Hmm. Well, that mushroom risotto seemed to work believably well as it turned out. At least, it tasted plausible after it cooled down enough for my taste buds to start functioning again; my habit of already being ravenous at 6:30pm does have a tendency to make me scoff half my food while it's still far too hot :-)
Now I need to find a cookery expert to talk to about appropriate herbs and suchlike; that's one area in which my restricted palate makes me unable to judge sensibly for myself…