Mountains of Mushrooms...

Tonight my mother and I tried making a new recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's vegetarian cookbook called: Mushroom Risoniotto (with only 391 calories per serving and you get A LOT in a serving.) Here is the recipe:

Mushroom risoniotto (serves 2)

2 tablespoons rapeseed or olive oil (we used fry light oil, keeping it healthy!)
A knob of butter (Not needed, I did not use it but if you want to then of course, vegan butter required!)
500g mushrooms, thickly sliced
150g risoni or orzo pasta
2 garlic cloves, chopped
A few sprigs of thyme (leaves only)
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
About 175ml dry white wine
About 50ml double cream or creme fraiche (obviously adapt this part, I used alpro soya cream)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper (again, not needed unless you want more flavour)
A good handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped, to serve

It is really simple and easy to make but it tastes fabulous. I am a huge fan of mushrooms and mushroom risotto so for me, this was heavenly. The pasta which looks like rice is called orzo pasta and for those in the UK, it can be found cheaply in Waitrose. The dish was surprisingly filling and I did not miss cheese in the way that I often do when eating risotto. It is easy to prepare (about 30-40 minutes preparation time) - the longest part is chopping up all those mushrooms but I find chopping mushrooms to be quite relaxing...maybe that is just me- and easy to serve. We served it with a plate of rocket (underneath the pasta in the picture!) and then topped it with the parsley. Perfect.

The finished product

Unfortunately, as hard as my mother and I have tried to wean my father and brother off meat, today they went to the meat market and came home with a pheasant EACH. It was horrific. The only good thing I can say is that at least they went to a proper farmers market where they are wild birds that are killed, not factory farmed birds. It does not excuse the killing, but it could have been worse I suppose. Anyway, the reason I mention this is because I felt rather smug, whilst completely horrified and disgusted of course, when they were picking bullets out of their roasted pheasant and the worst I was  picking out was the parsley in between my teeth...god, I'm such a vegetable shipper!


Either way, enjoy this recipe and be sure to check out more of Hugh's recipes, I adore them! 
Have a great weekend :)