HOMECOOKING WITH TERESA

  Mushroom risotto is one of my favourite risotto. I made for the first time Mushroom quinotto which is made with quinoa. I'm not going to say that is better than the risotto but I was pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed it. I changed the Thermomix recipe a bit and made it the same way as my favourite mushroom risotto recipe and it really worked well. A very good alternative recipe if you want to eat quinoa in a very delicious way. Difficulty:  easy Preparation time:  15min Total time:  30min Serving size:  4 portions Ingredients 80 g Parmesan cheese, cut into cubes (3 cm) 1 leek (white part only), cut into quarters 80 g butter, cut into pieces 550 g water 150 g white wine ½ tbsp Vegetable stock paste or cubes 250 g white quinoa, rinsed and drained 400 g fresh mushrooms variety ( I used cup mushrooms, baby brown mushrooms & oyster mushrooms ), sliced 1 bunch Italian parsley, chopped 6 garlic cloves, crushed salt and ground black pepper, to taste Olive oil 1/4 cup dry sherr

Tonight we had a little break in our vegetarian journey and had a very traditional salad from Catalonia. It's called 'Xató' and many towns on the coast that goes from Sitges to Tarragona have a variation on their recipes. The main ingredients are basically the same: 'escarola' - curly endive, salted cod, tuna, anchovies and Arbequina olives which are a particular type of olive, quite small and bitter. It is served with a kind of romesco sauce and it is this sauce that varies from place to place; some people add a bit of chilli and more of this and that... I only do this recipe when I can get the endives at our local shop. This happens only once or twice a year... I have tried to use lettuce instead, but for me it doesn't work because the bitterness of the endive together with the saltiness of the fish and olives and the nutty flavour from the sauce it's what makes this dish so delicious. I had to adapt it with the ingredients available where we live and inst