Pumpkin, Sage and Pearl Barley Risotto

This is such a yummy risotto recipe. Really hearty. Really filling. Autumnal food at it's best! Plus the whole thing will easily serve 4. We had it with grilled pork tenderloin but you could have it with some roasted mushrooms or some quorn if you want to keep it veggie friendly. Actually it would be lovely on it's own too. My toddler loved it too but only after he got over the heartache that pumpkin wasn't the same as a melon! Plus he loved de-seeding it. It is synfree on Slimming World and the whole recipe is 2 Healthy A's (if you split it 4 ways it would be ½ Healthy A per portion).

1 small pumpkin
Frylight
4 cloves of Garlic, squashed
1 Onion, finely diced
300g Pearl Barley
1l Chicken Stock (more or less)
2 carrots, grated
A big handful of Kale, really finely shredded
A handful of Sweetcorn
2tbsp dried Sage
80g Light Cheddar Cheese, grated

3 Spring Onions, finely sliced

Preheat the oven to 180. With a really sharp, really big knife chop the pumpkin into 8 chunks (leave the skin on but take the seeds out), chuck on a tray and spray with frylight and stick it in the oven for about 30mins. Let the pumpkin cool until you can handle it (this is where my asbestos hands come in handy). Then peel the pumpkin chunks. Chop ½ the pumpkin into little chunks and then puree the rest with a little bit of stock.

Spray a big saucepan with frylight and cook off the garlic and onion until they are caramelised. In another pan heat up the stock. Chuck the pearl barley and carrot in with the onions and a ladle of stock and stir. When the pearl barley has soaked up the stock then put more in and keep stirring. Don't put too much stock in because you don't want it to be really watery at the end.

Repeat until the pearl barley is nearly cooked. Chuck in the kale, sweetcorn, sage, pumpkin chunks and puree and stir lots. Give it another 5 mins on the heat and then stir in the cheese and serve with the spring onions to garnish.

Thanks for reading

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