Roast Pork Dinner

Probably my proudest moment, and it was a joint effort with the missus (things are progressing!!!)

Time: 2 hours-ish
Cost: £9.00 (Fed 2 with plenty extra)

1. Veg

2. Pork Belly

I sliced the skin and stuck some garlic cloves in the gaps and liberally added cracked black pepper and sea salt.

3. Gravy

Chopped shallots, 1 glass red wine, teaspoon of marmite, dash of balsamic vinegar, 1 beef stock cube, dash of water. Reduce the wine to a syrup whilst frying the shallots and add the rest after.

4. Roast

Potatoes; Par boil for 5 mins and bashed them around and leave them to dry (the drier the better) add to a hot oiled baking tray.

Carrots & Parsnips; drizzle with olive oil and honey and add salt and pepper.

Broccoli & Green Beans; Steam for a couple of minutes.

5. Serve

6. Eat

Pizza

I thought I'd give Bridge a little break and help her out a little so I prepped everything needed for a pizza...

I also made the tomato sauce...

1 tin chopped tomatoes, half tube tomato puree, dollop of honey, salt & Pepper, dash of balsamic vinegar, pinch or paprika.

This is how mine turned out...

The Food Of Kings!

Friday night luxury;

Eggs Benedict

Lulu bought. I cooked. Charles, Lulu and I ate!

I fuckin love Eggs Benedict and have always wanted to know how to make Hollandaise sauce and thanks to Bridge's new cook book I now know how to;

Cost: £10 (feeds 4)

Time: 15 minutes (it took me a bit longer as I cooked each thing separately)

Ingredients:

8 Slices of Ham
4 Muffins
150g of butter
11 eggs
Lemon juice
1 tablespoon Single Cream
Salt & Pepper
1 tablespoon cold water

Method:

Sauce: Beat 3 egg yolks with the water over a low heat and add 125g of butter (little by little) And once the mixtue thickens add some lemon juice and the cream along with a healthy pinch of salt and pepper.

Meanwhile; Poach your eggs and heat the ham under a low grill whilst toasting your muffins.

Once your eggs are poached and the muffins are toasted and buttered, layer the ham onto the muffins and top with the poached eggs adding a generous spoonful of hollandaise over the lot and cracking lots of black pepper over that. Beautiful!

Salad!

I had a salad for my lunch today, it was cheap easy and really really quick to make...

Cost: £5.50 (can feed me for 4 days)

Time: literally less than a minute!

Ingredients:

1 Beef Tomato
1 Jar of pickled baby beetroot
1 Pear
Feta Cheese
Ham
Cooked Green Beans
Mixed salad leaves
Salt & Pepper
Olive Oil

Method:

Chop up the tomato, pear, beetroot, ham and feta, add the green beans, throw it all into a bowl and mix it up, add a little olive oil and salt and pepper.

Easy and fresh! Probably would of been better if I'd of used blue cheese instead of feta but it worked!

Cop Out

Music is a massive part of my life, both working and leisure and having been at a gig until fairly late tonight I couldn't cook so I stopped by a Thai buffet in Angel for a quick fix and it was actually really good!

I had a mixture of stir-fried veg and oriental spiced dishes as well as noodles and seafood all in one helping! My only critique was that the chicken tasted as if it had had a hose pipe shoved up its arse. Not the best, everything else however was really good!

Help from the outside!

My opposition received a present...

I fully support this as the whole project is dedicated, in my mind, to educating my partner how to cook a fairly decent meal and basically look after herself and not depend on me.

Good work Rhian.

I'm a Player

I would like to make it clear that I am by no stretch of the imagination a good cook nor do I actually know what I'm doing, but I do like to try and I love to play about with ingredients; some things work, some things really don't!

Over the past year and a half my housemate and I have built up a pretty healthy 'spice cupboard'

Day 1; Pasta

I got in a bit late after meeting my girlfriend and a few of her friends so I wanted to cook something really quick and easy so I bought a load of veg from the local shop and decided to make a nice roast veg pasta!

Cost; £3.60 (feeds 2)

Time: 25 mins

Ingredients;
(from the shop)
Tortellini Pasta (filled with roast tomato and basil)
6 Mushrooms
1 Red Pepper
6 Tomatoes
1 Shallot

(from my cupboards)
A few Hazelnuts (I wanted pine nuts but this was all I had any)
2 Cloves of Garlic
1/2 Dried Chilli
Balsamic Vinegar
Honey
Olive Oil
Sea Salt
Black Pepper
Paprika
Parmesan Cheese

Method;

I chopped the tomatoes, ped pepper, mushrooms, shallot, garlic cloves and chilli into chunky pieces and put it all into a backing tray. I then splashed them with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and then drizzled about a teaspoon of honey over it all before throwing the salt, pepper and paprika over the lot and adding the tray to a hot oven (I dunno, 200 degrees centigrade?)

It took about 20 minutes before it looked about done so I boiled some water and cooked the pasta which took max 5 minutes.

After draining the pasta and crushing the roasted hazelnuts I poured the roast vegetables into the pan with the pasta and mixed it all up. The juice from the cooked veg had mixed with the honey, vinegar and oil and made a really nice sauce as well as the veg tasting pretty sweet!

I then grated over some parmesan cheese. DONE!

Introduction

We have been a couple for 5 years...

It has evolved during my relationship that from the very subtle to the incredibly pathetic things that construct a day that I must be an integral cog to my partners survival! For example let's say I'm busy with something and she's lying down directing her thoughts out loud to nobody at all and she gets thirsty, it will always be her very first reaction to ask me to get her a drink even though it makes total sense (and I'm my mind no thought) to just sort yourself out. Its almost as if I am an extension of her limbs with which every demand and thought from her brain exerts signals toward my reactors. These signals then convert into energy (my fucking energy) and results in me completing the task which has fuck all to to with what I need, but what she lazily requested!

I am going to be very harsh throughout this project and this is on her request! I truly hope this develops her appreciation for food and teaches her look after herself a bit more, or at the very least stops her from instantly asking me to do the things she would much more easily do for herself like make a cup of fuckin tea! I don't even drink tea!

Another side of this blog will me my very own cook book as I will note all recipes I use and the cost of the prepared meal, hopefully my partner will take on board how cheap and easy it can be to eat well!