This was a momentous occasion – my very first risotto!

I made my Super Duper Butternut Squash and Goats Cheese Lasagna at the weekend and having bought a huge beast of a butternut squash, I was left with roughly half of it and no real desire to eat any more after overdosing on the lasagna ever so slightly. After Googling recipes that combined both leftover butternut squash and leftover bacon, the recipe that kept popping out at me was RISOTTO! I absolutely love risotto and often order it in restaurants. However, I’d never entertained the notion of cooking it myself as I knew it was a notoriously hard dish to conqour and despite seeing it cooked many times on TV, quite frankly I was scared. But, we had all the ingredients and I had an entire evening to kill so risotto it was!

I started by roasting the cubed butternut squash with a drizzle of honey while I began the risotto itself. I watched a combination of Youtube videos and read multiple recipes online so my final product was a kind of mish-mash of everything I’d seen. Luckily, it worked!

As I mentioned in a previous post I am On A Diet so made valiant attempts throughout the recipe to make it slightly lower-calorie and healthier. I failed immediately on the first hurdle when I realised you pretty much have to cook the onions in butter so you can then coat the rice in the oniony, buttery mixture to start the cooking process. So what started as a few feeble sprays of “1 Cal Spray!” turned into admitting defeat with two generous tablespoons of butter. Clover Light mind, but still butter.

I stirred the rice around in the pan with my softened onions and butter until the rice started to go translucent on the edges. It was go time! I assembled my other ingredients and mentally prepared myself for a lottttt of stirring. I used chicken stock which gave it a lovely rich flavour which worked really well with the bacon and the sweetness of the squash. I made approximately a pint of stock – I wasn’t using the correct amount of rice as I didn’t quite have the amounts the recipes called for so I adjusted the stock amount accordingly. I also skipped the wine step as I didn’t have any wine to hand (for once in my life…) and I don’t think it affected the flavour at all.

The next thirty minutes or so involved adding the stock to the pan in small amounts and stirring until it was absorbed, which I found incredibly theraputic! Here is the rice right at the beginning of the stirring stage, coated in butter and the softened onions.

In between stirring I grilled 4 slices of back bacon (fat removed! I know, so boring…) and kept an eye on my roasting squash. Once the cubes were soft and golden brown with delicious sticky honeyed edges, I removed them. I then had a dilemma as I wasn’t sure if I was going to puree the squash and add it to the rice or just add the cubes in whole. In the end, laziness won out and I minimised the YouTube window showing Gordon Ramsey’s butternut squash risotto with pureed squash. Sorry Gord!

I have to say this was a fabulous decision. The cubes softened slightly in the rice and broke up unevenly, leaving a mixture of almost indiscernible puree which acted as a thickener to the rice alongside larger, textured chunks. Lovely!

After a while I noticed the rice grains had really swelled in size and nearly doubled the amount in the pan which is really quite exciting to see. The butternut squash had broken up into the rice and turned it a lovely peachy, Autumnal colour.

I added the crispy chunks of grilled bacon into the pan and gave it a final glug of stock. (It felt a bit like I was feeding a ravenous animal every time the stock got absorbed which was pretty cool.)

I’m not sure how you know enough is enough when it comes to the stock adding, especially when you aren’t following a specific recipe and therefore have no idea how much stock you should have added in the first place. But, the final glug felt like the right time to stop, so I did!

I served my pretty greedy portion of risotto very simply with a garnish of excess bacon and butternut to break up the vast expanse of rice. I think it looked beautiful!

And more importantly, it tasted beautiful. I was initially worried that the combination of salty bacon and salty chicken stock would combine to create a crazy sodium-coma-inducing dish but I think the robust flavour of the butternut squash stood up to the salt and told it to pipe down. I was very very pleased with my first risotto and like everyone else who’s probably ever made one, am wondering why it’s taken me so long! This really is a simple dish and it’s good to know that you can mix and match recipes to create something more to your taste without sacrificing the final outcome.

Next on the risotto bucket list – Four Cheese (how can that not be incredible!?) and something involving chicken. I am no longer afraid of risotto!

Me and Ben recently spent a few stunning days by the sea in the beautiful coastal town of Weymouth. We stayed in an adorable caravan but spent most of the time exploring Weymouth and sampling a plethora of local treats and delicacies. The rain was shockingly bad but we didn’t let it stop us; luckily, when the rain came down, we were never far from a pub!

We ate in a lot of lovely places over the long weekend but for me, the standout meal was our dinner at Floods Restaurant. This is the number 1 restaurant in Weymouth according to Tripadvisor, high praise indeed! We tried to eat there on our first night but were told they were fully booked all that night and the next! Panic! I asked if we could possibly get a table for Sunday and we were able to snag an 8pm reservation. Success. I was so looking forward to it. I absolutely love seafood and seldom get the chance to sample anything near as fresh as I anticipated Floods would serve.

We arrived for our 8pm reservation and were shown to a lovely table for 2. The restaurant was very small with dim lighting and hushed murmurs from our fellow diners. We found it cosy and romantic, perfect for couples. There was a blackboard on the wall crammed with different options all based on that day’s fresh catches which we thought was a lovely touch. Although it did make it harder for me to pick what I wanted as some of the specials sounded amazing too!

I was delighted to see scallops offered on both the starter and main menus and quickly made the decision to indulge in my favourite food twice in one meal. Ben was also happy to see that there were a couple of veggie options for his starter and he was looking forward to the vegetarian main course of mushroom stroganoff – I had phoned up beforehand to enquire about the evenings offering as the online menu doesn’t specify.

For my starter, I chose the pan fried scallops, cooked in butter, garlic and white wine. The dream!

After I had removed the shell (love that presentation!) I was left with this.

The scallops were huge, tender and melt-in-the-mouth. I was wary of the coral having only ever had supermarket bought, coral-free scallops, but they were a delicious addition. The garlic butter was amazing and I made sure to soak up all the remaining juice with the fresh bread rolls we were served. I was in absolute heaven with this dish! I was gutted when I’d finished but I knew I had even more to come in my main dish!

Ben chose ale battered brie as his starter and was thrilled with the generous portion he recieved.

The brie was a creamy liquid inside the batter, oozing out teasingly when disturbed with his knife. It was served with a spicy homemade chutney, spicy and tangy, pairing perfectly with the creamy cheese.

For my main course I chose the monkfish wrapped in parma ham which came with even more scallops, balsamic glaze and a creamy, fragrant sauce.

This was an amazing dish. The parma ham infused the delicate monkfish with a lovely smokiness and the fish itself was cooked perfectly, flaking off underneath the ham with the gentlest nudge of my fork.

The scallops were once again served with the coral and were as delicious as the ones in my starter and the balsamic glaze was sweet, sticky and thick, just the way a glaze should be! We were served assorted spring vegetables and potatoes with our main courses and I particularly enjoyed the tiny roasted new spuds dipped in the glaze. This was a wonderful dish and has really made me want to start ordering fish and seafood more often when at restaurants. Normally I’m a steak girl but I need to remember how enjoyable and light fish can be.

When Ben was served his main course he was initially a bit put off by the presentation. I protested – how nice can mushroom stroganoff ever really look!? And we agreed they’d made a good effort with the shaped rice and sprinkle of paprika. He said it was absolutely delicious though and ate every last bite so I’m glad to report the appearance didn’t put him off too much! The sauce was rich and creamy with a strong earthy flavour from the mushrooms. We weren’t sure if the vegetables and potatoes went too well with a dish like this but he took some anyway!

Predictably, we were too full for dessert but they had 1 or 2 options I would loved to have tried, namely the chocolate pudding! And Ben wanted to try the lemon tart. We’ll just have to go back to sample them!