Love Food Hate Waste: Sausage and Chicken Risotto

Following my post about the Love Food, Hate Waste campaign I’ve been making good use of leftovers and those vegetables at the back of the fridge over the last few weeks. But I must admit I haven’t been good all the time and there have been a couple of occasions when I’ve been very annoyed with myself because I’ve had to throw stuff out. My problem is over-buying and it’s a hard habit to get out of, but Rob and I are both more determined than ever to cut down on our waste. We have, however, been very good with our recycling I’m pleased to report. All our food waste is now going into compost recycling bins which is great.

I cooked a chicken yesterday so of course risotto was the thing for tonight. I pulled all the meat off the chicken then made a stock. Rob, feeling rather hungry I think, suggested we use some of the sausages in the fridge in the risotto. Sausage and chicken risotto is a first on me but the more I thought about it the more I thought it was a great idea. The herbs in my garden have really taken off (must be all the rain and sunshine we’ve had) and the leaves on the sage plant have got really big, so they were perfect to go into the risotto with the sausages and chicken.



The risotto was simple enough; half a chopped onion, rice, a slosh of vermouth, the chicken stock, 2 finely chopped sage leaves, the leftover chicken thrown in halfway through and heated well, sausages cooked slowly in a separate pan and then cut into bite sized pieces and thrown in, salt and pepper then a handful of chopped parsley at the end. And delicious it was too!

Discovering Pea Shoots

I’ve been meaning to post about these very lovely green shoots from pea plants ever since I discovered them a month or so ago at a branch of Waitrose. Instantly intrigued I picked up a bag along with some smoked salmon and asparagus for a salad (which I later added some quails eggs to). And I’m so glad I did. It’s quite fascinating; they really do have a distinct taste of sweet peas. They’re delicate and tender and make a lovely change in a salad. I'm looking forward to picking up some more.

Coincidently, the other day I noticed, when reading my favourite blogs in Google Reader, that Hannah from Hannah's Country Kitchen had blogged about pea shoots and is a fan of them. She was urging her readers to try them if they came across them and listed a site completely dedicated to them! Take a look at www.peashoots.com to find out more.

In the Bag: Cooking the Month of June

Well here we are in June and it's time for another bag of seasonal produce to get your creative juices flowing. This month we're feeling sweet - take a peek inside the bag:

Strawberries
White chocolate

Mmm...I can't wait to see what you make.

Entry Details
Make a dish using the ingredients and blog about it then send an email with ‘In the Bag in the subject line to asliceofcherrypie AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk by Monday 30th June with the following information:

• your name
• a link to your post
• the name of your dish
• a picture of your dish

Rules
Here are the loose rules - but ultimately remember the objective is to have fun whilst highlighting seasonal food:

1. Participants should attempt to use all the ingredients 'in the bag' for that particular month, but may leave one out if they prefer. The dish should be based around the seasonal ingredient, with it acting as a central ingredient.

2. Participants can include any "extra" ingredients that they see fit.

3. Entries should include a link back to the host for that month, and the post should be tagged "In the Bag".

4. Entries can be written any time during the month, as long as the URL is emailed to that month's host before the closing date.

5. Particpants from outside of the UK are most welcome to join in and substitute an item from their own local seasonal produce if necessary.

'In The Bag' is a food event run monthly by 'A Slice of Cherry Pie' and 'Real Epicurean'.

Nom, Nom, Nom…The Results!

After the planning, the menu designing, the shopping, the cooking, the eating, the partying, the recording, the blogging and the voting (phew!), the results are in and the winners of the Nom, Nom, Nom event are…

1st place – Team 7 ‘Cream Team’
2nd place – Team 3 ‘England meets Italy’
3rd place – Team 6 ‘Go Team 6’

Sara and I are delighted to have reached second place in the midst of such fantastic (and tough) competition. A very big congratulations to Team 7 and Team 6!

I’d like to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who voted for Team 3 – England meets Italy, to everyone who participated –the teams and the voters – and especially to the organisers TrustedPlaces and Going Underground and everyone who made the event possible.

Finally thank you to everyone who has donated to Action Against Hunger, the charity the event is sponsoring. There’s still time to donate if you’d like to, just pop over to the Just Giving Nom, Nom, Nom site