Photo from my early morning walk, the sunrise made things a funny colour…

I woke up at the crack of dawn today and was feeling all out doorsey, so I went for a walk in the beautiful common just across the road from me before heading into town to the veg shop -which opens nice and early- to get a giant cauliflower, well not specifically for the cauliflower, but I cant resist a giant cauliflower when I see one. When I got home I picked some roses, pulled up the rest of the chard in my garden, and errr….. sat around until lunchtime… then made this. Everything in this bowl goes so well together, simply flavoured, creamy and comforting. Defo what you want after pottering about in the cold.

Ingredients:
For the risotto:
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp vegan marg (optional)
1 large onion, diced
sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper
1 med/large bunch of swiss chard, leaves and stems seperated
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup risotto rice
4 cups quality vegetable stock
1/2 tsp liquid smoke
the finely grated zest from 1 lemon

For the roasted cauliflower:
1 head of cauliflower, broken into florets
olive oil
1 tbsp cumin
salt and pepper
the juice from 1 lemon 

Method:
Preheat the oven to 200c/400f and chuck the cauliflower florets into baking dish, add olive oil, cumin, salt, pepper and lemon juice and toss to mix. Chuck in the oven for about 25-35 minutes until tender and crisp in some parts. Whilst the cauliflower is roasting you can be doing the risotto, add the oil and marg to a pan on a medium/high meat and chop up the chard stems, sauté the chopped chard stems with the onion until the onion is translucent.Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant, then add the rice and sauté for about a minute more. Mix together the zest, stock and liquid smoke in a jug and add to to the pan a little at a time until all but about 1/3 cup of the liquid absorbed and the rice is almost tender, add the remaining liquid and chiffonard the chard leaves and stir them through the risotto. Cook until the chard has wilted slightly and all but a little stock has been absorbed into the rice. The rice should be tender, but still a little firm to the bite. Serve in bowls with the roasted cauliflower.

Chard from my garden