On how Fishworks let me down

You'll notice a distinct lack of fish in the dish on the left. Being of sound mind, I don't eat out on Valentine's Day. I'm sure that there are some restaranteurs who aren't guilty of profiteering on February 14th, but I can't be bothered to find them. So for many years now, I have cooked for Valentine's. I asked Bri what he'd like and he requested the scallop and lentil dish that I'd recreated after my trip to the River Cafe. I called Steve Hatt (the bestest fishmonger in, oooh, N1) but he didn't answer, so in a fit of desperation, I ordered from Fishworks. Four hours later I get back to my phone and see I have a couple of missed calls from a mystery number, but no message. Being a nosy bear I call and find myself speaking to Fishworks. The time is 4.30pm. They don't have my eight diver caught scallops. I hang up and consider putting a rock through their window. Of course Hatt's are answering now, but they're out of scallops.

So what did I cook? Well, my feet were killing me from another day in Paul A Young fine chocolates (more on this in another post) and I really couldn't be bothered to go shopping so poor Bri got a store cupboard supper of roasted onion squash with chestnut mushrooms, Dolcelatte and rocket. I'd also roasted some pine nuts so these were sprinkled over and the whole thing was given some ooomph with a drizzle of really excellent balsamic. Not bad, considering.

Risotto! Risotto!

So today's supper choice was a bit like Ready Steady Cook. I'd immed one of my colleagues (I'm now so bored I bother my colleagues at work for stimulation) for inspiration. A quick trawl through my fridge revealed that I had a butternut squash that I wanted to use up, and I had a vague recollection of a squash risotto on Celebrity Masterchef.

So, I made a basic white risotto with an onion, some thyme and vegetable stock. Chicken would have been preferable, but there was none around. While the risotto was cooking I roasted some little dice of butternut squash in olive oil, again with some thyme. They took about 15 minutes.

Once the risotto was ready I stirred in some roquefort, the squash dice and let it all sit for a couple of minutes. I finished everything off with a bit more cheese (that in truth it didn't need) and some toasted pine nuts.

It was pretty bloody delicious, although I'm keen to do a vertical risotto rice tasting soon. I'm not convinced by the carnaroli from Tescos that I have been using. It's not as creamy as I would like.

There was also quite a lot of squash that didn't want to be cut into dice, so I roasted that too, cooked up some onion in the left over risotto stock, added a bag of spinach, some cumin and, voila, I have a roasted squash and spinach soup for tomorrow.