one pan asparagus, pea & zucchini risoni with Campbell's Real Stock paste

Tonight while grocery shopping I came across a new product: Campbell's Real Stock Pastes. Having been a long time fan of the Campbell's Real Stock liquids I was intrigued by their new offerings - concentrated Chicken, Vegetable or Beef stock pastes, in sachets or tubes. If they taste as good as they look these may be a great addition to my pantry. Although Campbell's Real Stock traditional cartons are more convenient than making your stock from scratch - they do have their limitations:

• they take up a lot of valuable space in my pantry.
• when I don't make dishes that use the whole carton I have to freeze the leftovers, or store it in the fridge and hope I don't forget to use it in a few days....otherwise it becomes bin fodder.
• sometimes you just want to add a flavour boost without adding too much liquid.

Many of you might wonder why I don't just use stock cubes? I don't trust what's inside them. I mean what does "chicken style" mean anyway?

If I'm having to use a pre-made chicken stock I want it to be made with real chicken!

So to test these stock pastes out dinner I made one of my favourite quick and easy recipes - a one pan risoni dish.

Using risoni and stock as the base you can then add whatever you want be it chicken, beef or even prawns. This time I made a vegetarian version with the Campbell's vegetable stock paste sachets.

After pan frying some onion, garlic and swiss brown mushrooms, I add risoni and some water and then just squeezed in a sachet of the paste into the pan.

The vegetable stock paste has a much sweeter and rounded vegetable flavour than their traditional vegetable liquid stock and the seasoning level pretty good, not too salty or too weak. It delivered the perfect flavour balance to my dish:

one-pan asparagus, pea and zucchini risoni for 2

1 tbsp olive oil
1 brown onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
100g Swiss brown mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 cup dried risoni pasta
2 cups (500ml) water
1 sachet Campbell's Real Stock paste - Vegetable
1 bunch asparagus, cut into 2 cm lengths
1 cup frozen peas 1 zucchini, halved, thinly sliced
90g Persian feta

• Heat olive oil in a large deep frying pan over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until soft. Add garlic and mushrooms and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes.


• Add pasta, water and stock paste. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 8 minutes.


• Add peas, asparagus and zucchini. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for 4 minutes. Uncover and cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until vegetables are tender and stock is absorbed. Divide among serving bowls and crumble over feta.