My Roast Chicken Risotto Leftovers

After we got back from Barcelona neither of us had any food inspirations, the weather was still quite hot and we didn't have much of an apatite. But then finally Shane decided we would have Roast Chicken. We don't usually have roast dinners as I normally end up making far to much so we save it for when we have family round. 

So I decided if we were going to have a roast, I was making the most of it and buying a whole chicken. I stuffed it with thyme, sage, basil and lemon and did most of the trimmings to go with it, it was amazing and worth all the effort, although I find roast dinners not as hard as some dishes, I think I'm just so used to making them now. 

But, obviously between the two of us we couldn't eat a whole chicken, so we decided on using the left overs for curry and risotto. 

When I lived with my parents, brother & his girlfriend (they're renovating their current uninhabitable house) there was always plenty of food in the pantry, as you could nether guarantee who would be in for tea, lunch or even breakfast! So always plenty of food leftover to just throw meals together in order to prevent waste. But with the two of us now it's easier to only buy what we need, and therefore we don't get the opportunity to just create something. 

For the risotto, I used my "just throw it all in" approach. Which to this day, surprisingly, has not let me down! 

Ingredients - for two slightly piggy portions (can be served with a side salad and saving some of the risotto for lunch the next day)

• Lurpack or olive oil 1 tablespoon
• Onion 1/2 medium
• Green pepper 1/4 or Celery 1/2 Stick
• Mushrooms Small handful
• Pancetta 100g
• Carrots 1/2 medium
• Butternut squash 250g
• Stock Veg or Chicken 1 Litre
• White wine small wine glass
• Risotto Rice 1/2 cup
• Left over roast Chicken 2 handfuls
• Grated Parmesan 1 handful

Method

Where to begin? 

I started by roasting the butternut squash (which I had brought the tesco frozen chopped bag) in a preheated oven at 200°C/Fan 180°C, Gas 6  on a roasting tray with some oil and salt and pepper for 25 minutes. The butternut squash was finished before the the risotto was ready for it so I left it on the side, don't worry if it cools down as it will heat back up in the risotto, but you don't want to put it in too early as it'll turn to mush. Well, by all means put it in early, as it is an easy way of hiding vegetables!

For the main body of the risotto, I started by heating the oil in a large saucepan, ideally i would use lurpack but I only had olive oil. Once that is heated up, bout 2 mins on a medium heat, add the onion, green pepper or celery, mushrooms, and pancetta and carrots all cubed into small pieces as this way they cook quicker. Fry until the pancetta is browned, and the veggies are softened and starting to go slightly golden. Then add in the rice and mix so it is coated in the oil and juices. Once the rice is coated, add the white wine and a ladle of stock. Once the liquid has been absorbed add another ladle and so on for roughly 15 mins, or until the rice is soft but with a bite. Hopefully that makes sense! For me I keep tasting the rice to see whens it cooked. once the rice is cooked, add the left over chicken, we had diced breast meat, and the butternut squash and heat through for about 5 minutes. Once warmed, turn the heat off and stir in the grated parmesen.  
In total the dish takes about half an hour to 45 mins to cook. Risotto is not the easiest dish out there, and does take a lot of practice, for me I only really started to get in right when I moved out and my dad wasn't there to take over when I couldn't get the rice perfect. But don't give up! Once you get the skills perfected you'll never look back and can throw all sorts in so long as you have the key ingredients, rice, onion, celery or green pepper, stock and parmesan.   

I added a little to  much stock to mine, so it ended up a little too wet, but was still yummy. 

♥

Our first holiday abroad

As a holiday maker I am a little timid. As a kid my family always did staycations mostly around Wales and the West coast, and every few years we would be joined by aunts, uncles, cousins & grandparents. 

These holidays form some of my favourite childhood memories, I loved my childhood holidaying in England, and I'm happy to keep it that way :). I'm such a home bird and I love being close to my family. and after all if it's not broke, why fix it? 

Shane on the other hand, most of his childhood holidays were abroad, and from that, he caught the travel bug! He was really hoping we could go abroad last year. I thought if I controlled the situation and did all the research and booked the trip myself it would be fine, I looked at a few places, mostly Portugal but I could never quite bring myself to press the "book" button. I was too scared off all the many but unlikely outcomes of the trip! So eventually Shane spent half an hour on google and booked us a long weekend trip to Barcelona. 

The trip was amazing, and everything went really well. We flew from Birmingham airport and it was really easy to navigate around, we had booked private transfers also from the airport to the hotel to try and minimise any waiting around and reason for me to worry.  Which I am so glad we did, I get a little travel sick too, well a lot travel sick so I use travel bands and travel tablets, but still needed to get to the hotel to lie my head down and keep it still for half an hour! The hotel had a queen sized bed which made that post travel nap so comfy! 

Once my head was re balanced on the ground and the nausea had gone we took our first little adventure into Barcelona. We were staying on Rambla del Raval at the Barcelo Raval hotel. A modern cosmopolitan hotel, which is in the heart of the Gothic quarters old working district. We decided to head to La Rambla the main strip within Barcelona. We started from Columbus column and up towards the Hard Rock Cafe where we had our evening meal and a few cocktails. The food was yummy but I was really excited for our first Spanish meal! 

Through out our trip we tried a few different restaurants but I think my favouite meal was on our second from last day when we took a wonder round one of the markers where we found a sandwich stall, selling freshly made baguettes with Spanish meats and cheeses. We decided to walk down to Port Vell with them and ate them over looking the port. It was relaxed and just us, which made it so perfect. Well the two of us and a few Seagulls waiting for us to drop some food. I think this is my favourite memory of the trip :). We did lots of other exciting things too, too many to mention so I shall include the pictures below. 

Fancy a trip to Barcelona yourself? Here are a few things I learnt from my adventures that may help;

• Language While people in the city do speak Spanish, the city is bilingual and they also speak Catalan. However you will find a lot of the residents also speak English. We learnt a few words in Spanish as its only polite. These were Hello = Hola. Thank you = gracias. Two = dos. Please = Por favour. Water = agua. 
• Drinking Water Although it's fine to drink the tap water the hotels and restaurants do not offer it and the bottled water is quite expensive. For day trips we kept filling spare water bottles from the tap in our bathroom. 
• Alcohol A lot of the bars and restaurants we ordered cocktails at they did not measure the alcohol, one of my gin and tonics for example was 3 parts gin 1 part tonic. I definitely got my monies worth but also a little tipsy! 
• Currency The Euro is used throughout Spain, but they also except Travel cards, MasterCard and Visa's at most retailers and they have plenty of ATM's and money exchange shops. We took 700 euro's for 5 days which included spending at duty free. We booked a couple of tourist attractions online before we went also to save on taking cash just for attractions and helped us jump queues which was a bonus and we added drinks at the hotel bar to our room, so although we had paid for the hotel upfront we paid for a few things at the end on our visa card. Having previously let the bank know we were traveling. 
• Weather The Mediterranean climate mean that Barcelona is mild even in winter, while the majority of visitors enjoy the temperatures in between May and October. We went in May and it was cloudy and the temperature in the Celsius was in the early 20's which for us was perfect, but despite the cloud we still needed sun cream and came away with a nice colour. 
• Pick pockets As with any major cities Barcelona is notorious for many things, culture, architecture, beaches, But one other thing which you find everywhere is pick pockets. We did not encounter any but I still suggest, as with any city that you are vigilant of your belongings. 
• Getting around For the first couple of days we walked everywhere, about 5 miles a day! We walked until we couldn't walk anymore! We saw so much of the city this way, got lost a couple of times but always headed back the the tall Columbus Column or the Port, two big land marks which are well signed posted and easy to spot. Having these "points of interest" so to speak gave us the opportunity to get lost but always get back to where we needed. 
• Metro After we couldn't walk anymore we started using the Metro, it was supper easy to use and the ticket machines have an English option, we brought the ten trip ticket as it works out cheaper than individual tickets. The Metro was super easy to use, just as easy as the airport and it aloud us to go further and farther around the city, the furthest we went was to Camp Nou. 

Our hotel had a 360 view of the city so at the end of the day it was quite inspiring to see how far we'd gone and planning where to go next! 

One thing I would defiantly recommend doing, if you want to help others, is to head down the Port Vell at sun set. Here you will find hundreds! of migrants trying to make an honest living and better their lives. They are very happy with their new life in Spain and will be the first people to help you if you need it. They have clearly come from tougher lives and are extremely grateful for the opportunities they now have. They sell good quality souvenirs, and little over priced but you're not just paying for the product, but also for them to create a new safe lives for themselves. During the day you'll find them across the city and if you ever find yourselves lost, they will help you. They treat those as they would like to be treated themselves. Also if you're looking for a particular souvenir they will point you in the right direction to one of their pals apposed to forcing a sale on their products. 
These are genuine honest people and I wish them all the luck in the world. 

♥

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