Oven Baked Tomato, Roasted Red Pepper and Basil Risotto

This is a terrible photo as it's so dark by dinner time now I can't get good light...anyway, it's very delicious. 

2013 Edit - I have finally gotten around to updating this photo, look how bad the original one below is!! I've come a long way....I've also added some step by step photos below :-)

(Although a bad photo, this one does show how it would look if you grilled the cheezly on top which I didn't do with the updated pics.)

Recipe comes from BBC Good Food website here , I just made a few changes. First it calls for frozen roasted peppers which I've never found so I use the method to 'quick roast' from the 'Golden Slipper' recipe, obviously omit the parmesan, add a pinch of sugar to counter the acidity of the tinned tomatoes, some garlic, and I tend to add baby spinach for colour and extra nutrition. Once I only had one pepper so added some zucchini and mushrooms, that was delicious too. I tend to top it with grated super melting cheezly but don't often have it. Regular cheezly will melt if stirred in but won't grill on top well. Recipe doesn't need it either way, just makes it that much nicer.

Oven Baked Tomato, Roasted Red Pepper and Basil Risotto

• 1/2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 150g risotto rice
• 50ml dry white wine -optional, can replace with more stock
• 200g can chopped tomatoes
• 2 large red peppers
• 250 ml vegetable stock made up with 1 tsp marigold vegan powder
• 1/4 tsp sugar
• 40g baby spinach
• good handful of fresh basil, chopped
• about 50g grated super melting cheezly - optional
• salt and pepper (about 1/4 tsp of salt, but just add to taste)

Quick roast the peppers - Put the grill on high and line a baking sheet with foil. Slice the peppers and place skin side up on the pan. Note that these pics are when I was making enough risotto for 3, hence the extra peppers.

Grill until the skins are blackened.

Scrape them all into a bowl and quickly cover with cling film. Let them sit for 15 minutes. This will get them sweating and make the skins easy to peel off.

Remove the peppers and the skins *should* just peel off easy now - discard the skins. Note that sometimes they will stick, I tend to find that happens with newer peppers. When you get the peppers that peel off easy it's heavenly - like stripping off a whole sheet of wallpaper in one go, lol!

 Once all the peppers are peeled, slice or dice them as you like, and set aside.

Heat oven to 200 degrees. Heat oil in a pot and fry onion for a few minutes until soft with a few grinds of black pepper. Turn up the heat, tip in the rice, stir then fry for 1 minute more. Pour in the wine (or a little stock if not using) and stir until absorbed. Stir in the tomatoes, sugar, garlic, salt, roasted peppers and 200ml of the stock. 

Pour into a greased ovenproof dish: 

Cover with a lid or some foil:

....and bake for about 25 minutes until the rice is tender and most liquid is absorbed. 

At this point I take it out, add the remaining stock, spinach and basil:

...and stir in the spinach until wilted: 

Cover again and bake a few minutes more, until the liquid is absorbed and rice is tender. If it's still not tender, you can add a bit more liquid and keep baking until it is but it should be done at this point.

If using super melting cheezly, turn oven to grill, sprinkle cheezly on top and grill until bubbly and golden.  

Serves 2 - excellent with a glass of the white wine you used in the recipe.

♥