Courgette and asparagus risotto

How quickly did the holiday week go. Back to school tomorrow. Deep sigh. Tomorrow our house will be in total upheaval, as we finally are going to have works done on the collapsed ceiling in the entrance room. I want all the old plastering to be removed, but that means, everything will be covered with dust, even with the doors to the other rooms closed. So, if I disappear for a while, that would mean, I'm fighting the dust and serving endless cups of tea and coffee to the builders.
Tonight for dinner we had a risotto, later followed by a fresh fruit salad.

Courgette and asparagus risotto
Ingredients:
2 medium courgettes
100g asparagus tips
5tbsp olive oil
25g butter
300g arborio risotto rice
100ml dry white wine or prosecco
230g Roots Garden Peas blended vegetable blend
150ml single cream
40g Grana Padano, grated

Slice courgettes in half lengthways, then into thin crescents. Chop the asparagus. In a deep frying pan heat 3tbsp of olive oil, add the courgettes and asparagus. Cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes.
In a different frying pan add the sliced shallots to the hot olive oil (2tbsp), and sweat on a medium heat until softened. Add the arbotio rice, stir with a wooden spoon, so that all the rice grains are coated with the onion-flavoured oil.
Add the white wine, and allow it to evaporate. Keep stirring. Add the Garden peas vegetable blend, a bit at a time, as you would with the stock. Add the single cream too. Keep adding vegetable blend and cream, and a little bit of hot water for about 20+ minutes, until the rice is cooked. The time will depend on how al dente you like to eat your risotto. If you like it well cooked, you will need more time for cooking.
Add the fried courgettes and asparagus to the risotto in the last 5 minutes of cooking. The vegetables should still have a bite rather than turn into slushy mushy bio-mass.

Grate Grana Padano and stir in at the last minute. Serve with more grated cheese on top.

In this recipe instead of the usual stock I used Roots Garden Greens - cucumber, peas, kale & mint vegetable blend. It gave a lovely fresh green flavour to risotto.

For a different vegetarian risotto with Garden Greens, check out the Roots Collective Greens Risotto, cooked with broccoli, spinach and broad beans.

Since I used the remains of prosecco (leftover from Valentine's day dinner) and Grana Padano (which I keep in big chunks in the freezer), this recipe is joining in #KitchenClearout Linky, run by Cheryl from Madhouse Family Reviews.