This was originally going to be something and watercress pizza but something went wrong with out shopping order and we ended up with peashoots instead. I had selected watercress because the English stuff is just coming into season, these peashoots were from Portugal so not exactly food-mile friendly but tasty nonetheless.

We tossed the raw peashoots in some pesto before adding them to the cooked pizza, a technique we’ve used before with rocket. We also reserved some of the mozarella and added that with the peashoots, a good way to lighten everything up.

I got an email a couple of weeks ago asking if I was interested in trying some bacon. We get a lot of emails asking us to try things and we mostly say no, mostly the products aren’t that interesting, I don’t like writing reviews and, if I don’t like the product then I feel bad writing about it and potentially upsetting the supplier. I wasn’t going to turn down the offer of free bacon though so replied instantly and said yes. I wasn’t however expecting to receive 40 rashers of the stuff.

We used some in the spaghetti alla vodka we ate earlier in the week but the point of the free bacon was to see how the supermarket product compared to the premium bacon from a butcher. I didn’t have any butcher’s bacon and I wasn’t going to add to the 40 rashers so we just fried some up this morning for breakfast. Well, Stephen did. And here’s what he had to say about it.

Two rashers of each type went into the pan. One of the packs said “no added water” on it and I nodded in approval as I laid it into the frying pan along with the others. When cooking, the “no added water” rashers didn’t get covered in white foam and the others did. I pointed this out to Kerri and she (having read the marketing information) said that they were all supposed to be dry cure and that none of them were supposed to release anything. Hmm. I inspected the other packs and they did indeed say “dry cure” on them. Definite release of water though. I should have taken a picture at the time, but when the picture above was taken I had already turned them over.

Anyway, taste is what counts of course, so on to that. Armed with a rasher of each type, some toast, some fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms and a fried egg, I set to work. Tasting the different bacon on their own first before mixing them with anything else, one particular thing stood out: salt. They were all very salty. The flavour and texture did vary slightly between them: one was more porky and thicker, one tasted more like gammon but was oddly flat in texture and the other was somewhere in between in most respects.

The saltiness did tend to overpower the other flavours when eaten on their own, making it a little difficult to discern interesting differences. When eaten with tomatoes, mushrooms, egg, etc, the saltiness was diluted and it didn’t matter so much and they did complement the rest of the breakfast. I was hoping to be wowed by at least one of them which didn’t happen unfortunately, but all three were better than the lower quality supermarket alternatives or bulk generic catering packs that I’ve had the misfortune to be served in some establishments and I would happily eat them in preference for both taste and also animal welfare considerations.

(The bacon was sent to us by the PR company behind “I Love Real Bacon”, I can’t see a website for them though, just a Facebook page).

I started a new job last week and one of the many good things about it is that I get to work from home and therefore save myself an extra two hours a day that I used to spend at the mercy of London Underground. I can also work flexible hours so, in theory, I could start work early and then finish early, giving myself lots of time in the evening to spend in the kitchen. I haven’t quite got myself into a routine yet though so what generally happens is, I finish work and then realise there’s very little food in the house and I have no idea what to cook. I meant to resolve this at the weekend by planning lots of meals that I could start in the morning before work or be ready to prepare when my working day is finished. I didn’t get round to it though, I did however manage to buy vodka which meant we could eat this (original recipe here), never let it be said that I don’t have my priorities in order.

In a happy coincidence, a rather nice man knocked on my door yesterday and presented me with 40 rashers of bacon (more on that later) so I did the only thing I could in that situation, immediately fried some up and added it to the pasta sauce. Of course, everything is better with bacon but this took quite a lot of seasoning and lemon juice before it was properly balanced (Sainsbury’s have stopped selling my favourite San Marzano tomatoes so I tried some tinned cherry tomatoes which weren’t brilliant: too sweet and too much skin) but, once it was balanced, it was a good combination.

Of course, now I not only have to work out what we’re going to eat next week but I also have to work out how to incorporate those 40 rashers of bacon before they expire.

Of course, there were leftovers. Unless you’re catering for a reasonable number of people then even a half shoulder of pork will be too big for two. We simply reheated the pork, added some oven-cooked black beans, some more of those pickled red onions and piled it all onto a wrap. I preferred this to yesterday’s dinner but that was inevitable given my fondness for beans.

We still barely made a dent in the pork so the rest went into the freezer. We’ve frozen and reheated this successfully in the past so it’s definitely worth cooking a larger piece of meat than you need, as long as you like leftovers that is.

Having been to Borough Market on Friday and replenished our supply of dried chillies, it seemed only right to cook something Mexican this weekend. While I was there, I visited the Ginger Pig and picked up a pork shoulder. Initially, we planned to roast it simply and eat it with some roast potatoes and vegetables but, craving something spicy, we decided to roast it Mexican-style instead. On looking up the recipe, we noticed the red onion accompaniment and since we have a surfeit of those, they made their way onto the table too. We followed this recipe but I think ours look prettier.

There’s a little bit of work to do upfront with this dish but once it’s done, the pork sits happily in the oven for three hours while you get on with your Sunday. We spent that time watching movies and eating Marmite popcorn (brilliant, give it a go) before cooking the green rice and sitting down to dinner.

The green rice didn’t turn out as well as last time and it looked far too unappetising to photograph, it tasted okay though. The pork took on much more flavour this time; after shredding it, we added it to the remaining chilli sauce and left it to heat through again before serving. I imagine it will taste even better tonight though, having spent 24 hours in the fridge.

I wrote this up at the time of eating but forgot to post it and have just found it in the draft folder. Lucky for me since I wouldn’t have remembered any of this.

Both Stephen and I are recovering from heavy colds and today’s weather meant we didn’t feel much like venturing from the house. At this time of year, there’s not a lot in the fridge as there’s so much going on in the evenings that we’re not finding much time to cook. There are always lentils in the cupboard though and always some kind of bacon in the freezer so this was easy to put together while we snuffled and sneezed our way through the day.

Not the most exciting dish for a Saturday night but it was easy to cook and since neither of us have much of an appetite anyway, it’s relative simplicity was soothing and comforting. I ate mine with pasta, Stephen had his with bread.

Lentil and Bacon Ragu
Serves Two

250g bacon
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
Bay leaf
Large handful herbs, finely chopped (I used fresh thyme and rosemary)
Tablespoon tomato puree
200g puy lentils
Salt and pepper
Nutmeg
Glass red wine
300ml vegetable stock
Worcester sauce
1 tin tomatoes

Start by frying the bacon until the fat has rendered. Remove to a plate.

In the same pan, add some olive oil and then soften onion and garlic. Next add the bay leaf and the herbs and cook briefly before stirring in the tomato puree. Ensure everything is coated and then cook for a couple of minutes.

Now add the lentils and give everything a good stir. Season and grate in the nutmeg. Deglaze the pan with the red wine and allow the alcohol to cook out. Add the rest of the ingredients, bring to the boil and then simmer for around 40 minutes.

While this clearly doesn’t look particularly appetising, it was actually really good. We cooked it the first time at my mum’s house but the pictures didn’t come out very well. One could argue that this picture didn’t come out particularly well either and I wouldn’t disagree but I’ve temporarily suspended my quest for a decent picture and am posting it anyway.

The sauce is obviously what makes this so interesting and it was very simple. Make it while you’re frying the chops and mashing the potatoes and the whole thing will take about 25 minutes.

Whisky, Mustard and Mushroom Sauce

5 shallots, finely chopped
200g chestnut mushrooms, finely chopped
Salt and pepper
50ml whisky
2 tsps wholegrain mustard
150ml cream

Start by softening the shallots until they just begin to colour. Add the mushrooms, season with pepper and cook until any liquid from the mushrooms has evaporated. Pour in the whisky, cook until it has almost evaporated, add the mustard, the cream and season.

This is something we often cook on a Monday if we’re fortunate enough to have leftovers from the day before. We often do have leftovers because we generally buy a larger piece of meat than we need – it makes for a quick and easy meal on a Monday night and I think the larger the joint of meat, the less chance there is of it drying out on the day of roasting.

There’s a few posts on this particularly leftover dish so I won’t go into much detail (you can find the method for the chilli sauce that the pork is reheated in here) but we have altered our bean recipe so I wanted to record that.

We’ve been making these beans for a while and really like them, the original recipe is a real faff though so we’ve been playing with it to see if we can simplify it without losing any of the flavour. This is much simpler and is a really versatile recipe that works well in wraps or as an accompaniment to other Mexican dishes. It freezes well too.

Mexican Beans
Serves Two

175g dried beans, preferably black (turtle) or pinto beans
1 onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 bay leaf
2 red chillies, cored, deseeded and chopped
1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
Small tin chopped tomatoes
Salt

Put the beans into a pot, add cold water to cover.

Add half the chopped onion, half the garlic, the bay leaf and the chillies. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat, cover and cook until the beans are tender. The cooking time will vary depending on the beans and whether you’ve soaked them or not. Allow two hours but check regularly and top up with water if necessary. You want the water to have almost completely evaporated by the time you’ve finished this stage but you can drain the beans if you need to. I usually do this the night before I need the beans and refrigerate them at this stage, completing the next step on the following day.

About 20-30 minutes before the beans are cooked, heat some oil in a frying pan and soften the remaining onion and garlic. Add the tinned tomatoes and cook for about five minutes. Add a quarter of the cooked (and drained) beans into the frying pan and mash. Stir in the remaining beans, mix, season with salt and then serve.

Is there a patron saint of cooking? I’m not sure and Google was inconclusive. If there is such a thing and indeed, if I believed in such things, then I imagine she (it’s got to be a she, right?) was looking down on us this weekend. After not spending much time in the kitchen recently, we managed to produce the third really good meal in as many days. I don’t think we did anything drastically differently today and yes, I know roast pork isn’t all that difficult but for whatever reason, everything seemed to work brilliantly this time.

The meat (from Waitrose) had lots of flavour and remained juicy with super-crackly crackling. Having said I didn’t do anything differently, I did remember to cook the meat on the highest setting for the first 30 minutes before turning the oven down to 180 degrees which I don’t always remember to do. The potatoes and parsnips were crisp with lots of crunchy edges and fluffy insides (vegetable oil only today instead of a combination of vegetable and olive) and the vegetables were fresh and just interesting enough to compliment the meat without taking over (a dash of fennel seeds in the garlicky greens helped this). Oh, and that’s mashed celeriac in the middle which was wonderfully creamy and smooth.

I had planned to make stuffing but forgot so I guess that patron saint might have got distracted but otherwise, a glorious end to a brilliant weekend.

I wasn’t going to post this since the pictures came out so badly but our friends who came and ate this with us asked for the pork recipe so here it is. We don’t have a very large dining table so don’t entertain at home as much as we would like to. When we do have people for dinner then we tend to cook one-pot dishes such as these that can be eaten on laps so people can spread out around the kitchen. It works quite well but we’re both looking forward to having more space so we can do traditional Thai banquet-style dinners.

The other thing about having people over is that, while it’s okay for us to eat slightly cold food while we try to get good pictures of the food, it’s not something we tend to inflict on our guests, hence the hastily snapped pictures. It’s a shame that neither of these dishes look all that appetising since they were actually pretty good, especially the pork. As with most Thai curries, the cooking of the dish itself is quick and easy, it’s the making of the pastes that takes the time.

We cooked both of these dishes intending to serve six people, with some rice and vegetables but there wasn’t really enough. I’d say this was probably enough to feed four, generously. I would therefore like to apologise to my guests (if they’re reading) and hope you didn’t have to stop off for more food on the way home!

Pork and Green Peppercorn Curry
From David Thompson’s “Thai Food”

300g pork shin (I used leg since shin is almost impossible to find)
2 cups coconut milk
Lemongrass offcuts (from paste)
Pinch of salt
1.5 cups coconut cream
1 tsp palm sugar
2 tbsps fish sauce
2 tbsps picked green peppercorns
3 kaffir lime leaves, shredded
Handful holy basil leaves
1 long red chilli, deseeded and juliennned

Paste
6-10 long red chillies, deseeded, soaked and drained
Large pinch salt
6 tbsps chopped lemongrass
1 tbsp grated lime zest
2 tbsps scraped and chopped corinader root
1 tsp coriander seeds, roasted
1 tsp cumin seeds, roasted

First, make the paste.

Bring the coconut milk to a boil in the pan. Add pork, lemongrass offcuts and salt. Add water to cover, if necessary. Simmer until pork is tender (about 30 minutes) and leave to cool in stock. When cook, remove, reserve the stock and trim and slice the meat into 1cm pieces.

Add the coconut cream to a clean pan and then add the paste and fry over a medium heat until fragrant, about two minutes. Season with the palm sugar and fish sauce and then add the pork. Moisten with the reserved stock if necessary. Finish with the remaining ingredients and check seasoning before serving.

Chicken and Vegetable Curry
From David Thompson’s “Thai Food”

500g skinless chicken thighs
4 cups stock

Selection of vegetables (mushrooms, basil leaves, bamboo shoots, eggplants, beans)

Paste
20 dried red chillies, deseeded, soaked and drained
Large pinch salt
4 tbsps chopped lemongrass
4 tbsps chopped shallot
2 tbsps chopped garlic
2 tsps shrimp paste

Start by making the paste.

Slice the chicken, combine with the paste and fry until fragrant – about two minutes.

Add the stock and bring to the boil. Add vegetables and simmer until cooked. Check the seasoning and then serve.