Roasted Tomato & Garlic Pearl Barley Risotto

Sorry about missing a day of VeganMoFo yesterday – I had a recipe planned but it didn’t turn out the way I wanted and so I didn’t want to post it! I’m back today now though, with a recipe that definitely did work well and I enjoyed making and eating!

Today’s VeganMoFo prompt is to use “unconventional grains” – grains that we don’t use very often. I chose pearl barley, although it’s not particularly unusual – and it’s certainly cheaper than a lot of unusual grains – it’s not one I seem to use very often. I don’t know why, because it’s delicious!

The great thing about making a risotto with pearl barley is that you don’t have to stir it as much as a regular risotto. You still stir, but then you go and sit down for a little bit before stirring again. It’s nice! Pearl barley also has a lovely hearty texture which is just great for wintery months.

The garlic and tomatoes in this recipe are roasted in the oven first – I find that in winter, it’s great to roast tomatoes, because it brings out the flavour that they lose a little due to not having as much sun. Try not to eat all the roasted tomatoes straight out of the oven though – tasty as they are…

• Servings: 2-3
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Ingredients

• 500g baby plum tomatoes, or cherry tomatoes, halved
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
• 1 tsp salt
• several grinds black pepper
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 250g pearl barley
• 1 litre vegetable stock
• handful fresh basil, chopped

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F
1. Toss the tomatoes and garlic with the salt, pepper, and 1 tbsp olive oil and arrange on a baking tray.
2. Place in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, then set aside.
3. Once your tomatoes are roasted, begin on the risotto. Fry the onion in the remaining olive oil in a large pan until softened.
4. Add the roasted tomatoes and tomato puree and stir.
5. Stir through the pearl barley and vegetable stock and bring to a simmer.
6. Simmer, stirring regularly, for 40 minutes or until the water is absorbed and the pearl barley is tender.
7. Finally, stir through the basil. Taste and adjust seasoning, and serve!

 

Spinach Risotto with Roasted Tomatoes – VeganMoFo Day 16

Today’s prompt is for “complementary colours” – colours that fall on opposite sides of a colour wheel, they provide a high contrast and make the other colour stand out well! Thanks high school art class. The colours I chose today are red and green, which incidentally are also the colours that were or will be featured yesterday and Sunday! You can get some great food with red and green.

For the green part of the meal, I made a garlicky spinach risotto – spinach and garlic are flavours that go really well together and putting all that in a risotto is delicious. For the red part, I simply roasted tomatoes! Small ones work best – I used baby plum – and roasting them really enhances the flavour. Especially this time of year, when tomatoes are not really that tasty raw, roasting gives them a really rich, deep flavour.

I used frozen spinach in this risotto, which I defrosted before pureeing, but you could use fresh if you like, you’d have to blanch it first and use a fair amount! The photo above shows the risotto topped with my Tofu Cheese which will be coming to the blog later this month.

Spinach Risotto with Roasted Tomatoes

• Servings: 2-3
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Ingredients

• 500g baby plum tomatoes, halved lengthways
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 300g frozen spinach, defrosted
• 1 tbsp vegan butter
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 litre vegetable stock
• 200g risotto rice
• 1 tsp dried basil

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F
1. Toss the halved tomatoes gently with the olive oil, salt, and pepper. Arrange on baking trays, rounded side down, and place in the preheated oven for 25 minutes.
2. Next, make the risotto. Melt the butter in a pan, and fry off the onion and garlic until softened.
3. Add the rice, and cook for 2 minutes, stirring.
4. Next, add the vegetable stock to the rice a ladleful at a time, stirring constantly, until the stock is absorbed. Repeat this until all the stock is used up or the rice is tender.
5. Meanwhile, in a food processor or blender, add the spinach and a couple of tablespoons of water. Blend until pureed.
6. Just before the rice is cooked, add the pureed spinach and mix well.
7. Serve the risotto topped with the roasted tomatoes!

Butternut Squash & Fennel Risotto – Vegan MoFo Day 22

First of all, I would like to apologise for the terrible photos on this post. Ultimately, I just forgot to take them during cooking, and the lighting was terrible after! Also risotto is quite hard to make look “pretty”. It does taste really good though!

Today’s challenge was to create a meal using all seasonal ingredients. Butternut squash is my absolute favourite autumnal ingredient so that was an obvious starter, and I decided to add fennel to that too. Fennel is something I’ve only recently discovered and it is so good! Raw, it has a slightly aniseedy taste to it, and yet cooked it goes soft and silky and slightly sweet.

I roasted the vegetables in the oven – the butternut squash first for twenty minutes, and added the fennel for the final twenty so it didn’t overcook. Meanwhile I made the risotto, adding the vegetables for the final five minutes so they had time to break down into the rice.

Its such a warm, cosy meal, and perfect for putting you in an autumnal mood!

Butternut Squash & Fennel Risotto

• Servings: 2
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Ingredients

• 1/2 a medium sized butternut squash, diced
• 1 bulb fennel, sliced
• olive oil for roasting
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 180g risotto rice
• 1.25 litre vegetable stock
• 1 tsp dried sage
• 1/2 tsp dried coriander
• pinch cayenne pepper
• salt & pepper

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200C/390F
1. Put the diced squash in a roasting tin along with salt, pepper, and a couple tbsp oil – enough to just coat the squash cubes.
2. Place the squash in the oven for 20 minutes.
3. After 20 minutes, remove from the oven and stir through the sliced fennel. Place back in the oven for a further 20 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, make the risotto. Fry the onion and garlic in a large pan until softened, and add the herbs and spices.
5. Add the rice and fry for 1-2 minutes, until the rice starts to glisten.
6. Spoon a ladle of stock into the pan, and stir until the rice absorbs it all.
7. Repeat step 6 until the rice is becoming tender and most of the stock is used up.
8. Add the roasted squash and fennel into the rice mixture and stir well.
9. Continue spooning stock in and stirring until completely cooked.
10. Serve on its own or with bread.

Beetroot Risotto

Mmm, risotto. So versatile. You can have it in the spring, with asparagus and peas, in summer with courgette and lemon, in the autumn with squash and pumpkin, and finally winter with hearty root veg. What other food can be enjoyed year round?

One of my favourite risottos is beetroot. Beetroot is such a cool vegetable. It’s so colourful! If you’re not careful, you can dye yourself pink! And the food you make with it becomes such a rich warm colour. I hear you can use it in desserts with chocolate, but I haven’t yet tried that. But a lovely creamy beetroot risotto just hits the spot.

This risotto is pretty simple to make. I start with ready-cooked beetroot, but if you have raw, just cook it through in the oven first. Chop it into bite sized pieces – the colour will leech into the whole risotto.

You have to stir, a lot. I find it quite relaxing actually. You put one scoop of stock in the pan, stir until it’s all absorbed, and repeat until the rice is cooked. It’s not hard work, it’s just something you can do and let yourself just chill for a while.

I like to add cream in my risotto – I use Oatly cream – but it’s not necessary. You could also add cream cheese or cashew cream if you have any.

(I use this)

Most non-vegan recipes use parmesan so I replaced this with nutritional yeast, but it’s ok to leave out if you can’t find it. I also fry in a mix of vegan butter and olive oil, but again, you can use just olive oil if you like.

Serve it on it’s own, or with some garlic bread.

• Servings: 2
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Ingredients

• 1 tbsp vegan butter
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 100g cooked beetroot, diced
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 180g risotto rice
• 1 litre vegetable stock
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 heaped tbsp nutritional yeast
• 50ml cream substitute

Directions

1. In a large pan, melt the butter with the olive oil.
2. Fry the onion and garlic in the pan until softened, then add the beetroot and rice.
3. Fry the rice for 2-3 minutes until it starts to turn translucent.
4. Add a ladelful of stock, and stir until the rice absorbs it all.
5. Repeat until stock is used up and the rice is soft – about 25 minutes.
6. Add the nutritional yeast and the cream and stir through.
7. Serve with an extra drizzle of cream.

Mushroom Risotto

First off I’d like to apologise for not posting so much in the last couple of days. I’ve been pretty busy, and blogging daily is much harder than it looks! But I’m back, with this super delicious risotto.

This risotto is one of the ones that you have to stand and stir constantly. I am lucky in that I have a husband who will take turns stirring, but it’s totally possible to do on your own! It is so worth the effort as the mushrooms make it lovely and savoury, the hint of rosemary brings that out and it’s one of the most comforting meals you can make.

Usually I just make this risotto with mushrooms, but we visited my mum’s on Monday and her neighbour gave us a huge amount of home grown runner beans so I decided to include these too. You certainly don’t have to, in fact you can put whatever you like in it – but it’s great with just mushrooms as well. I liked using mushrooms and beans because it made this a very vegetable rich risotto, which I like!

I started by chopping all the vegetables up.

Put them aside while you fry up chopped onion, garlic, and a chilli. Then add in the vegetables, rosemary, salt and pepper. Let the mushrooms cook down (they will get a LOT smaller as they cook) and then stir through the rice.

You need one saucepan with your stock in, and the other saucepan with the risotto. Using a soup ladle, put a ladleful of stock in the risotto, and stir through until it’s all absorbed. Keep doing this until the stock is all gone and the rice is soft. Takes about half an hour.

Taste it, and add more seasoning if you need, and then serve! I stirred through a splash of soya cream but it’s totally not necessary.

Mushroom & Rosemary Risotto

• Servings: 2
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Ingredients

• 1 onion, chopped,
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 1 chilli, chopped
• 1 tbsp margarine spread
• Punnet mushrooms (about 250g), chopped
• 200g green beans, chopped (optional)
• 1 tsp dried rosemary
• 180g risotto rice
• 1 litre vegetable stock
• Soya cream (optional)
• Salt & Pepper

Directions

1. In a saucepan, melt the spread and fry the onion, chilli, and garlic until soft.
2. Add the beans, rosemary, and mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms have reduced in size.
3. Stir through the rice, and cook for about 1 minute until the grains glisten.
4. Spoon a ladleful of the stock into the risotto mix, and stir continuously until the liquid is absorbed.
5. Repeat step 4 until all the stock is used up and/or the rice is soft.
6. Taste and season if needed.
7. (Optional) Stir through a splash of soya cream and serve.

No-Stir Pea & Tomato Risotto

It’s getting to that time of year when you want lovely warm hearty meals. Like risotto! Now to be honest, I don’t tend to stick to the “seasonal” style of eating – if I want a salad in December I’ll have it, or a stew in July. Perhaps that’s because we don’t get any of the weather extremes here – I think last winter it snowed for all of five minutes! We did have a few good weeks of sunshine this summer though, but reading a lot of the other MoFo blogs, well, they seem to still be in the middle of summer! I wouldn’t mind swapping the greyness we have for some sunny heat.

But risotto is a lovely warm comforting meal. Usually you wouldn’t make it when the weather is at all hot, because it involves standing over a hot stove, stirring and stirring until it’s done. But this one, aptly titled “no-stir” is much simpler. It won’t win any culinary rewards – I imagine if I went to a proper foodie forum and talked about “no-stir risotto” they would scoff me off the internet. I’m not too fussed though, because this meal is super tasty, easy, and one we do again and again. It’s also really easy to adapt. Any vegetables you want can be added in instead of the peas, and you could add spices, herbs, whatever you like to make it to your taste!

You start by melting some vegan butter (I like to use Vitalite) and a bit of olive oil in a pan, and adding chopped onions and garlic. Saute them off for a bit with salt and pepper, and add in the risotto rice. Once again, saute this for a bit, and add in some passata, vegetable stock (I use Marigold) and dried basil.

It looks kinda like soup…

Pop the lid on and cook for 15 minutes! If you want to stir a little, to stop it getting stuck, go for it, but you don’t have to stir it constantly!! After the 15 minutes is up, add in the peas, pop the lid back on, and cook for another 5. Take the lid off, stir, and there you have it!

If you have any vegan cheese (I’m using Tesco’s free from cheese) this also goes great on top. Makes for a lovely comforting dinner!

• Servings: 2
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Ingredients

• 1 tbsp vegan butter
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 150g arborio rice
• 500ml tomato passata
• 250ml vegetable stock
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 200g frozen peas
• Salt and Pepper

Directions

1. Melt the butter with the oil in a large saucepan (that has a lid!).
2. Add in the onion and garlic, and salt and pepper, and saute until translucent.
3. Stir through the rice and cook until the grains are “glistening” – basically until they look shiny.
4. Add the passata and stock and the teaspoon of dried basil, stir, and bring to the boil.
5. Put the lid on the pan, turn the temperature down, and set the timer for 15 minutes.
6. After 15 minutes, take the lid off and stir through the frozen peas.
7. Put the lid back on and cook for a further 5 minutes, or until the rice is soft.
8. Stir, and serve!

Thank you to thehipinfant.com.au for the recipe inspiration.