Roasted Butternut Squash & Goat's Cheese Risotto

Hubby is the undisputed Risotto King in our house.  I have to admit that I don't feel the need to learn how to make a risotto, as his are so superb I just couldn't match them.

This last one, for instance.  Goodness me, but each mouthful was a combination of salty, sweet, earthy, cheesiness.  Each mouthful is slightly different to another, depending on how much squash you take, or how much goat's cheese you take.  It's beyond me how anyone (for instance, on Celebrity Master Chef last night) could find risotto boring.  However, it obviously happens - and all I can think is that whatever they've been eating that they found so boring, couldn't possibly have been a true risotto!

The Butternut Squash was roasted in little dice shapes prior to being included in the risotto, which gave it that beautiful smokey flavour.  Hubby mashed half of the cooked butternut and mixed it into the risotto to boost the base flavour, but didn't use any of the goat's cheese in the risotto - just sprinkled it over the top with the remaining butternut.

There really is something comforting about a plate of lovely risotto.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH & GOAT'S CHEESE RISOTTO  (feeds 2)

Ingredients :

500g or so of butternut squash, peeled and cut into dice
1 tbsp olive oil
700ml vegetable stock (we used Marigold Vegetable Bouillion)
25g butter
2-3 small shallots, finely diced
150g arborio rice (or any risotto rice)
150ml white wine
25g finely grated parmesan cheese
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
creamy goat's cheese, sufficient to crumble over, to serve.


Method :


1.  Heat your oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas 7.

2.  In a bowl, toss the squash in the oil together with some seasoning.  Scatter into a shallow roasting tin and roast for 30 mins until it is brown and soft, just caramelised on the edges.

2.  Meanwhile, prepare the risotto. In a saucepan, bring the stock to the boil and keep on a low simmer.

3.  In a separate pan, melt half the butter over a medium heat. Stir in the shallots and sweat gently for 8-10 mins until soft but not coloured, stirring occasionally.

4.  Stir the rice into the shallots until completely coated in the butter, then stir continuously until the rice is shiny and the edges of the grain start to look transparent.


5.  Pour in the wine and simmer until totally evaporated. Add the stock, a ladleful at a time all the while stirring the rice over a low heat for 25-30 mins, until the rice is cooked al dente (with a slightly firm, starchy bite in the middle - which should be less bite, rather than more bite).

6.  The risotto should be creamy and slightly soupy. When you draw a wooden spoon through it, there should be a wake that holds for a few moments but not longer.
 
7.  When the squash is cooked, mash half of it to a rough purée and leave half whole. When the risotto is just done, stir though the purée, then add the parmesan cheese and butter and leave to rest for a few mins.

8.  Serve the risotto scattered with the whole chunks of squash and crumbled goat's cheese.


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Mouthwatering salad : New potato, bacon & goat's cheese.

I should really, by rights, call this salad "Twitter-created" as that is pretty much how it happened.

I was sitting here doing the menu for the coming week and had included Scotch Broth soup for the Wednesday evening.  However, that didn't seem right to me - after all, what if the weather turned really hot?  I wouldn't want to be sat over a soup pan for an hour or more - and everyone wouldn't really want to be tucking into bowls of steaming soup, when they were far more likely to fancy lazing around on the top shelf of the freezer.

So I began to think down the salad lines, but not your classic "lettuce, tomato, cucumber" salad.  I wanted to do more of a Jamie Oliver style main course salad that included interesting ingredients that you wouldn't have, upon first thought, necessarily put together. 

However, my brain just wouldn't conjure up an exciting combination.  I knew that we'd got a whole shed load of chicken on the menu, so I was trying to think of an alternative main meat ingredient.  Now I know that everyone loves bacon - and our butcher's bacon is just amazing, so that was a good start.  I considered Impossible Quiche, but I have to be in the mood for that - and I just wasn't.

My eyes strayed to the computer screen, where Twitter was open.  So I asked - of the general Twitterati - "@JennyEatwell is trying to think of a salady thing that doesn't involve lettuce, that is a main meal. ~ponders~".  Almost instantly, came suggestions from @presentsqueen, @TheSourceLeeds, @CarolineTecks, @Scarlie_Maere and @rmrezendes, suggesting things like chicory, fennel, new potatoes, citrus dressing, feta cheese, baby spinach and others.


So began the compilation of my Wednesday evening's dinner.  After many suggestions, exclamations of approval, expressions of doubt and alternative suggestions, we came up with a salad which involved a bed of baby spinach & watercress (so good for you), with baby plum tomatoes (so sweet), roasted Jersey new potatoes (so gorgeously earthy) and red onion (so savoury), crispy bacon (so salty), sauteed chestnut mushrooms (earthy again, but a different kind) - all topped off with crumbled creamy goat's cheese (so gorgeous) and a dressing made from wine vinegar (red, in this case) and wholegrain mustard (so tart).



You're salivating, aren't you.  I know I was!

The reality proved to be every bit as tasty as the imaginary creation - in fact, it surpassed my expectations.  It was one of those salads that, every forkful you took, contained different mixtures of flavour that all went so superbly well together.  It was impossible to become tired of eating it.  In fact, where the bacon was concerned, hubby declared himself reluctant to swallow on occasion, so as to live with that gorgeous flavour for as long as possible.  The onion and the goat's cheese, the tomato and the goat's cheese, the potatoes and the bacon, the bacon and the tomato - every bit was as gorgeous as its neighbour.  The spinach and watercress leaves were gently dressed with the red wine vinegar and mustard, which served as a beautiful palate cleanser as you progressed through the meal.

Two cook's notes - firstly, I prefer to use muddy Jersey Royals as they seem to have the best flavour.  For the cost of having to scrub them in the sink, they are well worth the benefits you get in flavour.  Secondly, the goat's cheese I used was a little square one that I got from Asda, called "Poitou-Charentes".  It's one of their "extra special" range and is perfect for the job.


I'm going to ask the Twitterati to create my dinners more often, if this is what they come up with!


NEW POTATO SALAD WITH BACON & GOAT'S CHEESE  (feeds 3)


Ingredients :


500g muddy Jersey Royal new potatoes, scrubbed and halved (or quartered, in my case, as they were mahoosive!)
a drizzle of olive oil
2 red onions, cut into 6 wedges each
12 baby plum tomatoes, halved
a pack of back bacon, diced
140g chestnut mushrooms, sliced finely
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
3 big handfuls of watercress & spinach salad leaves
85g creamy goat's cheese
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper.


Method :


1.  Pre-heat the oven to 200deg C.

2.  Place the new potatoes onto a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil and season.  Roast in the oven for 20 minutes, then remove the tray and add the onion pieces.  Give everything a shake and return to the oven for another 20-25 minutes' roasting.  When done, let them cool for a few minutes, before adding to the salad.


3.  While the potatoes are roasting, dry fry the bacon until crispy.  Remove from the pan and keep warm.


4.  Add the mushrooms to the pan and saute them on a high heat until they are softened and lightly caramelised.  Remove from the pan and keep these warm, too.


5.  Make the dressing by whisking the mustard and vinegar with a little water to let it down sufficiently to drizzle.


6.  Place the salad leaves into a large bowl and drizzle 2 tsp of the dressing over.  Toss to coat the leaves lightly, then pile onto the plates - a handful for each plate.


7.  The add the tomatoes, potatoes, onion, mushrooms and bacon, finally crumbling the goat's cheese over the top.


8.  Add a last drizzle of the dressing, and serve.


Utterly, utterly divine.


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Chicken, bacon, chicken & prawns, chicken, pork, chicken twice over : Looks like it's chicken, this week!

I do seem to have gone a bit mad on the chicken in this week's Menu Plan, but that's just the way it happened.  ~shrug~  I suspect that it's part and parcel of trying to think of meals that aren't too "bad for you".  Inevitably, you wind up with an awful lot of chicken - especially as fish has rocketed in price just lately.

Now, to finish off last week - we had the Chicken, Fennel & Tomato Ragu on Sunday evening, which had a mixed reception.  A third of the way into making the dish, hubby announced that he's never found a chicken/tomato recipe that he's really enjoyed - and although he loves fennel, he wasn't sure how it would all come together.  Well, he was right in a lot of ways - although just after suffering from food poisoning wasn't perhaps the best time to try this recipe out!


Just cutting up the chicken had me wishing we'd had sausages for that meal instead, but I soldiered on.  Incidentally, I've discovered that when cutting up ingredients that are fresh from the fridge, they have the capacity to make my hands lose sensation.  You can't imagine how difficult it is to chop up chicken breasts when you can't hold the darned things still!  I've still got all my fingers though, so my strategy of dunking my hands in warm water to thaw them out, obviously worked.


The dish was nice enough - the fennel was lovely and made a very pleasant change.  Having been a bit acidic, the addition of a teaspoon of sugar helped to iron that out.  However, "okay" wasn't really what I was going for with it, regrettably.


Incidentally, the Maribell jacket potatoes were gorgeous.  Rub them with olive oil, cover with salt and pepper and roast in a hot oven for an hour - fabulous!


Now then, what different incarnations of chicken are we having for this week's menu plan?  I hear you ask.  Well, maybe you didn't, but I'm going to tell you anyway.  Here's how it shapes up :

Tuesday : Pesto chicken with roast tomatoes and couscous

Wednesday : New Potato Salad with Bacon & Goats' Cheese

Thursday : Spanish Paella-inspired ricey thing

Friday : Sticky chinese chicken & thai carrot salad

Saturday : Pork with lemongrass & cinnamon, with rice (from Adora's Box)

Sunday : Pot roast chicken, roast parsnips & potatoes, broccoli & peas

with sausagemeat stuffing balls

Monday : Coronation chicken, pitta bread and salad.

<insert short break to collect a glass of Canti Zinfandel Rose>

Now, where was I?  ~sips daintily~  Ah yes!  The Pesto Chicken.

It being Tuesday, we've done the shopping and so begins a new week of striving to produce delicious dinners that don't cost the earth, that everyone enjoys and (no point in lying) that will be interesting to blog about.

I must just recount what happened to us today though.  Hubby will probably have my hide for telling you this, but part-way through the shopping, I went back to the herbs aisle to see if some Basil had been put out as there wasn't any on our first pass.  As I turned around to go catch up with hubby, I saw an unaccompanied trolley that looked to have inside it everything that we'd selected earlier.  "How funny!" I thought.  Can't be OUR trolley, because hubby's driving that further up the shop - so I didn't say anything about it.  Fast forward to hubby loading the shopping into the car and looking for the sausage rolls he'd bought.  He came to the conclusion that he must have left a bag of shopping behind, but couldn't believe he could have done so, so we didn't go back to check.  Upon getting home and emptying out all the bags, he discovered that a whole bagful was missing.  "It's got the ham, the fruit fools, the cheese spread, the greek yoghurt ...." he was saying, when I got a flashback to that trolley I saw.  Sure enough, he'd made off with someone else's trolley (which had to be empty at the time, as we didn't have any odd shopping), leaving ours to sit - where I spotted it on my trip back for the Basil!  How much do I wish I'd have said about it?  It would have saved another trip (to Sainsbury's, this time) for shopping!  Still, it's quite funny, all the same.

So, after seemingly shopping all day, I made the Pesto Chicken and couscous.  My hand problem made stuffing the chicken breasts with the squidgy pesto/mascarpone mixture nigh on impossible, but at least some of it got in there!  I am so going to have to get a piping set!  It's a really lovely dish, this one, in that the chicken stays beautifully moist and the roast tomatoes are just divine.  The couscous was made after the style of Ottolenghi's Green Couscous, but to my own recipe this time.  I used all Italian flavourings, like basil, grana padano cheese and pine nuts along with sliced onion & mushroom fried in a little olive oil.  Add a squeeze of lemon just before serving and everyone approved.  Well, except for son & heir's hate of the humble mushroom.  He was able to remove his mushrooms fairly easily though.

Watch the blog, as I'll be detailing the recipe as my next blog post.

I'm really quite excited about tomorrow's salad, as it was created with the help of four or five Twitter pals, whose suggestions for "a salad that doesn't involve salad leaves" came together in the dish I'll be making on Wednesday.

It's going to involve Jersey Royal new potatoes - but roasted, not boiled.  Some gorgeous butcher's bacon grilled until crispy, mushrooms, roasted red onion and watercress & spinach salad (neither of which count as a "salad leaf", alright?), all dressed in a mustard & red wine dressing, with creamy goat's cheese crumbled over the top.  I can't wait!

Hubby has a recipe in mind for Thursday, which involves something along the lines of a Spanish Paella, except with just chicken and prawns.  You know when you have a picture in your mind and a flavour on your tongue, but you can't quite put it into words?  Well that's it.  We'll just have to wait and see what turns up at the end of it - but it should be good, as we've even invested in some saffron!

Oooh dear, then it's Friday.  ~quake~quiver~  I'm skeered of Friday, because Alfie the Amalfi Lemon Coloured Skoda goes in for his MOT.  I may very easily not have any fingernails left, after this day.  Nor any cash left in my bank account.  However, I will be having a lovely dinner - consisting of yummy Sticky Chinese chicken with a lovely Thai carrot salad, which involves rice noodles and peanuts.  Yum!

Photo c/o BBC Good Food website

The chicken is simplicity itself to make - I just need to remember to make it early so that it can marinade.  The salad is just a matter of grating a whole heap of carrots, soaking the rice noodles and assembling the rest of the ingredients.  I should be able to do that, even with a diabolical stress headache - which I anticipate being the owner of, by then.

Still, the happy news is that by Saturday it will all be over and we'll know where we stand regarding the work that Alfie needs to have done - and more to the point, how much it's going to cost!

To celebrate, I'm planning on making use of the lovely Adora's Box blog, where her Pork with Lemongrass and Cinnamon has caught my eye.  You can find the recipe here.  Looks good, doesn't it?  I'll let you know how I get on with it!

I've stayed away from roast dinners for quite some time now, and this coming Sunday we'll be having a pot roast chicken for two reasons.  One, because I am missing roast chicken, two, because I'm missing roast parsnips and three, because we can have Coronation chicken for tea on Monday!

Son & heir adores Coronation chicken and I have to admit that I'm a sucker for it myself.  Hubby isn't quite so enamoured of it, but I'm hoping that if I make sure that the pitta breads are more manageable than the usual "resembling a bus crash" that I usually turn out, he might look upon the whole experience in a more favourable light.  In fact, thinking on, I could always make them into Coronation chicken wraps, instead!  Still a bit messy and squidgy, but at least they're capable of being eaten with a knife and fork!  Do you know, I may well do that.

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Bacon & Goat's Cheese Pasta

This is one of my favourite lighter pasta dishes, at the moment.

It has the benefit of the lovely gently flavoured mild goat's cheese (I use the £1.50 soft goat's cheese log from Asda, which I believe originates in France) which melts beautifully and doesn't soak into the pasta, resulting in a claggy, sticky mess as the pasta cools.  Because the goat's cheese has a sharpness, it doesn't cling to your palate and each mouthful goes down as well as the first one did.

I hate pasta in thick cream sauces (particularly cream cheese-based ones) which begin to set as the pasta cools on your plate, resulting in a clagged up lump of pasta pieces that need to be cut with your fork.  Bleaugh.

The recipe originally stated to use Kale, and although I love Kale, hubby has some issues with its leatheriness.  As such, I swapped onto Savoy cabbage - which if you make sure to give it just 3 minutes in the pasta water, is perfectly fine.

So, it's just a brief chopping job, then a two-pan cooking job - and onto your plate.

Couldn't be easier!  Which is why I booked it in for a Monday - after a day at work, I need a meal that's going to come together easily.

Don't be frightened of the goat's cheese - if you get a mild flavoured creamy one, you'll hardly notice the goatiness of it.  It really is streets ahead of plain ordinary cream cheese.

BACON & GOAT'S CHEESE PASTA (Serves 3-4)


Ingredients :


400g penne or fusilli pasta
200g shredded Savoy cabbage
150g streaky bacon, chopped
1 medium red onion, chopped
150g soft mild goat's cheese
grated parmesan to serve.


Method :


1.  Bring a large pan of lightly salted water to the boil.


2.  Cook the pasta according to the manufacturer's instructions, however, 3 minutes before the pasta is due to be cooked, add the cabbage to the pasta water.


3.  In the meantime, dry-fry the bacon pieces in a frying pan until starting to brown, then drain the fat off (into a cup for roast potatoes!).  Remove the bacon to keep warm.


4.  Put the onion into the frying pan with 2 tsp of the bacon fat and fry lightly until softened and transparent.  Return the bacon to the pan.


5.  Add the goat's cheese to the bacon/onion mixture and heat slowly, adding a little milk, to help break the cheese down and make it saucy.  Add seasoning (salt & black pepper) to taste.

6.  Once the pasta & cabbage are done, drain (retaining a little of the cooking water) and replace in the cooking pan.  Add the bacon mixture and lightly fold it through, adding a little of the cooking water if the sauce appears too thick.

Once you're happy with the consistency, serve with a bowl of grated parmesan for sprinkling over.


Yummy!