"VEGGIE DRAWER" RISONI

Living in a hot, humid climate like we do, combined with going through the COVID-19 experience like the rest of the world, means we go to the supermarket as infrequently as possible, buy as much stuff as possible, and then try to keep it as fresh as possible for as long as possible. That means all fruit and veggies are soaked in a washing solution as soon as we get home, dried and put in fresh produce drawers in the fridge and stuff like dried pasta goes into the freezer as I tend to forget about it in the pantry and then it becomes a help-yourself invitation to some nasty little critters, as I found out many years ago in the midst of preparing linguine for a dinner party. (I went through three packets of Barilla, and watched in horror as three colonies of black weevils floated to the top of the boiling water. Luckily, I had pasta in reserve in the freezer.) So lessons learned, last Sunday I extracted from the freezer a half packet of risoni or orzo as it's also called (short cut pasta shaped like large grains of rice). I also emptied the fridge vegetable drawer of the variety of seemingly mismatched veggies it contained and made this. Honestly, I never dreamed it would be worthy enough to appear as a proper recipe here or taste as good as it did. But, it did and I'm sure would taste as good no matter what pasta you used or veggies you tossed in.

INGREDIENTS FOR 2

250g risoni/orzo

olive oil

1 brown onion, peeled and chopped

2 or 3 garlic cloves, sliced

2 carrots, finely diced

1 punnet mushrooms, peeled and sliced

1 small head broccoli, cut into florets

1 leafy green vegetable, trimmed

freshly ground black pepper

large pinch sea salt flakes

chilli flakes to taste

generous handful grated Parmesan

METHOD

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and add the risoni. Cook for about 7 minutes.

Meanwhile, slosh some olive oil into a large frying pan.

Add the onion, garlic and carrots until softened and beginning to colour.

Add the sliced mushrooms and cook until fragrant and brown around the edges.

Add the broccoli florets and leafy veg (I used a Chinese one but spinach also good)

Season to taste.

Drain and rinse your risoni and add to the frying pan, tossing well.

Sprinkle over the Parmesan and serve.