Squish Squash

Among the pile of newspapers, magazines and books beside my bed I unearthed an unread copy of February's Delicious magazine. While browsing through I came across this recipe for an unconventional 'risotto' made with pearl barley. We are making a concerted effort in this house to broaden our carbs from the usual pasta, spuds and white rice so I thought I'd give this a try. And the result? This is definitely a keeper, the barley retains a nutty bite which contrasts well with the sweetness of the squash - although I did alter the proportions slightly to increase the squash to barley ratio.

Pearl barley risotto with roasted squash, red peppers and rocket (adapted from the Feb 08 edition of Delicious)
serves 2
350g peeled butternut squash, cubed
1 red pepper, cut into chunks
olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
175g pearl barley
750ml hot vegtable stock
flat-leaf parsley
2 handfuls rocket
Parmesan

• Preheat oven to 180°
• Coat squash and peppers in oil and season, roast for about 35 mins
• Heat 1 tbsp oil and add onion, garlic and thyme leaves and cook till soft
• Add barley and cook for 1 min
• Add one ladleful of stock, stir and simmer until absorbed
• Continue adding the stock one ladelful at a time until it is all absorbed (this should take about 40 mins) and there is still a 'bite' to the barley (I then needed an extra 100ml of water to cook the barley to the texture I wanted)
• Stir in the parsley, squash and peppers
• Serve topped with rocket and Parmesan
  

Now this left me with half a butternut squash so I used the foodblogsearch (see below) to find myself a soup recipe. I found this lovely one for 'Roasted butternut squash with smoked paprika' from glutenfreegirl and just made a half portion. If you read her instructions she advises straining it through a mesh sieve. Boring though it may be this really is needed as the initial blended mixture has a texture like baby food. I only strained half of mine before I got bored - this was enough for a pourable soup but if I was making it for guests I would strain the whole lot. It's a lovely soup, the smoked paprika adds some depth and takes the edge off the sweetness of the squash.

Pea and Pesto Soup

While flicking through my copy of Nigella's Express The Doc exclaimed "Oh, that looks good". 'That' was her pea and pesto soup and with the weather being the way it is what is better for a Sunday lunch than a nice warming bowl of soup? She advises using deli-bought pesto here, I used rocket pesto as my local deli had sold out of the standard basil variety and my basil at home is looking very sad at the moment. The flavour of the soup was good but the consistency was too watery (I have suggested 600ml rather than the 750ml water that I used). And I served it with some simple Bruschetta Al Pomodoro.

600 ml water
375g frozen peas
2 spring onions, trimmed
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp lime juice
60ml pesto

• Bring the water to the boil in a pan
• Add the peas, spring onions, salt and lime juice
• Simmer for about seven minutes
• Remove spring onions, add pesto and blend

She says this serves 2, but we had another bowlful left over