Lemon and courgette risotto

My courgettes are growing nicely on the balcony, which means that it's time to cook with own produce again – exciting! Now the courgettes start coming in bulk, so it's good to have many different recipe ideas for them. I love my yellow courgettes, but I also planted green ones additionally. As I haven't made a risotto for a while, I decided to make one and the courgettes should play an important part in it. Lemon is a good complimenting flavour to courgettes, so I used lemon infused olive oil and pressed lemon juice as seasoning.

Sense the taste of summer with my lemon and courgette risotto!

Ingredients

250 g arborio rice

3 small courgettes (or one medium)

100 g sweet baby peppers

2 shallots

2 garlic cloves

2 tbsp lemon infused olive oil

1 l vegetable stock

250 ml dry white wine

25 g butter

25 g vegetarian pasta cheese

½ lemon's juice [add grated zest for more lemon flavour (optional)]

1 tbsp Herbes de Provence

1 tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp salt

Method

Cut the courgettes into thin slices and the baby peppers into small cubes. Also chop the shallots and garlic cloves finely. Warm the vegetable stock up.

Cook the shallots, peppers and garlic in one tablespoon of lemon infused olive oil for about 10 minutes, until they are pretty soft.

Add the butter and arborio rice and stir for a few minutes until the rice becomes translucent. Pour in the white wine and let it evaporate.

Add a few ladles of the warm vegetable stock and let simmer under lid. Stir often and add more vegetable stock when needed.

When the risotto is almost cooked, heat one tablespoon of lemon infused olive oil in a separate pan and cook the courgette slices in there for a few minutes. Don't cook them too long, as it's nice when they still have little bite to them. Add the courgettes to the risotto.

Season the risotto towards the end with grated vegetarian pasta cheese (vegetarian parmesan), lemon juice, Herbes de Provence, black pepper and salt. Add more white wine, if needed.

I served my risotto with a fruity halloumi salad (similar to the one in the previous post), which makes a great summer side dish.

What is your favourite vegetarian summer risotto combination?

Your VegHog