I know I should be more organised, but it’s amazing just how often it suddenly hits 5pm and I think “oh no, I’ve got no dinner organised for the kids”. You’d think that dinner wasn’t something that happens at around the same time every day the way it regularly takes me by surprise. So with about a 20 minute window before they start chewing on the furniture this is my fall back – risotto.

I love risotto, so simple and so versatile but in the past it was something that was hard to do with starving children clawing their way up your legs; it’s virtually impossible to stand at the cooktop and stir a pan almost continuously at that time of day. But with my whizzy machine those days are gone! The risotto looks after itself whilst I stop the children gnawing on the cutlery and watch the timer count down until the chime declares dinner is ready.

Tonight was another of these such nights so Asparagus Risotto it was…

The recipe is here – Asparagus Risotto, I made the following changes:

To make it dairy free for my son I omitted the parmesan an added a little soy cream towards the end.

In the past I found this recipe needs more than the stated 10-12 minutes after the stock is added, so tonight I boiled the kettle while the asparagus was sautéing and added boiling water along with my stock paste. After 11 minutes it was perfect.

I added a clove of garlic with the asparagus because I think all risotto should include garlic! Lastly I used a small onion instead of shallot as that’s what I had available.

This recipe really does get dinner onto the table in under 20 minutes.