Thursday 16th of May 2013

A simple roast tonight, just a lovely piece of pork shoulder, some baked potatoes and one vegetable; some sprightly-looking spring greens that I couldn't resist when I was out shopping..

Take a whole head of garlic, the cloves separated but unpeeled, two or three lemons, quartered, and 3 shallots, skins left on and halved. Add to this several fresh bay leaves and, if you can, a pig's trotter, split. I get these easily from my butcher, and they cost next to nothing (and often actually nothing).  Rest the pork on top, I unrolled the joint to allow for quicker cooking and maximum output of crackling. Pour over a little oil, then sprinkle with crumbled dried bay leaves (I dry the leaves from our bay tree in the microwave, giving them 30-second bursts until dry and crunchy) and a good grinding of white pepper. Obviously the cooking time will vary based on the size of your joint; I work on 20 minutes per pound (or 450g, if you prefer) in a hot oven.

Pouring a glass of white wine over the pork after about 20 minutes and later still adding 350ml, give or take, of stock (I used pork stock, but chicken would be fine too, as well as fine crackling (the secret to which, strange as it seems, is regular basting with the juices from the roasting tin) it produced an easy gravy that was not as thick and meaty as some, but aromatic and flavoursome with a kick of sharpness from the lemon.  Hubby wasn't as keen on this as he is on my more usual thicker and 'meatier' gravies, but the children and I adored it.  When the pork is cooked and resting, strain the juices into a saucepan.  Add a splash of boiling water to the roasting pan and, with a wooden spoon, scrape up the 'burny'- looking tasty bits from the bottom.  Strain this liquid into the pan too, then cover and boil hard for a few minutes to emulsify the gravy.  Season to taste and pour into a warmed jug.

Serve the pork, sliced, with shards of crackling, baked potatoes and simple steamed greens.  Perfect.

Cath xx

Thursday 14th of March 2013

Tonight, largely owing to the exhaustion brought on by a marathon baking session to provide dozens and dozens of gingerbread men for the children's school tomorrow, I decided that a simple and homely supper was on the cards.  My recipe for  Toad in the Hole is a great favourite with the whole family, and it is a suppertime stalwart that I return to often.  It is especially good with a good slosh of onion gravy; you can make a quick(ish) one by gently frying a halved and sliced onion in 40g butter until very soft, stirring in 1 tbsp flour to make a sort-of roux, and then, still stirring, adding a pint or so of stock (I used pork stock because,happily, I had some in the 'fridge, but use what you like).  Bring to the boil and then cook on the lowest heat possible until you are ready to eat.  Toad in the Hole, by Husband's decree, must be served with sweetcorn.  Sometimes I sneak in a dish of steamed cabbage too, but tonight I was, frankly, too lazy.  The serried ranks of the gingerbread army have defeated me...

Cath xx

Tuesday 5th of March 2013

Tuesday is,  as I mentioned yesterday,  my other, regular, slow-cooker night.  Tonight we ate another of our favourites,  which is so easy to throw together that, to be honest, it barely even qualifies as a recipe.  It is so useful, however, that I really must share it with you...

I vary the meat I use (to date, I've used chunked-up chicken thighs, strips of braising steak and pork steaks), but tonight we had pork.  Whatever meat I use, the dish always remains known as Hawaiian BBQ *whatever*.  

All you need to do is pop some prepared onions in your slow-cooker pot (and see yesterday's post for further adumbration of this), along with the contents of a bottle of Reggae Reggae sauce (or whichever brand you prefer, but I can only vouch for the success of this particular one) and the contents of a can of pineapple chunks in juice.  Cook on LOW all day, then stir through a tablespoonful of cornflour mixed with two tablespoons of water.  Sprinkle with some chopped parsley or, if you've got some handy,  fresh thyme is really lovely here.  Don't make a shopping trip out of it though...

I have been known to serve this dish with rice but, more often than not (and in the interests of speedy suppers) I serve it with a bowl of couscous.

Cath xx

Sunday 3rd of March 2013

Another glorious spring day today.  We had a late breakfast of toast with the last of the homemade blackberry jam,   then spent some time in the garden; quite a large portion of which was spent coaxing the rabbit out from behind the shed, where he'd escaped to when he was let out for his regular constitutional.

Needless to say,  I was soon back in the kitchen... 

An early dinner of roast pork was on the cards, so I parboiled the potatoes for my roasties so that they could be steam-dried and cool when I later tipped them into searing-hot fat (beef dripping, as usual). I also smeared our lovely piece of pork shoulder with cold-pressed rapeseed oil into which I'd stirred crumbled bay leaves (from the garden,  dried in the microwave) and garlic.  This was put in a roasting tin, atop a base layer of sliced onions (skins left on),  squashed garlic cloves and more bay leaves.

To help the gravy along, I also put  both halves of a split pig's trotter in the tin under the joint.  I use trotters quite often like this with a pork joint,  their lovely sticky juices, enhanced while cooking with just a splash of white wine at first and, later on, with some water, make for a superlative gravy.  The roasted trotter(s) can also be boiled up again to make a useful stock. Pork-bone stock is, I often feel,  underrated. It's almost as flexible in use as chicken stock and makes a particularly fine noodle soup.

To serve with the pork and potatoes, I roasted a dish of carrot chunks,  tossed with a very little oil,  some dried herbs and a bit of cumin,  which goes so well with carrots.  The other vegetable dish was a mix of peas and sweetcorn (both cooked 'fresh from the freezer'). 

So, another weekend is over. Tomorrow brings work for Husband and me and school for the children (although actually JD has a gymnastics competition for most of the day).  Monday night means Beaver Scouts for JD,  and supper from the slow-cooker for us all.  Hope you've all had a really lovely weekend too...

Cath xx

Friday Night Fakeaway: Meatball Pizza

My eldest son came home from school a week ago, having been on a field trip to taste the food at a local Italian restaurant (I know! How good is that? We never had cool trips like that in my day! *feels old*).  One of the dishes the children had tried, which had made a very serious impression on my lad, was "a really nice pizza with meatballs and lots of stringy cheese, Mummy".  It soon became clear that the mere notion of this full-on 'man' pizza was enough that the males of the household; from the tallest to the shortest, would pester me mercilessly until I caved in  ask me very, very nicely if I would please make a similar pizza for the Friday Night Fakeaway this week.

Pizza is, it has to be said, a favoured option for Friday nights; I have used my bread machine pizza dough recipe for almost as long as I have had the machine itself, and this simple no-cook pizza sauce is easily thrown together and left to do its thing morning, noon or night.

Love-It-and-Leave-It Pizza Sauce

1 tube tomato purée
250ml water
4 tbsp cooking oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried thyme
fresh black pepper

Stir everything together in a bowl.  Cover it with clingfilm (which I hope, by now, you have learned to keep in the freezer) and then pop the dish in the 'fridge for a few hours; overnight or all day is fine too, just leave it for a bit for the flavour to really develop.  Spread liberally onto your prepared pizza base and cook as normal.

Meatball Pizza

For tonight's meatball pizza, I defrosted some meatballs that I already had, as is my habit, in the freezer, but you can use whatever you have, buy some or make some specially.  Use as many or as few as you like, naturally.

Cook the raw meatballs in the oven at 180°c for 15 minutes until cooked through, then remove from the oven and set aside.   Turn the oven up to 220°c.  Dust your baking trays with cornmeal (polenta) or regular flour, then place the rolled-out pizza bases on to the trays.  Prick all over with a fork, then spread evenly with the tomato sauce.  Dot  the sauce-smothered pizza bases with the meatballs.  Cover the pizzas with grated mozzarella (for the 'stringy cheese' of my son's description), sprinkle with a few mixed dried herbs and finish with some grated parmesan for an extra 'cheesy' flavour.

Transfer the trays to the preheated oven and bake for 15-20 minutes until cooked; crisp around the edges with the golden, sizzling cheese settled around the nubbly forms of the meatballs.  Throw a salad of some kind together (I'm still very keen on my Black Bean & Sweetcorn Salad).  Remove the pizzas from the trays to a board,  and slice them into wedges.  Pour a glass of something lovely and enjoy the start of the weekend.

Happy Friday, everyone!  Cath xx

On the Pull...

This is a fab Saturday night family supper.  Not much work, then all day in the slow-cooker, a little bit (but again, not much) of work again and you're ready to eat.  I found this recipe on one of my blog-watching sessions, following links and seeing what I can find.  This is taken from the website of an American public media radio show, The Splendid Table and I've bookmarked a couple of other ideas that interest me from this site too.  I've made a few tiny changes (mainly to do with quantities), but the original recipe is here if you'd rather follow that.  Bottled 'liquid smoke' is available in the UK from American Soda, who are based in Ashton-under-Lyne, though I suspect that this would be just as tasty, though in a different way, without the 'specialist equipment'.  I also adore the fact that, in the US, pork shoulder is (inexplicably, to my mind) referred to as 'pork BUTT'.  Oh my, how the evolution of language fascinates...

American BBQ-Style Pulled Pork

I think the dsp (dessertspoon) measure may be a little archaic these days, but I rather like it; it refers to 2 tsp.

2kg boneless pork shoulder
3 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp flaky sea salt 
1 tbsp black pepper
1 dsp garlic powder
1 dsp English mustard powder
4 tbsp bottled 'liquid smoke'

Stir the spices and salt together. Cut the pork into chunks, removing the rind   Put half the pieces into the slow cooker, then add half the spice mix and half the liquid smoke, then add the rest of the pork and the remaining flavourings.  Cook on medium all day (I would say use high if you don't have a medium setting). Put the cooked meat in a bowl and strain the cooking juices into a jug.  Shred (this is the 'pulling' part...) with two forks as for French rillettes or Peking duck.   Put the shredded meat back into the slow cooker pot and add as much of the reserved juice as you need for a pleasantly soft and juicy texture

Serve with rolls, salad and barbecue sauces and condiments of your choice.  Our pre-prandial snack tonight was celery sticks with a cheesy dip.

Cath xx

Pork Rescue

After a fabulous weekend with friends, the centrepiece of which was surely the 4kg shoulder of pork we roasted on Saturday afternoon, I found myself with a huge hunk of meat still left in the 'fridge.  As pork seems to roast so much better when cooked in a large piece (and anyway, you get more crackling this way), it seems silly not to cook a large piece when you get the chance, especially if the only 'problem' is having meat left over; leftover pork is so lovely, whether you cook it or not , and so versatile when you do. This recipe also, happily, uses up the rogue green peppers so often lurking in my 'fridge; refugees from bargain mixed bags of peppers.  The frozen 'mini rösti' I sometimes use to top this sort of meal are easy enough to get hold of in most supermarket freezer sections;  the usual mashed potatoes for the top are great, but ultimately, on a cold Monday evening, these are the easy option, however lazy it may seem... and, justifiably so, as it's very tasty either way!


Pork Pot (as named by James)

1 tbsp dripping, oil or butter
1 onion, peeled, halved and sliced
1 stick celery, chopped
1 green pepper, de-seeded and chopped
200ml pork gravy (or water)
500ml passata
400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
3 or 4 handfuls of shredded cooked pork
frozen mini rösti (12 or so)

Heat the fat in a large casserole and fry the onion, celery and pepper until softened.  Add the gravy (or just some water if you don't have gravy left over, or to hand) and the passata, then stir in the chickpeas and the shredded pork.  Stir well to mix, then turn it all out into an ovenproof dish.  Top with the frozen rösti (and see picture) and cook at 200°c for 25 minutes.  Serve with something a little crunchy, whether salad or vegetables.

Cath xx

Delicious Autumn

"Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes.  Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits."  ~ The Way of All Flesh, Samuel Butler

Autumn.  It may be  cold and dark (and, for us in West Wales at least, misty and extremely damp), but it does have its plus points.  Roaring open fires, hot chocolate, snuggly sweaters and beautiful colours on the trees.  All these, and cooking lovely, warming casseroles like this one.  It truly is food to warm your heart and soul.  Even more so when it comes with a baked potato; crunchy-skinned without, fluffy and buttered within,  on the side... just pop your pricked spuds in the 160°c oven as you begin to prepare the casserole and everything will be, perfectly, ready at the same time.

Casseroled Pork Chops with Cider and Mustard

4 pork chops, bone in
2 tbsp dripping or butter
1 large onion, halved and sliced thinly
2 eating apples, cored and cut into wedges
500ml cider
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp cornflour, mixed with 1 tbsp water
salt and pepper
chopped fresh parsley

Melt the fat in a large, deep pan which has a lid.  When it is hot, quickly brown the pork chops, then remove them to a plate.  Add the onions to the pan and fry until soft and golden.  Pour in the cider and add the mustard and slaked cornflour, stirring well to combine everything, before adding the apple pieces and returning the chops to the pan.  Cover and bring to the boil.  Transfer the pan to a 160°c oven for an hour, then check the seasoning and correct it to your liking.  Stir in the parsley and serve with baked potatoes.

Cath xx

A Very Porky St. Patrick's Day

James and I had a lovely St. Patrick's Day lunch today, cooked for us at the Aberystwyth family centre by some Irish friends.  Coddle is not so very dissimilar to the Welsh favourite, cawl;  a casserole of bacon and sausages cooked in stock with potatoes, parsnips, swede and carrots.  Served with some gorgeous soda bread it was, truly, a meal to make you sit up and beg!

Wanting to offer the rest of the family a little of the culinary comfort they had missed out on at lunchtime, tonight I opted for an easy midweek roast; potatoes, parsnips and (unpeeled) carrots, chopped up and roasted with a small, 1kg joint of pork loin.  I added a glass'-worth of chicken stock (as I had no pork stock) and cooked it all at 200°c for an hour.  Served with some stuffing balls and some steamed broccoli (plus the inevitable sweetcorn), it made a meal with very little work on my part. Result!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, Cath xx

Call this cold? Well, yes, actually!

The cold weather has really brought us round to stews and casseroles again.  Milder winters in recent years have meant less of a marked change in our diet from one season to the next but this year I am really feeling wintry and more in need of hearty, rib-sticking dishes to warm my chilled marrow right through.  Originally, when planning supper for tonight, I thought of Goulash, but the lack of beef available in my freezer, and the need to use up a surfeit of pork, meant that this has ended up more like the equally appealing Pörkölt. 

For the accompaniment, first I thought rice, then I thought noodles (for which read tagliatelle), then I wondered about couscous.  Then it came to me, as obvious as it should have been all along... DUMPLINGS!!!  Called knedlíky when dishes not dissimilar to this are made  in Czechoslovakia, my dumplings immediately felt 'right' with this dish.  We all love dumplings anyway, so nI wonder what was wrong with me not to think of them straightaway.  No matter, this was especially lovely with a glass of robust Shiraz.

Slightly Slavic Pork Stew

Incidentally, the dumpling 'recipe' can be used to bulk up any stews or casseroles - and add any herbs or spices you feel would enhance your meal.  I prefer them plain and unfettered with a highly-flavoured stew like this one.



25g butter and a little cooking oil
1 large onion, halved and sliced
700g lean boneless pork, cut into cubes
2 tbsp smoked paprika (I use La Chinata, which seems quite widely available)

1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into chunks
1 yellow pepper, deseeded and cut into chunks1 green pepper, deseeded and cut into chunks
100g mushrooms, cut into chunks
400g can chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato purée

For the dumplings:


150g self-raising flour
50g suet
salt and pepper
milk or water to bind to a loose dough

Heat the fat and fry the onion until soft.  Add the pork and brown it a little, then mix in the vegetable chunks.  Pour in the tomatoes and half a can of water with the tomato purée, and cook at 160° for 1 hour 15 minutes, then, if you like, mix the ingredients for the dumplings together, form into half-a-dozen small balls with wetted hands and add them to the pan, cooking the uncovered stew at 180°c for a further quarter of an hour.

Cath xx

Scratchy Scratchy

The only (slight) problem with cooking joints of meat in the slow-cooker is the lack of crisp, crunchy bits.  For a piece of pork this presents a real problem, as the crackling is (in most households, anyway), awaited as eagerly as the meat itself.  Happily though, this problem is not insoluble; if you take the fatty rind off your joint before popping it in the cooker, you can have your meat cooked beautifully while you do whatever you like and then, when you feel inclined, follow the recipe below for a fab pre-dinner snack.  Scratchings are a great favourite of my beloved; not to say that the rest of us don't like them too, just that his passion for them by far eclipses any interest we might have.  I admit that these are barely dietetic, and certainly an insalubrious pleasure, but every once in a while they are a real treat...

Really Scratchy Scratchings

Pork Rind
2 tsp table salt
1/2 tsp English mustard powder
several good grindings of fresh black pepper

Cut the pork rind (sharp kitchen scissors are easiest) into pieces about 2 x 1cm.  Mix the salt, mustard and pepper together in a plastic bag, then pop in the rinds and toss to coat.  Tip the rinds onto a baking sheet and cook for 20-30 minutes at 200°c until brown, crisp and sizzling.  Drain the scratchings on kitchen paper and tip the fat remaining on the tray into your dripping pot.  Serve the scratchings (with a pre-prandial G&T for preference) while they are still just barely warm.

Cath xx

Sticky Chicky

This morning was a lot of fun; playgroup was cancelled today because the church hall was being used as a polling station, so I invited a friend and her little boy over instead. After playing in the garden, dressing up (and just a teeny bit of gossiping), we all had lunch together. I'd prepared Chicken Strips and made some garlic mayo to go with, plus we had bread, olives and all sorts of salad bits. I brought out some Chocolate Muffins for pudding. Chris trotted off to school with a full tummy and a big grin on his face. I only hope he wasn't too exhausted.

We've had, for the most part, a truly gorgeous afternoon. I took the opportunity to do a bit of pootling about in the garden, putting a trellis on the side of the shed for my sweet peas, weeding the patio pots and cutting dandelions from the lawn to bring indoors. Why is that that so many people seem to think of dandelions as a weed? They're one of my favourite garden flowers and look just like their name; a 'dandy' lion. If a flower could be a diva, this one would...a flashy, brassy cabaret of a flower. They are now sitting in an old Shippams fish-paste jar that we dug up when we moved in and started clearing the garden.

Tonight's dinner had a vaguely Oriental feel to it, but as usual it was inauthentically so. The first course is inspired by those lovely steamed dumplings, stuffed with char siu, that you get with dim sum.

Hoisin Pork Rolls

250g pork mince
6 tbsp hoisin sauce
1 tbsp tomato pureé

Fry the mince until browned, then stir in the hoisin sauce and tomato pureé. Leave the filling to cool while you make the bread dough.

3/4 tsp active dry yeast
400g strong white (bread) flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
300ml warm water

Mix together and knead to make a soft dough. Leave to rise until doubled, then knock back and divide into 12. Flatten the pieces into discs and place a blob of filling in the centre, then pull the edges up to cover it completely. Place the rolls on an oiled baking sheet, dust with flour and leave to rise again for half an hour or so. Bake at 200­°c for 15-20 minutes until puffy and tinged with brown.

The main course was these chicken pieces, doused in a marinade and left in the fridge earlier today, before being blasted in the oven tonight, accompanied by rice and a cucumber salad.

Sticky Chicken

10-12 chicken thighs or drumsticks (or both!)
4 tbsp sunflower oil
4 tbsp dark soy sauce
3 tbsp dark muscovado sugar
2 tbsp garlic vinegar
1 tsp ground ginger
black pepper

Whisk all the marinade ingredients together, then turn the chicken pieces in the mixture and leave them to soak up the flavours for a few hours. When dinner time is looming, lift the pieces out and place them on a rack over a baking tray, then cook at 200°c for 30-40 minutes, until cooked through, crisp and burnished.

Pulse Rate

Lentils are so useful in the kitchen. I add the little red split ones to all sorts of things to bulk them out, stretch them further or just to add a different dimension of texture. A spoonful or two in a stew thickens the gravy nicely as it cooks, without the need for any artificial jiggery-pokery, and you can stretch a small quantity of minced beef further if you add half the quantity of lentils to whatever you're cooking and simmer with some stock. Pulses are cheap, especially if you buy the bags of dried ones which you soak and cook for yourself. More and more, too, I find that my children adore pulses of all kinds and will enthusiastically devour just about anything that is accompanied by lentils, chock-full of chickpeas or studded with red kidney beans.

For a meal or side dish, though, you'd be hard pressed to beat the beautiful, pebbly, French lentilles de Puy. Once a recherché resident of upmarket and continental grocers, they can now (thanks largely to Merchant Gourmet) be found in even the smaller supermarkets. This little one-pot meal shows them off to their best, cooked simply with sausages for an unfussy, but still somehow rather special, family supper.

Sausage & Lentil Braise

The pork chop was added really because I had one that needed to be used; you could easily leave it out, though I do think it adds to the flavour of the juices and to the 'feastliness' of the meal as a whole.

1 leek, shredded

fresh thyme

50ml vermouth (or white wine)

250ml Puy lentils

1 or 2 pork chops, bone-in please

6-10 coarse pork sausages

Heat a little fat in a flameproof casserole and soften the leeks with some finely chopped fresh thyme. Add the lentils to the pan, stirring to coat them in the fat, then pour in the vermouth or wine and allow the alcohol to bubble away. Pour in 500ml water, then lay the pork chop and sausages in the pan. Bring to the boil, then cover the pan and simmer for 20 minutes. Serve straight from the pan, possibly (if you can stand the extra carbs) with some nice bread for mopping up the juices.

Red, Red Beans

Today started out beautiful and then the weather got progressively worse. Grrr! No matter, as there wer plenty of indoor things to keep us busy. Karl is still on annual leave, so he looked after James this afternoon while I took Chris to school, then trekked around town between the butcher's, the greengrocer's and the haberdashery, where I bought a length of fabric to make a summer dress (here's hoping). It's red, with a simple white floral print. I first saw it a couple of weeks ago and have been pondering whether I should buy some ever since.

The in-laws are coming tomorrow, having phoned the other day to invite themselves down for a last-minute visit. I'm looking forward to it; I find myself in the enviable position of having parents-in-law who I get on with very well. When I went to the butcher earlier, I got some lamb chump chops for tomorrow's dinner. Karl had earlier intimated that he'd like lamb for supper when they were here and I've got a nice way of doing lamb with garlic and rosemary; unfussy but delicious, so I shall do that (giving myself another good excuse to hack bits off the rosemary bush in the garden, which is reaching Triffid-like proportions).

Tonight's dinner was one of those dishes that I can adapt to whatever I've got (within reason, of course). Different meat, poultry (or no meat at all), different pulses, whatever. Give it a whirl!

Pork with Red Beans and Rice

1 onion, diced
700g pork, cut into strips
500g brown rice
400g can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 litre chicken stock
big handful spinach leaves

Heat some olive oil in a large pan (which has a lid) and soften the onion. Add the pork and brown it a little, then tip in the rice. Stir to coat the grains with the oil and meat juices. Add the beans, then pour in the stock. Cover the pan and bring to the boil. Simmer for about 20 minutes, until the rice is cooked through and the liquid absorbed. Add the spinach and leave the covered pan, off the heat, for a few minutes until the leaves have wilted. Give everything a good stir and serve.

Quickies #2

Always looking for easy dinner options that give a great meal without too much hands-on time, tonight I decided to try cooking a rice dish in the oven. It took about half an hour to put together, worked very well and I can imagine finding a lot of variations using the same method. The next thing is to try it out in the slow-cooker, as that would be a great help when Christopher starts nursery school in the new year.


Baked Pork & Cabbage Rice

1 onion, diced
500g cubed pork
250g brown rice
1/2 savoy cabbage, shredded
600ml hot vegetable stock

Heat some oil in a casserole pan. Soften the onion, then add the pork and cook it briefly, to 'seal', but not brown it. Tip in the rice and stir to coat the grains in the fat and pan juices. Put the cabbage into the pan, then pour over the hot stock. Cover the pan with its lid, bring the contents to the boil and transfer the pan to a 180°c oven for 20 minutes, until the rice is cooked.

Ice (sort-of) Magic

I have, over the last few days, been making serious efforts to reduce the amount of food in the freezer in the run-up to Christmas. This means using it, rather than throwing it away. I was rather perturbed to read the following advice in a magazine supplement about preparing for Christmas;

"Make space in the fridge, freezer and kitchen cupboards by throwing away anything past its sell-by date"

According to lovefoodhatewaste.com, a third of the food bought in the UK is already being thrown away uneaten, and I think deliberately setting out to advise people to throw food away seems rather irresponsible. Better, surely, to find ways of using things up (ideally, before they reach their best-before) and to encourage readers to plan their shopping and meals to minimise waste. While 'use-by' dates must be strictly adhered to for safety reasons, many 'best-before dates are merely a guide to quality and thus can, within reason, be ignored, rather than throwing away bagfuls of food. Changing our attitudes and habits regarding food is a really easy place for us to start reducing our environmental impact. I feel so strongly about this that for the first time ever, I wrote a 'letter to the editor'.


The only slight downside of this has been that I have had to deal with some, shall we say, interesting finds, mainly from the section of the freezer containing spoils from Hubby's bargain-hunting . Most of these, at least lately, have been meat portions in odd, so-called 'flavour glazes'. They seem to be something that the supermarket adds to perfectly good meat in order to 'add value', but which seem, rather inevitably, to be sold off for 9p a pack just before going out of date. Fine to freeze, though and an economical way to feed the family occasionally. This, coupled with using up the end of last week's veg box before the new one arrives tomorrow means that dinners this week have been a bit Ready Steady Cook chez nous.

Last night's we had turkey, purporting to be 'Chinese Style', which I cut into strips and stir-fried, to be served with parsnip chips, steamed curly kale and basmati rice. Tonight the boys and I were on our own for dinner, so I cooked some 'Smoky B-B-Q' Pork Steaks and served them on top of a pile of my homemade baked beans. I told the boys that it was Cowboy Pork 'n' Beans and Christopher wolfed it down so fast that I don't think it even touched the sides!

We finished our meal off with a slice each of a really damp, tasty banana cake that I bought from my cake stall at the BFN bash last Saturday. Lovely, lovely, lovely. And I'm getting my hair done tomorrow!

Pork and Peasant's Pottage

Last night I tried my hand at cooking a meal with Chinese-y flavours, which we all enjoyed. I can't claim that it was even remotely authentic, but it was my attempt at imitating char siu pork. Not very closely as it turned out, but it was very tasty nonetheless.

Chinese-style Pork

500g pork fillet
soy sauce
honey
zest and juice of a clementine (or half an orange)
lump of fresh ginger, peeled

Pour soy sauce (several tablespoons) into a shallow dish, then dollop in some honey. Add the clementine zest and juice, then grate in some fresh ginger. Grind in some black pepper, then whisk it all together. Turn the pork fillet in this marinade, then clingfim the dish and stick it in the fridge overnight. The next day, let the pork come up to room temperature while you preheat the oven to 200°c. Cook the pork for about 40 minutes, basting with the marinade and juices in the tin every so often. Slice the fillet thinly and serve with rice and steamed greens.


Tonight's dinner was rather more traditional. It's great fun to try out different ideas and play with cooking, but equally lovely to return to the more familiar and homely way of cooking. This chunky vegetable soup is economical at the end of the week and easily adaptable to whatever's still hanging around from last week's veg box. Cooking the bacon separately and adding it just before serving means that the crisp texture is retained and the flavour stands alone. I tend to use my 'vegetable peelings' stock to make soups like this, but chicken stock would be fabulous, or you could substitute a good-quallity bought stock if you prefer.

'Rustic' Vegetable Soup

1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1 stick celery, chopped
chopped thyme, rosemary, bay etc.
6 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped
800ml vegetable stock
about half a cabbage, shredded

several rashers of streaky bacon

Put the bacon onto a baking sheet and cook it in a 200°c oven. Meanwhile, heat some olive oil (garlic-infused is good) in a large pan and gently fry the onion, carrot and celery with the herbs until the vegetables start to soften slightly. Add the potatoes, then pour in the stock. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 10 minutes. Stir the shredded cabbage into the broth, then cover the pan and cook for a further 5 minutes. Remove the bacon from the oven, roughly chop the rashers and add to the soup just before serving, with bread and cheese to accompany it.

And it's only October!

Some things you just have to make in advance. The essential Christmas ‘big three’ are among them and I like to get these done and dusted as soon as possible. Today I tackled the mincemeat - just the cake and the Christmas pudding left to do.  I'm taking the boys to visit their Godmother at the weekend. It's James' first birthday on Friday, so I sense a big baking bonanza coming on!

Mincemeat

Seriously easy, and the homemade stuff is usually miles better than anything you can buy. This recipe makes three 450g jars to keep for Christmas and three little 200g jars which are useful for presents. I sterilise the jars, and their lids, in diluted sterilising liquid (from the chemists) for 30 minutes, then rinse everything with freshly-boiled water and dry them with a clean linen ‘glass cloth’.


3 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and finely diced
650g mixed dried fruit and peel
175g shredded suet
175g light muscovado sugar
¼ tsp each of ground cinnamon, ground mixed spice and ground ginger
about ¼ tsp-worth of freshly grated nutmeg
zest and juice of 1 orange
100ml brandy

Put all the ingredients into a really big bowl, then mix everything together really well. Pour over the orange juice and the brandy and mix again. Spoon the mincemeat into cooled sterilised jars and store in a cool dark place until Christmas.


For dinner tonight I made Julia's fab butternut squash, potato and cheesy pork chop thing from A Slice of Cherry Pie. I used Y Fenni cheese this time, which was a great variation.

Use Your Loaf!

I'm taking the boys to my parents' house for a week tomorrow, so most of today has been spent preparing for that, either packing bags or stocking up the cupboards with user-friendly food for Karl who - shock horror - has to cope on his own for a bit.

Tonight I made a sausage loaf for our dinner. It's another one that takes a while in the oven but isn't much work to put it together. The original plan was to save the leftovers for a mid-journey picnic tomorrow but, as there were no leftovers, I shall have to rethink that one...You can use whatever herbs you like; whatever will complement the sausages you've chosen. I had some good old-fashioned butcher's pork sausages, so I chopped some sage and thyme together.

Sausage Loaf

8 good-quality thick sausages
1 onion, diced
fresh herbs (see above)
4 tbsp fine semolina
1 large egg
8 rashers streaky bacon

Line a 900g/2lb loaf tin with 7 of the bacon rashers, reserving one for later. Fry the onion in a knob of butter until soft and golden brown, then whizz the fried onions to a purée in the blender (stay with me here). Split the sausage skins and squeeze out the meat into a bowl. Add the herbs, semolina and the beaten egg, then scrape the onion purée into the bowl and mix everything together really well.. Spoon the sausage mixture into the bacon-lined tin and spread out evening, smoothing the top. Lay the reserved piece of bacon centrally along the top of the loaf, then fold the edges of the other bacon rashers inwards to completely cover the surface. Bake at 200°c for 50 minutes until the loaf is cooked right through to the centre. Turn out onto a plate and garnish with a fresh herb sprig to serve.

Serve with steamed potatoes or mash and a green vegetable. Tonight I cooked some of my Savoy Cabbage Braised in Chicken Stock, which we really enjoy with this, but a mixture of peas and sweetcorn goes down well too.

Poets and Pork Chops

Today was the last day of my Mum's visit, as she goes home tomorrow. We drove down the coast to spend part of the day in New Quay, Ceredigion. We had lunch in the beer garden of The Black Lion Hotel , which is reputed to have been a favourite watering hole of poet Dylan Thomas. in fact, a film crew recently descended on the town to make 'The Edge of Love', starring Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller and Matthew Rhys.

Our supper tonight was a simple affair and, as it was pork chops, very popular with Karl. My Mum and I cooked this together - it's one of her 'regulars', but I'd never done it before. I will certainly be doing it again, though. We used a couple of Discovery apples out of the organic fruit-and-veg box and a big spoonful of Rachel's Organic créme fraîche. You might need to add a little more if you use a different type, as this sort is very thick and creamy, much more so than standard supermarket own-brand offerings


Pork Chops in Cider

4 pork chops
1 large onion
2 apples
strong dry cider
sage leaves
créme fraîche

Heat the oven to 200°c and melt a little butter and oil together in a large roasting tin. Slice the onion thickly and turn the slices in the hot fat, then core and slice the apples and add them to the tin. Place the pork chops on top of the apple-and-onion mixture and pour over some cider to come about halfway up the chops. Grind some black pepper over the chops and sprinkle some sage leaves over the top. Bake in the oven for 1 hour. Just before serving, stir in a good dollop of créme fraîche.

I think just simple steamed potatoes and some green vegetables are just right with this, as there is plenty of nice creamy sauce to coat everything. We 'grown-ups' drank some more of the cider with our meal. Christopher and James enjoyed the cider sauce (where the alcohol is cooked out anyway), but drank apple juice and water respectively, don't worry!