Risotto recipe, and other bits

I decided to try and make almond milk the other day, because, well, I can. It's going to be annoying going back to school next week and not having time to do much of this any more. Oh well :)

So I found a recipe here. The only thing is I only put in three cups of water and it was nice and creamy milk. Perhaps if I blended it a lot longer with more water the results would be the same. My blender only holds 3 cups of liquid in it, and two cups was pushing it! It comes out through the lid so I had to hold a tea towel around it. But that's fine, I could do it in batches. In the end I got about 2 cups of milk out of it, which was very tasty and rich. I added no sweetening, it doesn't need it. I used it in some porridge (1/2 soy, 1/2 almond) and it was fantastic. I don't know what to do with the meal. I've been banned from baking any more for a while (though I did make some peanut butter cookies for the animal shelter Nadine volunteers at with some almond meal in it - tasty!) Maybe I should just add it to my porridge when I make it. Could it go in a savoury dish? Probabaly.

I made a mushroom and sweet potato risotto the other night. It was good, but it never looks nice haha.

Mushroom and sweet potato risotto

Serves 6-8 (8 if you have sides, 6 if you're hungry)

500g arborio rice (you can get this for $2.50 at woolworths)

about 400g mushrooms, sliced

1 small sweet potato, diced small with skin left on

1 onion, diced

1 cup white wine (make sure it is vegan)

About 2 litres of 'chicken' stock

1 tbsp mixed herbs

1. Bring stock to a boil with herbs, and turn down to a simmer. Or just make it up and stir in the herbs.
2. Lightly fry the sweet potato and onion in some oil in  large pot (I used a stock pot) until onion is soft. Add the rice and stir for a few minutes until translucent. Turn heat to med-low.
3. Pour in white wine, stir, until absorbed. Put mushrooms in here.
4. Add stock about a cup at a time, letting each cup absorb before adding the next one. Do this until it's cooked - you have to always watch and stir because it sticks very easily. The only thing I hate about risotto :)
5. Serve garnished with parsley if you like.

I expected this to serve four, but we ended up with mountains of risotto. So one day soon we are going to put the leftovers in a pie. Mmm. Anything can go inside puff pastry :)

A friend of mine was staying with us for a few days, so yesterday we went on a picnic. It was nice and warm and sunny :) I made a potato salad.

Emma's creamy potato salad

Serves 2, or 3 as a small side

About 4 medium potatoes, scrubbed and diced as big as you like with skin left on. (Red potatoes are the best but I didn't have red ones this time.)

1/2 a small red onion, sliced as small as you like

2 spring onions, sliced

50-100g of extra firm tofu, diced small (how much do you like uncooked tofu?)

1 tsp seeded mustard

3-4tbsp vegan mayonnaise

I always steam the potatoes because I believe more nutrients are left in, rather than when you boil them and just pour them all off!

1. Steam potatoes, and let cool. I let them cool in a bowl on the bench and then put them in the fridge.
2. Prepare the rest of the ingredients. Put in bowl with potatoes. Stir until evenly coated.
3. Eat!

The tofu is to replace the hard boiled egg we always had in creamy potato salad when mum made it. I like to just eat tofu, but if you don't you can just leave it out.

My friend made dinner last night - so delicious! I'm going to make this one again. I don't have a recipe, but I could just eyeball it. The ingredients were: 1 can chickpeas, 1 onion, some garlic, some dessicated coconut, curry powder, can tomatoes, frozen peas, raisins, apples sliced really small, served on rice. This served about 4 :) Yumyumyum. It was a very attractive dish with the green peas :D