vernonia

This cauli cheese would be great served alongside a roast, or even barbecued meats (if you've not wheeled it back into the garage), but in fact this rather fancy version is intended as a dish on its own, with just the simple additions of soft granary bread, a little bitter-leaf salad and a glass or two of good, forceful red wine.

Serve immediately, preferably with a nice bitter-leaf salad, which provides a perfect foil for the creamy risotto.

It's serious comfort food; the starchy, nutty rice blends so well with the velvety smooth pumpkin, and when the butter and Parmesan cheese gets in on the act, along with a few toasted pumpkin seeds and a drizzle of dark green pumpkin-seed oil, it becomes a real treasure of a dish, perfect in small portions as an appetiser, or better still, ladled into bowls and eaten with a bitter-leaf salad (radicchio works particularly well, and the colour combination is dazzling) with a glass or two of a fat buttery Chardonnay, or even a good playful Italian red.