Our puppy Evie has been limping on and off for the last 3 months. She's had tons of vet visits to try to figure out what the problem was - we finally found out she has elbow dysplasia, and had to get a fragment of bone removed from both of her elbows. After the surgery she was going to need 8 weeks of recovery time, keeping an extremely hyperactive 11 month old puppy quiet and calm, plus doggy physio. And the surgery was going to cost tons of money, plus all the previous vet visits, plus the physio.. Argggghhhh!
So as you guys probably know, I'm vegetarian but Kai is not. I'm regularly asked by people, how do we manage? What do we eat? Well surprisingly, it's really not that difficult! We just cook a vegetarian meal, cook meat on the side, then combine the meat with one bowl of food. Easy!
Risotto is meant to be quite difficult but it's actually really not. The main thing is to just stirring regularly and add stock slowly. This is also a great starter recipe - you can adapt this with any vegetables or meats you want, once you've got the base recipe sorted.
4 tbsp olive oil
225g aborio rice, dry
1 individual spring onion, raw
1/2 small pumpkin
2 clove fresh garlic, crushed
3 individual vegetable stock cubes
1 large handful spinach leaves
100g pine nuts
salt and pepper to taste
parmesan cheese to taste
1. Preheat oven to 220 degrees.
2. Dice pumpkin and spread evenly on a baking tray. Splash with 1 tbsp olive oil, and mix in 1 clove fresh garlic and salt and pepper to taste. Cook in oven for 20-30 minutes or until roasted.
3. Dissolve the stock cubes in 850ml of hot water.
4. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a frypan and add the pine nuts. Lightly toast them, stirring regularly. Keep a close watch as they can burn easily! Once toasted to taste, put them on a plate with paper towel to soak up the oil.
5. Using the same frypan, add another tbsp of oil and add the spinach leaves. Stir regularly until they are wilted. Put them on a plate with paper towel.
6. Finely slice the spring onion and put aside.
7. Heat the remaining tbsp of oil in a large saucepan on medium heat.
8. Add the rice and cook over low heat for 2-3 minutes, stirring to stop the rice from sticking, until rice looks translucent but not brown.
9. Add the spring onion and remaining clove of garlic, stirring for another minute.
10. Add 2 ladlefuls of hot stock to soup, stirring over a medium heat for 5 minutes or until all liquid has been absorbed.
11. Cook for a further 15 minutes, gradually adding one ladleful of stock at a time and ensuring all liquid has been absorbed before adding the new ladleful.
12. Add the pumpkin, pine nuts and spinach.
13. Add parmesan cheese to taste. Enjoy!
Tip: Risotto doesn't heat up that well generally, so best to eat the day it's made. If you do eat it the next day and it's a bit dry just add a little bit of water.
Source: Adapted from Weight Watchers