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.

 
 

I am a real cereal lover! It has ever been so.   I grew up on sugary cereals when I was a child.   My mother could never get us to eat oatmeal , or any other kind of cooked cereals for that matter.   We would only eat cold cereals like Cheerios (which I still love) puffed wheat, corn flakes and the like . . . not exactly the healthiest things around, but looking at them now, not exactly the worst things either!  There was no such thing as granola back then, at least not that you could buy in the shops.  I am sure there were a few tree hugging hippies (which my mother was not) that did make their own, but having said that . . . we probably would have turned out noses up at it back then anyways . . .



As an adult I have come to embrace and LOVE cooked cereals, but more than that . . . I adore Granola, often making my own.   The thing I have always loved about home created Granola is that I can put lots of fruit into it . . . and I do like lots of fruit in my granola.

Just prior to Christmas the people at Jordan's sent me some of their new Super Fruity Granola.  Super Fruity granola is bursting with raspberries, redcurrants, and pomegranate . . . lots and lots of lovely red berries.   There is also oat and almonds, baked with honey.    

Jordon's Super Granola's are all created with a base of toasted oatmeal and combined with plenty of special 'super berry' or nuts ingredients added for extra nutrition, flavour and texture.



And as you can see, the fruit was really bright and colourful, and I have to say it tasted just like real fruit!  Well, it was real fruit, but you know what I mean.   It didn't taste stale and dry like some of those dried fruits in cereals can taste.   I quite enjoyed it.  The oats were crunchy and slightly sweet from the honey it is baked with.   I quite, quite enjoyed.  I love a nice bowl of granola in the morning topped with tart plain yogurt.   I think it is the breakfast of champions!

From their page:

 

I often eat granola just out of hand as a quick snack, and I have been known to use it to top pancakes and muffins as well as my baked honey glazed granola donuts.

Very scrummy indeed and I am thinking that this fruity granola would go down very well in those!  This beautiful granola is available in Four delicious flavours.



Sometimes though, you are on the run and you don't have time to sit down and eat a bowl of cereal, or bake donuts or the like.   You want something quick that you can grab as you are going out the door and eat on the run.   They also sent me a box of their ABSOLUTE Nut Luxury Bars.   Oh my . . . just look at all the nuts in that bar!  I love nuts.  

These were beautifully chewy and just stogged full of lovely crunchy whole and chopped almonds, roast hazelnuts and pecans . . . combined with oats in a fabulous hand held bar which I truly enjoyed.  I love that it was healthy and very, very nutty.   Have I told you I love nuts?   Yes . . . well, I'm telling you again, I LOVE NUTS and I just LOVED these granola bars!

From their page:

 

 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!

Ottolenghi is probably one of the best and dynamic places to eat in this country.  When I worked down South the daughter often came down from London for the weekend with friends 

 

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.