I don’t know why, but all of a sudden I was craving some oven-dried tomatoes. I love how sweet, savoury and tangy they get when you let them dry out. Those flavours pair perfectly with the creaminess of a risotto. To stay in the Italian vibe, I made this risotto pesto-flavoured. Feel free to add more garlic; I had tango lessons later that night, so I was a bit careful with the garlic. Also feel free to add more basil for a more intense flavour, my plant sadly only yielded around a handful, so I worked with that. If you do not have access to fresh basil, feel free to use a mixture of bouillon and store-bought pesto instead of the mixture I make in my blender. I have however not yet found a vegan pesto in the Dutch supermarkets. If you have, please let me know! I really hope you give this recipe a try, and let me know if you liked it :).

Ingredients for two people:

• 250 grams of cherry tomatoes
• Some salt and pepper
• 150 grams of dry risotto rice
• 1 small onion
• 1 tbsp. of olive oil
• 450 mL of boiling water
• A stock cube for 450 mL of stock
• A hand full of fresh basil
• A small clove of garlic
• 1 tbsp. of pine nuts
• 2 tbsp. of nutritional yeast

Instructions

1. Start by preheating your oven, I set mine to 200 degrees Celsius, but my oven tends to be less hot than it says
2. Cut your cherry tomatoes in half, put them on a baking tray lined with aluminium foil and sprinkle them with salt and pepper
3. Put them in the oven, check them every 10 minutes. Mine looked shrunk and a bit browned after 35 min.
4. Add your stock cube, water, basil, garlic, pine nuts and nutritional yeast into a blender and blend until smooth; this will be your stock for the risotto rice
5. Heat your olive oil in a pan and add your onion. When the onion is translucent, add your risotto rice and fry until also translucent.
6. Add half your stock and cook until absorbed.
7. Add the remaining half of your stock and again cook until absorbed.
8. Divide the risotto over two bowls and add the oven-dried tomatoes on top
9. Enjoy!