Cauliflower & Almond Risotto

Last week Stew unfortunately fractured his wrist which has meant that I've had to cook solo this week. Queue frantically browsing Pinterest for inspiration!

My first experimental dish was this indulgent cauliflower and almond risotto. We'd never made a risotto before, so I was even more eager to get nail it! Which I can safely say I did. It was cooked to perfection and tasted amazing.

Although it didn't take too long to make (maybe 45mins total), it did involve a lot of manual labour! Who knew you have to continually stir risotto... Not me! So bear in mind this dish involves about 25-30 minutes of stirring. Just think of the exercises! It certainly helped burn off the calories in preparation.

Ingredients (serves 4):

• 1 cauliflower head, chopped into small chunks
• 1 red pepper, chopped into small chunks
• Half a tub of mushrooms, quartered
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 bunch of sage
• 1 handful of flaked almonds
• 300g risotto rice
• 1.5 litres chicken stock (you could use vegetable stock too)
• 40g Parmesan
• 60g butter
• 125ml white wine
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees and place the cauliflower in a roasting dish with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and mix together thoroughly and place in the oven for 12-15 minutes.
2. Add the red pepper, mushrooms, flaked almonds and the leaves from half of the bunch of sage (not the half you've chopped). Stir together and place back in the oven for a further 8-10 minutes.
3. Once this is cooked, turn the oven off but keep the dish in the oven to stay warm.
4. Melt the butter in a large pan on a medium heat and add the onion. Cook until lightly browned.
5. Add the chopped sage, the risotto rice and white wine. Mix together thoroughly.
6. Begin to add the stock to the large pan one cup at a time. At this point you will need to keep stirring the mixture and add more stock as soon as it has almost soaked the previous cup's worth up. This should take around 25-30 minutes until the rice is cooked. Check on the texture though as it may cook sooner, in which case you don't have to use all of the stock. We found we had a bit left over.
7. Stir the Parmesan through and serve the risotto rice in a large dish. Place the cauliflower mixture on top and you can add some more flaked almond if you wish, and season with a bit more black pepper.