Bacon,Leek & Mushroom Risotto

Here's the Risotto recipe that you wanted Grace......enjoy the making & the eating........


Ingredients

• 1 onion & 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 leek
• 5 smoked rashers
• large punnet of mushrooms
• 150g Risotto rice (can be called aborio rice)
• chicken stock cube
• 60g Parmesan cheese (optional)
• Half teaspoon of chili powder
• Half teaspoon of smoked paprika
• Olive oil, salt & pepper

Method

1. Peel and cut the onion into small dice and crush the garlic.
2. Heat 50mls olive oil in a saucepan and add the onion, garlic, rice and plenty of salt & pepper, lower the heat and saute until the onions are soft. Stir well and add more oil if it's too dry.
3. Wash and trim the leek, cut into small dice and add to the saucepan, stir well.
4. Cut the bacon into bite size pieces and add to the saucepan, stir well.
5. cut the mushrooms into quarters and add to the pot, add the chili and paprika powders.
6. Add 200mls of water to the saucepan, it speeds up the process if you use boiling water. Stir well until the water is absorbed.
7. Add another 200mls of water and crumble the stock cube into the saucepan. Stir well and again the water will absorb into the rice. You may need to higher and lower the heat as need be.
8. Add another 200/300mls of water and stir well as before.
9. Taste the rice and if it's soft enough and the mixture is nice and moist then it's done. If the rice is done but it's very dry then add a little water (50mls) and heat. If the rice is not done and the mixture is dry then add 200mls of water and stir until the rice is cooked.
10. Grate the Parmesan cheese and add to the mixture (you can leave out the cheese if you like), stir well and Serve, you can garnish with more grated parmesan and chopped parsley. 

Fresh fruit salad & smoothie

Every fruit contains different vitamins and we need them all of them in small quantities, so it's better to eat a plate of mixed fruit than to have one full fruit, which may only provide one/two types of vitamins. If   fruit is eaten raw it provides more nutrients because the vitamins can be unstable in heat and therefore destroyed.


Ingredients

• 1 lemon & 1 orange
• 1 red apple & 1 pear
• 8 red & 8 green seedless grapes
• 2 kiwis
• 1 banana
• 1 mango  & 1 papaya & half a pineapple (optional these can be hard to find)
• half a melon
• handful of mint (optional)

Method

1. Squeeze the lemon & orange and put the juice into a bowl.
2. Wash the apple cut in half and then quarters and remove the core. cut into small dice (leave the skin on for the fiber), put immediately into the juice and mix well - this is to stop the apple going brown (must be fresh lemon juice to do this, the bottled one won't work)
3. Cut the banana if using and put mix well into the juice for the same reason as above.
4. Cut the pear in the same way as the apple and put into the bowl
5. Cut the melon in half and remove the pips then remove the skin and cut into small dice and add.
6. Wash the grapes, cut in half and add.
7. Take the skin off the kiwis and cut into thin slices or chunks and add.
8. Take the skin off the mango & papaya if using and cut into slices around the dense centre (they don't have a stone as such in the center, but you can't cut right through it and don't use the center). then cut into small pieces and add to the bowl.
9. If you think there is not enough liquid in the bowl you can squeeze another orange and add the juice to it.

As long as this doesn't sit out of the fridge for too long it will stay fresh in the fridge for a couple of days as the lemon juice acts as a natural preservative. Don't just have this as a dessert, it's a lovely change for breakfast for a snack during the day and easy to transport in a well sealed Tupperware.

Smoothie

You can put a couple of table spoons of this mixture into a jug and add a small natural yogurt and some orange juice (or any other juice eg. cranberry, apple etc). Then liquidize well with a hand blender. This is good to do if the fruit salad doesn't look fresh enough to serve on it's own