Asparagus risotto with ingredients from East Oxford Community Market

One of the many, many reasons I love living in Oxford is that it has so many opportunities to buy locally-produced food. I admit that before I moved here I bought most of my food from the same place (the supermarket) and that I gave little thought to where it had come from. I was studying full-time, working part-time and therefore trying to buy things as cheaply as possible was my primary concern. But when I moved south I realised that there were so many options open to me; yes, sometimes it was more expensive to buy local, but not always. Yes, sometimes it was hard to know what to do with that weirdly-shaped vegetable (does anyone even like kholrabi?) and sometimes I didn't like having to wash loads of mud off my potatoes (I still don't, if I'm honest). But on discovering East Oxford Community Market I immediately felt like all of those reasons for not buying local food just weren't good enough. Aside from anything else, it's just a really nice place to be on a Saturday morning (in the primary school behind the Tesco car park on the Cowley Road) and the range of food is really great.

So, with asparagus being one of my favourite vegetables and the fact that we're coming to the end of the season, I thought I'd share this recipe for asparagus risotto I've been making a lot of. Risotto is such a good summer meal, and although I'd always previously made it with parmesan (which isn't vegetarian), it really doesn't need it to create that creaminess if you use vegan butter instead (which I do). So, here goes:

Asparagus, pea and broad bean risotto

Serves 2 Ingredients: • 90g fresh broad beans, podded twice • 90g fresh or frozen peas • 75g asparagus, chopped into short pieces (around 3cm) • 2 tsp vegan Bouillon or other stock powder • 500ml boiling water • 1 small onion, chopped • 1 celery stick, chopped (optional) • 125g risotto rice • 40ml (a good slug!) of vermouth (or white wine) • dollop of vegan spread • handful of chopped parsley 1. Make up the stock using the water and Bouillon powder and set aside. 2. Put a small amount of vegan butter into a non-stick pan and add the onion and celery; cook over a medium heat until soft (around 3-5 minutes). 3. Add the rice and stir for a minute or so, to coat the rice, then add the vermouth. 4. Add the stock a bit at a time, stirring gently whilst doing so, until it has all been absorbed. This takes around 20 minutes 5. About half way through step 4, add the beans, peas and asparagus. 6. Continue cooking until all the stock has been absorbed. Add in a good dollop of vegan spread and the parsley and serve.

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