Pearl Barley Pumpkin Risotto

Halloween isn’t one of the more popular calendar events in my house, it falls somewhere between Guy Fawkes night (5/11) and United Nations day, today, my birthday, which I unfortunately share with Manchester United’s primate striker Wayne Rooney. Who, incidentally, shouldn’t be paid quarter of a million pounds a week for kicking a ball into the back of a net, something he failed to do on Saturday during the battering that Man United took from City. This is rhetoric and not open to discussion.

Trick or treating for instance is one element that hasn’t caught on at home, not that we are scrooge like by any means, but the children who have rung our doorbell in the past demanding sweets are the same little shits that for the rest of the year deface the horse chestnut tree on our driveway and hurl eggs at the wall of our house, so for them to march up to the front door demanding Haribo in lieu of a devious trick is a little presumptuous. I would also add that these children appear to get older each year, a line needs to be drawn at some point and I suggest when Darren who works behind the bar at the Rose and Crown turns up in a wizard’s outfit to claim his Starmix, it’s probably time to draw it.

I will speak up for the Pagan date however and say that it is a wonderful excuse do dress like an idiot and get shit faced - at Uni I painted my body white before squeezing myself into a pair of horrendously tight skinny jeans, dying my hair black, donning a trilby and strapping a giant syringe to my arm to head out as the train wreck front man of the Libertines, P Dock. Only last year I visited a local pub dressed in fish net suspenders, eight inch platform boots, a tank top, a US sports jacket belonging to a Drum Major called Jill who attended Providence Rhode Island some time in the mid 80s, and a pair of Muay Thai shorts that proved less than insulating in the near freezing conditions. The night ended with me trying to carry my youngest sister to the car as she vomited all over ‘Jill’s’ white leather sleeves, which in a pair of heeled platform boots was challenging to say the least. A good night then.

Of the positives and negatives that Halloween brings, the best and most fun of all has to be carving spooky faces into pumpkins. Like chocolate eggs at Easter the pumpkin really is the highlight of my 31^st, so here is a recipe that’s a little bit different to use up your surplus flesh this weekend. Mwahahahahahaaaaaa!

Ingredients: (Serves 4)

240g pearl barley

2 large handfuls of cubed pumpkin flesh

1 handful of fine French beans, top and tailed, steamed

1 white onion, finely chopped

70 grams of parmesan, finely grated, a few shavings to garnish

1 tspn thyme leaves, four sprigs for garnishing

1 tablespoon of rosemary

2 large cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped

Zest of 1 lemon

Juice of 1 lemon

Extra virgin olive oil

Butter

1.5 litres of vegetable stock

1 glass of dry white wine

Method:

1. Put the Barley in a pyrex bowl and soak in boiling water for 10 minutes to let it soften, drain and set aside.

2. Steam the fine beans for 6 – 8 minutes, set aside.

3. In a deep thick bottomed frying pan melt the butter and a couple of slugs of olive oil, chuck in the onions, garlic and pumpkin and fry over a medium/high heat until softened but not browned. Add the pearl barley and stir through, then pour in the white wine and burn off the alcohol till the liquid reduces by more than half. Add the lemon juice and zest along with the thyme leaves and rosemary and stir. Now add the stock a bit at a time, continuously stirring over a medium heat, as the barley absorbs the stock add more.

4. It should take between 10 and 15 minutes for the barley to soak up all the stock, it will be quite sloppy by this point and would have doubled in amount. Chuck in the fine beans and stir them in, then add the finely grated parmesan and mix it through.

5. Serve in large bowls with a handful of peppered rocket, a sprig of thyme, some parmesan shavings and a drizzle of olive oil. Scarily tasty.