I thought I'd share another lovely vegetarian recipe with you today...
Hubby and I are currently trying hard with calorie counting in order to shed our 'baby weight' (men put on baby weight too!!). We're both doing well; so far I have lost 2 stones 6lbs (that includes about a stone of baby/icky birth stuff), and hubby has lost 1 stone 10lbs - so it's obviously working. (Phew!)
What is helping to achieve our goals?
-sticking within our calorie goals on 'My Fitness Pal' as often as possible
-drinking plenty of water
-trying to get regular exercise
-not drinking too much alcohol
-being organised with our cooking and food shopping
-eating a few vegetarian meals each week
-eating lots of fresh food, prepared from scratch
-trying hard not to snack between meals
-controlling our portion sizes
-avoiding processed foods as much as possible
Saying that, I've managed to consume an afternoon tea, a few glasses of wine, a takeaway curry, chocolate cake and a mini Christmas pudding in the past few weeks - so I'm not THAT virtuous!
Courgette and Herb Risotto
One of our favourite veggie meals at the moment is Courgette and Herb Risotto from the Hamlyn '200 Budget Meals' all colour cookbook by Sunil Vijayakar (available for £3.52 from Amazon).
It's a great recipe which is absolutely FULL of flavour and doesn't suffer from its lack of meat at all. It takes around 30 minutes to make including time to chop everything etc, and feeds 4 hungry people!
INGREDIENTS
4 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
350g risotto rice
200ml white wine
1.5 litres vegetable stock
200g baby leaf spinach
100g courgettes, diced
50g parmesan cheese
1 small handful of dill, mint and chives, roughly chopped
salt and pepper
METHOD:
Melt the butter with the oil in a saucepan, add the onions and garlic and cook for about 3 mins.
Add the rice and stir until rice is fully coated in the buttery mix.
Add the wine and cook on a high heat until all the wine has evaporated, stir constantly!
Add the hot stock a ladleful at a time, and stir constantly until each addition of stock has been throughly absorbed by the rice. Continue until you have used all the stock and the rice is creamy (around 20 minutes).
slowly adding my stock to the rice, one ladleful at a time
Stir in the chopped spinach and courgette and cook for a further 3-5 minutes.
Remove from the heat and stir in the parmesan and herbs.
Season to taste and serve immediately.
T'ah D'ah!
We usually serve ours with some garlic bread, or other yummy accompaniment, although this recipe really does make 4 ample portions, so is great by itself without anything on the side (we're just fat pigs!) Hehe.
our risotto cooked this week, served with some jalapeno peppers stuffed with cream cheese on the side, yum!!
Do have a go if you fancy something super-scrummy - this risotto is true comfort food, a real winter warmer!
Happy stirring!
Mrs B
xxx
