Zucchini Risini

When I am on holiday, and self-catering, I like to make the meals easy most of the time, so that I am not chained to the kitchen! On Sunday at Church, Gwen brought some huge courgettes from her garden [not quite MegaMarrows, but…] I put one in my bag to bring to Cornerstones. It was over 30cm long and weighed nearly 720g

I had some risini in the cupboard [also known as risoni, or orzo] it is a rice-like pasta. So I looked up a few risotto recipes on the net and came up with this simple dish for our meal on Monday. I cut the courgette [also known as zucchini] in half and put clingfilm on the cut end of the section which was returned to the fridge.

• small onion, finely chopped
• olive oil
• 180g courgette, coarsely grated
• 140g risini pasta
• 180g courgette, diced
• 3 mushrooms, diced
• handful of sage leaves
• tbsp cottage cheese [leftover- you could use marscapone, or creme fraiche or similar]
• 2oz grated cheese [I had some cheddar, parmesan might be more authentic]
• 750ml stock [for once, I used a cube & boiling water]

METHOD – you need a large and a small frying pan

1. heat a tbsp oil in the larger pan
2. cook the onion for 3 mins, add the grated courgette cook further 2 mins
3. stir in the risini, and half the stock
4. bring to boil, keep at simmering point, stirring frequently
5. stir in most of remaining stock, and half the mushrooms
6. when the pasta is soft and most of the liquid has bubbled away, stir in the cottage cheese, turn down the heat
7. in the smaller pan, heat a little oil, and cook the diced courgettes, mushrooms and sage leaves
8. add stock to the large pan to release any bits stuck on the bottom, and the ‘risotto’ is creamy
9. serve into two warmed bowls.
10. spread the fried veg on top
11. serve with grated cheese for sprinkling
12. wait for compliments

This really tasted good – and was followed up by a yogurt and a few melon slices to nibble.

The cupboard is full of orange ‘basics’ stuff, all delivered by the nice chap from Sainsburys at 9am on Monday!Zucchini Risini sounds much more interesting than Courgette Orzo