has become one of our favourites. The other recipe I found when I googled beetroot recipes was a recipe for beetroot brownies. They were incredibly moist but still very beetroot-y. They went down well at work but I couldn't get over the beetroot smell and taste in my brownies.

Gylly Beach Cafe, Falmouth

Mr VST and I are on holiday this week. We came down to stay with some friends in Falmouth on Wednesday evening. We went out for dinner to the Gylly Beach Cafe for dinner. There were two vegetarian main options, a spinach and mushroom lasagne served with garlic ciabatta and salad and Pan-Fried Primavera Risotto 

Cakes with helford blue cheese served with salad and rocket & walnut pesto. Neither of us are keen on blue cheese but Mr VST can't stand it. I didn't want to have the same thing as him so I chanced it!

There wasn't a strong blue cheese flavour at all and the risotto cakes were lovely. I'm not sure they needed to be pan-fried though. It just made the outer layer chewy. The insides were creamy rice with the 'primavera' consisting mostly of peas. The salad and rocket and walnut pesto were a great accompaniment.

I had a bite of Mr VST's lasagne. The mushrooms were delicious, the garlic ciabatta was very garlic-y as was the rest of both of our meals. It worked well on the bread but I'm not so keen on waking up with garlic mouth the next day which I did. I think maybe a little less garlic would have been better. The cafe was lovely though with a great atmosphere. We shared puddings with our hosts and went for a chocolate amaretto torte with poached orange segments and an apple and rhubarb crumble with elderflower custard.

As you can see the chocolate torte was beautifully presented. It was thick, creamy and chocolatey as you would expect and the poached oranges were delicious.

The crumble can also be recommended. There didn't seem to be an awful lot of ginger in the crumble itself but it is one of my favourite puddings and the elderflower custard was sweet and light.

Not strictly food but I thought these pasty toys were great! They were in a shop window in Falmouth. They seem to be dressed up to celebrate the royal wedding. We got a couple of real ones for lunch a bit later on.

Asparagus and Pea Risotto

Asparagus has been on the market stall now for a few weeks but it looked a bit poorly. I saw it there in Saturday though and couldn't resist. I decided to make a regular Summer favourite, asparagus and pea risotto. I found the recipe a few years ago on the BBC Food website. It's really easy and the only adjustments I make are adding a bit more wine and a bit more stock as I find it tends to dry out before the rice cooks properly.