Easy peas-y risotto

This is a great, very adaptable recipe thats extremely healthy (chock full of vegetables) and also very filling due to the plumped up risotto rice.

The things that you always need to make risotto are risotto rice, olive oil, an onion or red onion, some stock granules or cubes, and ideally some cheese/herbs. As long as you have those things you can create your own customised risotto with whatever else you have to hand – making this a perfect store-cupboard standby meal that you can make when the cupboards look otherwise bare.

I used frozen vegetables (peas, carrots and broccoli) plus fresh peppers, sweet potato, and courgette. You could use entirely frozen veg, or its also really nice to use whatever veg is currently in season. For an indulgent version of risotto, you can add some cream and parmesan into the mix too!

Here’s what I used to make it

• 1 small bag (500g) risotto rice (I used a tesco one and it was arborio rice)
• 5 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp garlic puree
• 2 small red onions, finely chopped
• 1 yellow and 1 red pepper, chopped
• Half a sweet potato, chopped
• 200g mixed frozen peas, broccoli and carrots
• 300g tomato pasta sauce, or passata
• 650ml chicken (or any kind of) stock

First, gently fry the onions in some olive oil with the garlic before adding the peppers, sweet potato and courgette to cook. Boil the kettle to make your stock while they’re cooking.

Next, add in the rice (full amount) to the pan (seems weird, just do it!). Stir around the rice until it gets coated with the olive oil and vegetable juices and then start adding the stock a bit at a time, keeping an eye on the risotto and stirring occasionally (it should be on a medium heat, not a high one or the rice will stick to the bottom of the pan) while it cooks and absorbs all the liquid.

This made enough risotto to serve four people generously, or in my case, two people with plenty of leftovers! I used some of the leftovers to make a risotto burger (just smushed into a burger patty and cooked in a pan until browned on both sides) which my friend said was very tasty!

Marty and Milo didn’t get any risotto, and they look mighty unhappy about it