Child Friendly Risotto

Bacon and Courgette Risotto with Parmesan Cheese

After a day at home feeling like poo (I have caught my son's virus) I picked up my children from school and kindergarden, and asked them what they'd like for dinner.  'Rice' was the response.  My youngest would live on boiled rice given the opportunity.  How boring but I can understand the appeal of steaming bowl of rice.  Then it dawned on me that I had not infact made a Risotto for a very long time.  And that my children should expand their eating horizons.  So a look through the cupboards found some arborio rice (a must for an authentic risotto), some bacon and courgettes.  As my children are allergic to all things green, I ended up peeling and grating the courgettes in an attempt to disguise them. 

Arborio Rice for making authentic Risotto

Bacon and Courgette Risotto

Ingredients
1 onion chopped
1 tablespoon garlic oil
2 courgettes peeled and grated
100g bacon pieces (fat removed)
200g arborio rice
4 cups warm chicken stock
knob butter
parmesan cheese

Method
Saute the bacon, onions and courgettes in the garlic oil until soft.  Add the rice and fry for a minute or so until the rice is coated.  Slowly start adding the stock a soup ladle at a time, stirring until the stock is absorbed before adding the next ladle full.  It should take 20 minutes for the rice to absorb all the stock.  Once the risotto is fully stocked, add a knob of butter and stir through until melted.  Check the flavour.  It may not need salt as the bacon and stock are quite salty.  It should require a grind or two of black pepper.  Serve in a bowl with grated parmesan cheese sprinkled over the top.

Risotto before adding the Cheese

As I felt the need for greens myself, I ended up adding some chopped baby spinach leaves to my bowl.

Risotto with baby spinach leaves added

Spinach Ricotta Gnocchi

This started off with a healthy dinner in mind, but headed rapidly south when i started adding the cheeses!   Oh dear, not expecting miracles at my weigh in tomorrow, it's been a bit of a naughty week with the highlight being Sunday when I spent the afternoon parked on my bottom bits outside a wood fire pizza oven in satan's garden tasting a sample of every pizza making it's way out of the embers.  It was a true gastronomic apocalypse.

Anyway, back to tonight's dinner.  Spinach gnocchi made out of frozen spinach (thawed and drained) mixed with ricotta, parmesan, egg and flour.  Shaped into balls, simmered slowly in boiling water and then placed in a baking dish and smothered in tomato sauce and more parmesan.  Sounds good, tastes good too!

Ingredients for gnocchi
500g bag of frozen spinach
250g ricotta cheese
100g grated parmesan
2 eggs
150g flour
freshly grated nutmeg
salt and pepper

1 Bottle of your favourite tomato pasta sauce (I like the one with four cheeses as you don't have to add to much more cheese)
Grated parmesan to scatter over the top

Method
Thaw the spinach and squeeze out all the water.  Chop spinach finely before mixing it with the rest of the gnocchi ingredients in a mixing bowl.  Put in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Remove gnocchi mix from fridge and form into small balls.  Dust each ball with flour and place on a baking sheet.  Once you have shaped all the gnocchi, poach the balls for about 5 minutes in boiling water.

Once the gnocchi has been poached, remove from saucepan with slatted spoon and place in a baking dish. 

Cover the gnocchi with your favourite pasta tomato sauce and sprinkle over parmesan.

Bake at 180 for 30 minutes and serve with a green salad.