Phase 2, Week 1, Day 1

As I'm sitting here, typing this, it is bucketing down.  What's more it looks as if it's set for the rest of the day.  Who knows though?  The weather men don't seem to.

It's a bit of a contrast to yesterday when, apart from a couple of 'monkey's weddings' it was mostly dry and sunny all day.  The wind was also a little stronger than of late, as we battled against it on our, now customary, gambol down to the barrage.  With a slower time than normal for the same route (1:19 for 8.3 miles), the wind was definitely a factor.

Later that day I managed to get to work on the big pooter, as it's almost impossible to do anything other than sort photo's on the laptop I'm currently using.  My wife allowed me to swap with her so that I could edit and work on the wedding photo's I'd taken last and I've yet to show the happy couple.  The upshot of that was that after several hours of staring at a screen, working my way through hundreds of shots, I was left completely cream-crackered and I decided to forego the gym session, scheduled in for that day.  I may do an extra one on one of the rest days.

This allowed us to prepare diner earlier and the result was wonderful.  Asparagus and butternut squash risotto.

To do this we cut a medium butternut squash into small chunks (de-seeded but leaving the skin on), which we then tossed in some extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted in a moderate oven for about 20 to 25 minutes, shaking occasionally.  Whilst this was roasting we steamed about 6 or 7 large asparagus spears for about 5 mins, adding a veggie stock cube to the water (a little over 1 pint) when the 5 minutes was up, keeping it on a low heat.

In a wok or large pan we sweated off half a red onion, half a red pepper and some dried mixed herbs in some EV olive oil and then added 5oz of arborio rice, which we stir fried for about 4 or 5 mins.  This done, we added 2 ladles of the simmering stock, covered the pan, turned the heat down and allowed it to simmer until the liquid had been absorbed (stirring occasionally).  We repeated this process until all the stock was used up and the rice was swollen and tender.

When the last stock was added to the rice mixture, we added the asparagus, which we'd cut into 1 inch lengths.  A couple of minutes before we were about to dish it up we added some of the, now roasted, squash and served it with some grated cheese (fresh parmesan would be best) and a nicely chilled bottle of Pouilly Fumé.

Blinking lovely!