Bacon, Lettuce and Pea (BLP) Risotto

Bacon lettuce and pea (BLP) risotto

After fretting and straining to think of a recipe to enter into the Student’s Can Cook bloggers for students competition a few months ago, I found that as the final deadline approached I actually I two ideas.  The first, a recipe for Five Bean Chilli, can be found here, the second is this; BLP (Bacon Lettuce and Pea) Risotto.

I love risotto for a multitude of reasons.  I love eating it, all comfort and warmth with its unctuous, buttery, flavoured carbs; as horribly twee and clichéd as it sounds it does feel like a meal that someone has loved and cared for, which if cooked right they have, continually stirring and adding the stock until the rice is just ready, gooey whilst retaining that little al dente  bite.  I love cooking it for the seemingly endless flavour combinations you can add to the basic recipe through a change in the stock, herbs, poached fish, smoked fish, roasted meat, slow cooked ragu, and roasted or steamed vegetables.  I love basic recipes like that, things like quiche, frittata or soup where you can just look at what you’ve got left in the fridge and go with it.  Leftover roasted chicken? Roasted chicken risotto.  Smoked salmon or smoked mackerel? Pop them in a risotto.  Tomatoes looking a bit wrinkly and past their best?  Slow roast them and stir them in for a roast tomato risotto.

Five Bean Chilli

Five bean chilli with rice and avocado slices

Roughly three months ago a call went out on Twitter for blogger recipes suitable for students as part of a competition from the folks behind Student’s Can Cook.  The prize for the winner would be a brand new shiny Kenwood Blender, and all entries would be posted up on the Student’s Can Cook website for perusal and use by the oncoming tide of current and future students.  Oooh I thought, I only graduated two years ago, I cooked a lot as a student and still cook a lot like a student I must be able to come up with something.

How Not to Make a T-shirt Rug

Let this post serve as a warning to anyone else that has an imagination which runs beyond the practicalities of turning their ideas into a workable project.  This is a post on The Rug that Will Not Die.

First a bit of background, this project started back in March, before this blog was even born, with the now clearly laughable intention of being finished in a week. A week, how young and foolish I was! It was planned as part of a larger and even more ridiculously complex idea that I’d been dreaming up for months; to turn my flat into a magical craft-style woodland scene where I would host a faerie party to celebrate my birthday. Oh the plans I had, but this rug would prove to be the most persistent of them.

For where other elaborate schemes eventually fell by the way side, as time grew shorter and I panicked more and more, this was something I’d already started, already invested time and money in, and something I wanted to keep to decorate the flat long after the inevitable hangover had faded.

This was a project I would have to finish, but with my birthday now passed and without a deadline this would soon become The Rug that Will Not Die.

If you go down to the woods today...

Chocolate and Banana Croissant “Bread and Butter” Pudding

Looks like a mess, tasted like stodgy chocolatey joy.

I don’t often make puddings at home; although I am definitely a pudding sort of girl.  I’m frequently the one found trying to convince fellow diners that they do have room for a little pud, and look how good this sounds, well what if we shared, just so I don’t have to be the only one at a table left gorging myself on something sweet and gooey and deliciously fattening while everyone else sips their espressos and feels thin.  At home though, unless I’m having friends for dinner when I may make more of an effort, I can very rarely be bothered to knock up a proper pudding as well as cooking dinner for the sake of just us two.  I know my boyfriend will be just as happy with some shop bought ice-cream or a bar of dairy milk, so that’s what he gets.

There are those nights though when a bit of fruit and ice-cream or a few squares of chocolate just aren’t enough, and a last week arose one of those times.