Red Wine and Mushroom Orzo
Ingredients:
1 red onion
4 gloves garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
200g closed cup mushrooms
1 small bottle red wine (187ml, usually)
500ml veg stock
3/4 cup orzo
1/2 bag spinach
Pinch of salt
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Method:
Peel and finely dice the onion. Peel and slice the garlic. Finely dice the mushrooms, stalks included.
In a pan, gently heat the oil with the onion and garlic. Sauté until soft.
Add half the wine and reduce almost completely.
Add the mushrooms and wine. Reduce by 3/4s (this will take a little longer than the first time as all the liquid from the mushrooms will be released).
Add the orzo, pinch of salt and mix everything well. Add the stock and simmer until the pasta is cooked.
Turn the heat off, add the spinach and wilt it in (overturn the pasta on top, the heat from it should do the trick).
Before serving, squeeze in some lemon juice, season with salt and a crack of pepper and enjoy!
A Bite Out of Life
Christmas 2021 - I don’t often eat vegan cheese; for me, it’s either dairy cheese or no cheese. I think vegan cheeses are plastic-y, highly processed and doesn’t quite resemble dairy cheese (yet). Because of this, I’ll eat dairy cheese when I fancy eating some. This Christmas, I put together a cheese board for me and my brother. I tend to structure my cheese boards with 5 cheeses, 3 types of crackers, 2 dips and pack the rest out with fruit, vegetable sticks and nuts. I even made my own vegan ‘honey’! On these boards I made Cranberry Wensleydale, Goat’s Cheese, Mini mozzarellas, Ibérico cheese and a Brie. Utterly delicious - even my brother, who is not a fan of ‘fancy’/’unusual’ foods had some hummus and carrot sticks (a first) and cheese on crackers - the magic of Christmas must’ve hit him a little harder than normal this year…!
