asparagus and feta risotto

There are some foods we only eat when they’re in season in the UK, and asparagus is one of them; thus we tend to rather gorge ourselves on it at this time of year.  Although we are back on a veg box, we couldn’t resist a big bunch of the glorious green stuff while we were mooching along Gloucester Road last weekend.

As my regular reader (waves to Giles!) will know, we like risotto - for two people, 5oz of risotto rice and 1 pint of liquid (and yes - I know I should go metric on this, but it’s easy to remember), and you’re away.

So - chopped up a red onion and sautéd it in some olive oil, while I chopped half the asparagus into manageable lengths, and cooked it for five minutes.  The liquid was the juice of half a lemon, about half a pint of apple juice, and topped up to the pint with water.  Usual process - add rice bit by bit, add stock till rice plump, rinse and repeat.  Before the last add, I hurled in the asparagus, and a dash of salt and pepper.

At the end, I stirred in half a block of feta cheese.  Fab.

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the rest of the asparagus

scrambled eggs and asparagus, originally uploaded by ramtops.

Well, we had it for lunch on Wednesday - I simmered it for five minutes, and I made some scrambled eggs with cream and butter, while Pete made some toast.

When the asparagus was ready, I’m afraid we tossed it in butter too; if you’re going to have a cholesterol attack, you may as well have a proper one.

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green beans and tomato

We’re a bit over veg’d this week, as we bought mushrooms and asparagus as well as the box, and so we’re starting to panic a bit over what’s left this week, given another box arrives tomorrow.  Think I’ll have to cancel next week’s …

Tonight, we looked at the large number of runner beans, and I used half of them thus:

Topped and tailed the beans, cut them into chunks of about - oh - 3cm, I guess, and simmered them for about six minutes.  While that was going on, Pete chopped an onion and some garlic, and I sautéd them in some olive oil till soft, then added a carton of passata (sieved tomatoes, for those who haven’t tried it).

Put some fusilli on to boil.

We had half a bunch of parsley in the fridge, left from making a beef stroganoff on Saturday (bad, bad …) - I wouldn’t normally buy parsley at this time of year, but mine has been slow to take off in the herb garden this year.   So Pete chopped up the remains and we added it to the tomatoey mix close to the end; added some fresh ground pepper too.

We topped it with grated parmesan, and it was really nice - very simple summer food. It would work with all sorts of veg, I reckon.

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we don’t know who caught it …

We heard a growling, and Lilith came hurtling up the stairs with a small (dead) bird in her mouth, and Ron in close pursuit; no idea who was making the noise, but we’ve never heard either of them sounding like that before!

We think Lilith dropped it, and Ron picked it up, and he wasn’t about to give it up .. we chased him round the house, even resorting to the squirty water thing, but the unfortunate bird remained clamped firmly in his jaws.  In the end, we shut him in the garden, and then had to watch through the patio doors as he consumed it with remarkable efficiency, leaving just a neat pile of feathers.  Not even a beak to be seen.  Impressive.

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