Hello lovelies,
I really hope you can also feel a bit of spring coming! I’m very much looking forward to it and I’m already enjoying that daylight stays a little longer every day – especially because it provides better light for taking pictures. Since I take all my pictures with natural light, it is sometimes quite difficult in the darker winter months, because the time frame is extremely limited.
But I don’t only want to talk about photography today but rather share a new recipe with you. It’s inspired by upcoming spring, because I’m looking forward to a lot of fresh products and salads that will be more and more available. Along with pasta in all different varieties, we Frei ladies especially love risotto. Therefore I’m always looking for new combinations to spice up the classic version of risotto, and the boldest swap so far has been a risotto made with millet instead of rice, which comes out just as creamy and is naturally gluten-free. One of my favorite meals is a risotto with green asparagus – I just can’t get enough of it. Unfortunately I still have to wait a little longer for it, as it isn’t quite the asparagus season yet.
There are very many delicious versions of risotto and so I’m delighted to share my recipe for sweet potato risotto with dried tomatoes and arugula with you today. I diced the sweet potatoes and roasted them with fresh sage, which we still have in the garden, and that separate browning is exactly what the mushrooms get in my mushroom risotto with fennel and smoked tofu, in their own pan before the rice. What I love most about sweet potatoes is their roasting flavor that adds a little more excitement to the risotto than ‘just’ steaming them.
The risotto turned out very creamy and the intense dried tomato flavor harmonized perfectly with the sweet potatoes and the nutty and slightly spicy arugula. Looking at the picture now I could also imagine roasted pine nuts to go along with it perfectly. But it was delicious the way it was.
I added some vegan parmesan cheese to the risotto, which can easily be homemade out of cashews, yeast flakes and spices and we simply love it; my winter vegetables with white cabbage get their creaminess from a splash of plant cream instead, but this cashew parmesan is what ends up on the risotto here. If this catches your interest I can write a detailed recipe down for it if you like.
And now the question of all questions: pasta or risotto…if you could only eat one of the two for the rest of your life, which one would you choose? I certainly don’t have to ask my kids, they love risotto and especially this version, but they would still choose pasta, unless the rice turns up as basmati rice donuts with sweet and savory toppings, the one shape of rice they never argue about. If I really had to choose, I would go for risotto :-). But luckily no one has to choose, you only have to try this recipe soon.
If you love risotto as much as we do, be sure to try my fennel risotto with pears too – its gentle sweetness makes it a real autumn and winter favorite. If you want to keep celebrating sweet potato, my creamy sweet potato curry with chili naan is just the thing. And for a quick, Mediterranean meal, my Mediterranean pasta with asparagus and tomatoes is a wonderful springtime dish.
