We were in town the other day and I popped into the Little Waitrose they have there.   I sure miss Waitrose.   I used to do most of my shopping there when we lived down South.   Their meat and produce was always excellent.   I found some excellent looking organic free range pork chops that were on their sell by date and so I got a good bargain.   I froze them when I got home and then,  yesterday,  I thawed them out and we had them for supper.



We don't eat pork very often . . . actually we don't eat any red meat very often . . . usually it is fish or chicken or no meat at all . . . but the Toddster, he does enjoy a good chop once in a while.



My mother always way over-cooked her pork when I was growing up.   Seriously.   You could have used her chops to shingle a roof.   I think there was a lot of fear as well as danger in those days of people getting trichinosis from under-cooked pork.



You can cook pork well enough without drying it out and over-cooking it though.   There is a fine line between cooked through and cremated!   I don't care who you are . . . an over cooked pork chop is just not very tasty or appealing.  I find if you cook it so long as the meat which is closest to the bone runs with clear juices when pricked . . . then it's done!  And indeed you can cook the tenderloin only until it is a little pink and you will be safe.   Any longer and it's blah . . . YUCKO!



Today I pan fried my chops, finishing them off in a hot oven for a few minutes while I created a delicious sauce to serve over top . . . of red apples and onions, sage, walnuts and cider vinegar.   Beautiful.   It's not a sauce in the sense of a gravy . . . but more like a relish.

 

Pork and apples are perfect partners . . . add some sage, onion and walnuts, and you have something very special indeed. Tasty and colorful with just a bit of crunch from the walnuts.  The men in your life will thank you for these!

 

I paired this up with Tatties and Neeps . . .  Basically that is just  mashed potatoes and Swede . . . but doesn't the other name sound more delicious and intriguing??   I know, how could you not love something called Tatties and Neeps???   It's quite impossible.   And it just goes so well with pork.   It really does.

Enjoy.

 

*Pork Chops with an Apple, Red Onion & Walnut Sauce*
Serves 4
Printable Recipe

Tender pork chops served with a chunky apple, red onion and walnut sauce.  Delicious.   I like to serve this with mashed potatoes and Swede, or Tatties and Neeps as it is known over here!

4 bone in, thick pork chops
1 TBS butter
freeze dried sage, sea salt and cracked black pepper to taste

For the Sauce:
1 TBS olive oil
2 TBS butter
2 large red-skinned dessert apples, cored and cut into wedges
2 medium red onions, peeled and cut into wedges
50g of walnut pieces, toasted (about 1/2 cup)
1 tsp freeze dried sage leaves
2 TBS organic Cider vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 220*C/425*F/ gas mark 7.   Have ready a shallow baking dish.

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat until it begins to foam.   Sprinkle the chops to taste on both sides with salt, pepper and sage.   Brown them generously, for about 3 to 4 minutes per side.   Remove them from the skillet to the baking dish and bang them into the oven while you make the sauce.

To make the sauce.  Add the olive oil and butter to the pan drippings.   Add the apples and onions.  Cook, stirring occasionally for about 5 minutes, or just until they are beginning to soften.   Add the sage leaves, walnuts and cider vinegar and cook for about 2 minutes more.  Remove from the heat.  Season to taste.

Make sure the juices of the chops are running clear.  Once they are done, plate them up onto heated serving plates, spoon an equal portion of the sauce over each and serve immediately.

 
 

 

 It's still snowing although it's not quite as cold as it was.  If this stuff freezes those roads are going to be treacherous!  It's definitely the type of day you want to spend indoors next to the fire!

 

 I know all you North Americans think we Brits are cold weather wimps . . . and maybe we are.   But in all fairness . . . we just don't have the insulation and heating systems that y'all are used to in North America, and it is a lot damper here!



I took a gathering from the leftovers on my Vegetable Bin today and created a lovely soup from them.  Rib sticking and heart warming . . . with lovely carrots, parsnips and swede (rutabaga) . . . fantastic root vegetables that have beautiful sweet properties, especially when you sweat them down with butter.



Added to the mix are wonderful aromatics . . . onions, leeks . . . celery, with a touch of fresh sage leaves.   It's sounding pretty good so far isn't it?   But just wait . . . it gets even better . . .



I've added the luxury of stodgy bacon, sage and suet dumplings . . . oh so wonderfully filling and fabulously delish.   Seriously.   The soup on it's own is rich and brothy . . . filled with lots of cubed vegetables . . . and these spectacularly scrummy dumplings.   Oh my . . . it goes down a real treat.

 

Soup.  Vegetables.   Dumplings . . . BACON dumplings no less.   What more could a body want on a cold winter's day?   Not much . . . not much . . . so, what are you waiting for???   Get cooking!



*Vegetable Soup with Bacon Dumplings*
Serves 6
Printable Recipe

A delicious filling soup.  Perfect for a cold winter's day.

2 TBS butter
1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 leek, diced, white and green parts kept separately
3/4 pound of swede, peeled and diced
3/4 pound of parsnips, peeled and diced
3/4 pound of carrots, peeled and diced
2 celery sticks, diced
3 to 4 sage stems
2 1/2 litres of chicken stock (10 1/2 cups)
salt and black pepper

Dumplings:
100g of self raising flour (1 cup)
1/2 tsp English mustard powder
2 tsp finely chopped sage
50g of vegetable suet (1/4 cup)
2 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
4 TBS cold water

 

Melt the butter over medium low heat in a large saucepan.   Add the onion and white part of the diced leeks.   Saute about 5  minutes, until beginning to soften, without colouring.   Add the remainder of the vegetables and sage.   Toss in the butter, then cover and sweat for about 10 minutes over low heat, stirring occasionally.   Pour on the stock, season to taste with salt and black pepper and bring to the boil.  Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes until the vegetables are tender.  Adjust seasoning as needed.

To make the dumplings whisk together the flour and mustard powder.  Stir in the sage, suet and bacon with a bit of salt and pepper to taste.  Gradually stir in the water with a spoon, then using your hands to squeeze it together to make a smooth dough.   Using your hands shape into 18 balls by gently rolling between your hands.

Stir in the remaining green diced leeks.  Add the dumplings.  Recover the pan and simmer for 10 minutes until the dumplings are light and fluffy.  Ladle into bowls and serve immediately.

Note:   If you wanted to make this vegetarian, you could use vegetable stock and add gnocchi dumplings instead of the bacon suet ones. Or you could leave the bacon out of the dumplings and replace it with something nutty like chopped walnuts, and a bit of crumbled cheese, such as a creamy Stilton.   Sounds gorgeous already!

 

The citrus fruit is so lovely this time of year!   Our grocery shelves are stocked with lovely oranges and lemons from Spain.  It is the perfect time to make marmalade too . . . I have never made my own marmalade.   I really should give it a go.   I fear I would never be happy with store bought stuff again.   I do love a nice piece of toast in the morning . . .  spread with lots of butter and orange marmalade.



Any other time of the year I would not think of using precious oranges in cakes and the like, but at this time of year . . . when they are so abundant  reasonably priced, I do love to indulge myself in this way.



This week I decided to bake us a lovely spiced orange cake, which was filled with lots of beautiful orange flavour . . . both from the juice and the finely grated zest . . . mixed with lots of cinnamon, cloves and ground cardamom.   Just delightful!

 

I created a lovely icing sugar and cinnamon/orange glaze to spoon over top of the warm cake as it cooled.   I like to do this on a rack placed over a large piece of foil.   I keep scraping the glaze which over-runs the up with a spoon and spooning it over again . . . I don't want to waste even a fraction of all those lovely flavours.

 

And I think it makes the glaze look even more interesting in the process . . . but that may just be me.  Do try not to over bake the cake . . you want it to keep all of that buttery moistness . . . You could add a bit of texture by stirring some juice plumped raisins into the batter.   I'd just pour some warm orange juice, with maybe a touch of Cointreau over top of the raisins and let them stand for about 15 minutes to make them all plump and juicy . . .



Do feel free to frost with a spiced vanilla butter cream instead of the glaze if you wish . . . instead of . . .  or even on top of the glaze.   This also tastes lovely  when sliced warm and served with a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream, or even some softly whipped double cream.



It's just a simple cake . . .
I like simple things, don't you??   Quite often it is the simple things in life which bring us the most joy.

 

*Spiced Orange Cake*
Makes one 9 inch square cake
Printable Recipe

A good way to use up some of the oranges left from Christmas.  Smells fabulous when it is baking.

170g of butter, softened (3/4 cup)
190g of golden caster sugar (1 cup)
2 large free range eggs
60ml vegetable oil (1/4 cup)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp orange extract
the finely grated zest of two well washed large oranges
60ml of orange juice
175g of plain flour (1 3/4 cup)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground cardamom

To glaze:
60ml orange juice (1/4 cup)
130g of sifted icing sugar (1 cup)
1/4 tsp cinnamon extract (optional)

Preheat the oven to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 5.  Butter a 9 inch square pan.  Line with baking paper.  Butter the paper.  Set aside.

Cream the butter, orange zest and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time.  Beat in the orange juice, oil and extracts.  Sift together the flour, baking powder, soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom.  Beat this into the creamed mixture in thirds, making sure it is smooth after each addition.   Spread the batter in the prepared pan, smoothing the top.  Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until risen, golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Remove from the oven.  Let stand for five minutes before lifting out of the pan and onto a wire rack.  Place the rack over a large piece of foil wrap.   Whisk together the glaze ingredients until smooth.  Pour the glaze over top of the warm cake.  In order not to waste too much of the glaze, I scraped it off the tin foil and kept spooning it over top of the cake.  It made for a nice rustic look.  Cut into squares to serve.  Store in an airtight container.

 





One of the things I love to make are Pierogi's.   If you are not familiar with what they are . . . they are an Eastern European Dumpling with is made with a type of pasta dough covering and a potato based filling.   

 The filling can have mushrooms in it with the potato, or meat, sauerkraut, cabbage or cheese, or sometimes even a mixture of several of those . . . but almost always it will have potato.

 





They are kind of like Eastern European Ravioli . . . and you boil them in lightly salted water and then fry them in butter with onions.    Served up with a dollop of Sour Cream, they are a real treat!   

I normally make my own from Scratch following a recipe given to me by a Hungarian friend many, many years ago.  (If you click on that it will take you to the recipe and some tasty photos of them.)

We enjoyed making them together on my first Christmas in Calgary Alberta. It was my first ever Christmas far away from my family.

  

Pierogi for Christmas was a family tradition of hers. It was really a lot of fun for me to learn how to make them from scratch, being taught not only by a person who knew what she was doing but who was a good friend.

I have had this Pierogi Lasagne recipe in my to do file for quite some time now.   I think I originally printed it out from the Mr Food site, but I can't be sure, as it was a copy and paste job.  

 

I finally got around to making it the other day and let me tell you . . . it was F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S!!   It tasted just like the real thing, with a lot less faff!

There was no rolling out and filling dumplings, or boiling them.  There was no frying them in butter.   You simply fry some onions, boil some lasagne noodles and make some mashed potatoes. 

The potatoes are mixed with cheese and some of the fried onions, and then layered with the noodles in a baking dish, and baked.  It was really easy!

 




The recipe does make a rather lot and it says you can freeze it, but in all honesty . . .  I have never actually tried to freeze it.  I have to say up front, I have never liked the texture of potato dishes once they've been frozen.   

To that end, I was able to successfully cut the recipe down to a third the original quantity, serving only 4 so that was great!  We had it fresh one night, served up with a salad and then we had the leftovers reheated for a quick supper the day after with some vegetables.

It's probably not the healthiest meal in the world. Mostly because of the cheese and fried onions . . . but it's probably a lot healthier for you than regular pierogis because you are not sauteeing anything but the onions in fat.   

And in fact, I cut the amount of oil used to fry the onions down quite a bit as well, only using 1 TBS for the whole lot, which divided between 4 servings would be quite considerably less.



 





Using half fat cheese for the filling, and low fat sour cream for the garnish meant that it wasn't all that bad for us.  It was cheap to make, filling and incredibly tasty!

   

We both enjoyed it very much . . . even the pasta hater in the house!

 

 

WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE PIEROGI LASAGNE

This is fantastically delicious!  It's also very easy to make and quite economical.   It's also quite easy to cut the recipe down.  I cut it down by a third today and it was fabulous.

1 package of lasagne noodles, cooked as per package directions
2 TBS vegetable oil
5 medium onions, peeled and finely chopped
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
2 dessert spoons of cream cheese
8 ounces grated strong cheddar cheese (2 cups)
6 cups of warm mashed potatoes (seasoned to taste with salt and pepper, a bit of nutmeg, a knob of butter and some warm milk)

HOW TO MAKE PIEROGI LASAGNE

Not hard to make at all and not near as time consuming as making pierogis.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add the chopped onions.  Cook, stirring occasionally, for 8 to 10 minutes, until they are lightly browned.  Don't let them burn.  

Reserve several TBS to sprinkle over the top of the casserole.  Stir the remainder into the mashed potatoes, along with 3/4 of the cheddar cheese and the cream cheese.  Taste and adjust seasoning as desired.

Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4.  Butter a 9 by 13 inch glass baking dish.

 

Cover the bottom of the dish with 1/4 of the noodles.  Top with 1/3 of the potato mixture, spreading it out with a fork.  Top with another fourth of the noodles.   Repeat with 1/3 of the potatoes.  Top with another fourth of the noodles and then the remainder of the potatoes.  Top with the last of the lasagne noodles  Sprinkle with the remainder of the cheese and sprinkle with the last of the sauteed onions.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until heated through and golden brown on top.   Let stand 5 minutes before cutting into squares to serve.

Optional:   Garnish each serving with a dollop of sour cream. 

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