Roasted Butternut Squash Risotto with Thyme and Pine Nuts

Basically my blog is not only going to be about music, I couldn't have a blog that doesn't mention how much I love food. For those of you who don't know, I'm a vegetarian, say what you will but there is no way I'm ever going back to the dark side.

Yesterday my friend Lauren asked me what I was up to tonight, sans plans I said why don't you come around for some food, she accepted and this is what I cooked. I made this up so don't expect it to be precise.

Ingredients (serves 2 with enough left for me to take some for lunch tomorrow (so that's 3))

1 small/medium butternut squash
1 pint of vegetable stock (I use veg boullion)
1 medium onion
225 grams of arborio rice
Olive oil
2 garlic cloves
Thyme
Knob of butter
Vermouth
Parmesan
Handful of pine nuts

Ok first off dice the butternut squash into 1cm squares, place in a baking tray and throw over some olive oil, thyme and black pepper. Shove it in the oven around 200 degrees for 20mins or until lightly browning and cooked through.

Meanwhile thinly chop up an onion, and fry it in butter for 8 minutes in a medium saucepan, add a couple of cloves of garlic and fry for another couple of minutes. Make sure it's on a medium heat as you don't want it to burn.

Add the rice and stir it into the butter/onion/garlic combo for a minute or two. Then throw in a generous few shots of Vermouth. Loads of people use white wine for risotto, but I'm all about the Vermouth, I feel it gives a much better flavour at the end.

After you notice the Vermouth starting to dry out, use the Boullion to make a genorous pint of veg stock, and keep adding 100ml at a time, stirring continuously and making sure the risotto never dries out. Grate in a generous handful of parmesan to make it nice and creamy.

After about 18-20minutes, add the cooked squash to the risotto and keep stirring for a couple of minutes. Meanwhile dry fry up some pine nuts in a frying pan until lightly brown. Add the pine nuts to the risotto, throw in some fresh thyme, grate some parmesan and serve it up.

It was real tasty, you should try it sometime.

Afterwards we watched Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, I saw it at the cinema and I think it was even better second time around.