Deeply dippy: about asparagus

Asparagus was one of the treats in my pack from Asda, that has been the basis of this series of Simple Summer Essentials. Truthfully I would normally only buy and cook asparagus during the British season (around Aprilish time) but this year the crops were pretty much devastated by the awful, awful weather we've been subjected to, so I think I managed to find some once. For me, I think part of the beauty of asparagus is in the fact that it's season is so limited, and I do look forward to it.

As I'd gone without in the Spring, I thought 'to hell with it' (just this once mind you) and decided to embrace my Asda asparagus with open arms. I had two bunches so decided to do it two ways.

The first was - and probably always will be - my favourite way to eat asparagus is with softly poached eggs. I use the lightly steamed spears as green soldiers, and dip them happily into the golden, runny yolks of my eggs. (I get bored once the yolk has gone but don't tell). The only thing I do differently from the post linked to above is poach the eggs properly now, and omit the toast.

Poached eggs - pantry style (I say that, this is probably the easiest thing to do ever)

Poached eggs work best with fresh eggs - at the supermarket I'm never entirely convinced about how fresh they are, so when I can I get them from either a local farm shop, or our farmers market, where a free range chicken lady sells her eggs. Not 'her' eggs obviously, that would be weird. The eggs her hens lay.

Fill a wide, flat pan with a couple of inches of water that you've just boiled in the kettle, put this on a lowish heat until you get small bubbles.
Break the egg into the water and let the water stay at this gentle simmer for a minute
Take the pan off the heat and leave to sit for 10 minutes. Serve with asparagus

To cook asparagus I either steam it, or cook it this way. Put the stems, tip down in a pyrex jug - fill up to to about two thirds of the way up the stem with boiling water. Leave to stand for 5 minutes. Dunk with gusto into eggs, using the cold ends to hold. Genius!

OK, so now - asparagus another way.

Just lately there's been something I've really taken to about savoury tray bakes. Not adding vegetables to sponge cake, but the whack it all in a roasting tin and leave it in the oven for an hour or so. I've started to buy a whole chicken and ask the butcher to joint it, then just add some potatoes, veg, garlic, salt and pepper and cook for about an hour at 200 degrees C. It's a no fuss supper and ideal for when M's edgy because we've not had meat yet that week.

Roast asparagus

About 5-10 minutes before the end of any savoury traybake - the one pictured was sausages, sweetcorn and potatoes. (I had salad with mine) add the asparagus to the roasting tin, tossing it gently in any oil or seasoning. Then pop back in the oven until you're ready to serve, and on serving - fight over who gets the bigger portion (true story)

Come over for dinner. There's plenty to eat! Chilli con carne

When talking about blogging people always say you should find your niche. To be entirely honest, I'm not sure what mine is, if I even have one that is. (M's input on this was to suggest that I was jumping the gun and it might be a nephew. NICHE!) However, when I look at how people find me, it's often with "how do I?" searches, and some of my more popular posts are the comfort, family food. It's logical really, it's the food I eat the most, and am most passionate about, because it's where anyone with any level of confidence in their cooking abilities can make a difference to their health and wellbeing with a few,small, easy changes. Moving from sugar and preservative laden jarred sauces to making your own, fresh, unprocessed meals is the biggest difference anyone can make to their diet. I'm not talking about weight loss here, but how you feel - not craving sweets all the time, feeling gently full, healthier skin and brighter eyes, from making that switch.

And with that - here is the Pantry version of how to cook Chilli con carne. Freezes beautifully. Works really well in the slow cooker - I just whack everything in before work, leave it on low and eat that night. Also, eats really well a day or so after making - so I made this on Friday night after work, and we had it today. The flavours have really developed and it was lovely.

This goes well with red wine, if you're having people over. If you want to be a bit more fancy and foodie about it, I picked up some dried anjo chillies at the Newbury show last year. I chop one with everything else in the food processor, and add one in whole to the chilli just before it goes in the oven. After cooking I take that one out, but if you're feeding someone that likes a bit of heat - pop it on their plate!

Penelope's Pantry does Chilli con carne

1 glug olive oil
2 onions, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed or chopped
500g (or so) of minced beef
1 red chilli
1 teaspoon cumin (powder or seeds - if using seeds, crush first)
1 stick cinammon (or a pinch of dried if you've run out. Not that that happens here. Oh no *shifty eyes*)
1 teaspoon of chilli powder/ dried chilli
2 tins tomatoes
2 tins red kidney beans
About 100g of tomato paste (you can make your own by blitzing sundried tomatoes) or buy it. Either way.

Preheat oven to Gas mark 3/ 150 degrees
Either chop, or food process the onions, garlic and red chilli (if I'm being fancy/ organised and using home made tomato paste, I add the tomatoes into the food processor and blitz it all together)
Add to an ovenproof pan (with a lid) over a low heat on the hob, cook until the onions are starting to colour
Add your spices; cumin, dried chilli/ chilli powder
Add minced beef and cook, stirring regularly until browned
Add both tins of tomatoes - rinse them out with water and add that
Drain both tins of kidney beans in a colander
If you're using one, add the cinammon stick now
Add those, stir in
Put on the lid, and put in the oven for a couple of hours
Voila! - this easily makes 4-6 adult portions, I normally serve 4 and freeze the rest.


I've served this with cornbread or brown basmati rice, in tortillas, in tacos, with cheese on from a bowl on my lap. Anyway that suits me at the time.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes - seriously slow cooked Pork shoulder

OK, it didn't take that long, that's 8 thousand, seven hundred and sixty hours (or a year for those familiar with Rent).

This is a recipe I dreamt up last weekend courtesy of a vague memory of a television programme from some years ago (something about eating British Pork). Do you ever have that? Or is it just me? You know where you wake up thinking about something and know that you 'need' to cook it just so that your internal dialogue stops prodding you and suggesting - try slow cooked shoulder of pork, try slow cooked shoulder of pork.

Truth be told I woke up last weekend in serious need of comfort food, the cold I had had over Christmas has alarmingly mutated into one of those viruses I get from time to time that fells me completely and on Saturday my need for comfort food was immediate and clear. M was working and so I spent my day indoors, pottering around the kitchen (in a vague attempt to ignore the need to hoover. I capitulated on Sunday) I believe that the slow cooked, hot food really helped although I was lost to the virus, hence the quietness on the posting front this week.

So Slow cooked shoulder of pork. I asked my butcher to score the fat as I definitely wanted crackling (diet? What diet? This virus is doing it all by itself). Normally I'd ask him for cooking tips, but the plan in my head was already fairly formed.

I started by rubbing the pork skin with salt (generously) and seasoning the meat with salt and pepper. It then went into a preheated Gas mark 7 (225 degrees ish) for about 45 minutes, after which I turned the oven down to Gas mark 3 (150 degrees ish) and covered the meat tightly with a double layer of foil. The high heat at the start was to get the crackling well and truly started, and I felt that by then covering the meat over it would prevent the juices/ fat from evaporating in the oven. I'm not very scientific I could be completely wrong.

I left the pork in the oven cooking for 4 hours, whilst I napped, tidied and generally pottered (I love days like that, it could have only been better if I'd stayed in my pyjamas. But don't tell M, I don't think he's picked up on my slattern-like tendencies yet). I think this is what makes this an ideal weekend recipe, once it's in and the oven turned down, you can just leave it be.

After 4 hours I basted the pork with the fat that had rendered out from the joint and turned the oven back up higher to cook the roast potatoes. I popped the pork back in, minus the foil, but on some veggies - celery, carrots and onions, just roughly chopped, a bulb of garlic broken down into cloves (the cast is good for something) and a couple of bay leaves. This was purely because that was what I had in the fridge, you could easily amend it to suit you. I intended to recreate my get-ahead gravy by bashing these into submission with my potato masher to make gravy, but next time I might add butternut squash and parsnips which I would take out first.

When the meat went back in, I turned the oven back up to crisp up the crackling - and as a happy accident the edges of the meat. About 15 minutes before the potatoes were done I took the meat out, wrapped the joint back up in the foil and left it to rest. I added about a pint of water to the meat tin, and as with the get ahead gravy, bashed 7 bells out of the veggies, scraping up the goodness from the bottom of the tin, until it was all combined, and then strained it through a colander into a jug. I didn't add flour this time so it was more watery gravy than the Christmas one, but I enjoyed this as it was.

I served the meat and potatoes with some steamed savoy cabbage and carrots, tart applesauce and it made a lovely, undemanding comforting dish. Just what is needed at this time of year. And cheap, as I didn't buy any veggies or anything other than the pork. The meat was so well cooked that it just fell apart and I shredded it with 2 forks (bearing in mind one of those is still encased in purple plaster) before serving. The combination of the soft yielding meat with crispy crackling, flavourful gravy, with lightly steamed veggies and crispy potatoes was just what the doctor ordered. Although not quite enough to ward off the virus it did set me up for a week in which my staple diet has been marmite toast and tea 

This would work equally well with a lamb shoulder, although I'd be inclined to make small cuts and put extra garlic and rosemary inside them.  

Penelope's Pantry patient pork
(picture free, because it was just that good, that we started picking as soon as I put it on plates)

Shoulder of pork - ask your butcher to score the skin, and to advise you on how much - I went by size which is probably of little help but it was about a six inch wide piece
Sea salt
Pepper
Vegetables: I used celery, carrots and onions
Bulb of garlic
Couple of bay leaves (truly I added these because the packet keeps falling over in the cupboard and annoying me. I keep adding them to things at the mo purely for that reason)

Apple sauce, I cooked down 2 eating apples because that was what I had. Just peel, chop and cook with no sugar until they're pulpy. 
Vegetables and potatoes to serve.

Make sure your fat is scored and rub in salt
Cook in a preheated (225 degrees) oven for an hour
Turn the heat down (150 degrees) and cover the meat in foil tightly
Put back in the oven for 4 hours
Baste the pork with the fat from the tin
Remove from oven, put veggies, garlic and bay leaves on the bottom of your roasting tin and put the pork back on top
After an hour (or so, I went by eye) remove the pork, wrap tightly in the foil and add water to your baking tray. Put it on the heat and bash the veggies, garlic et al up with a potato masher. When you're happy with the consistency strain through a seive or colander and pour into a warmed jug.
Shred the pork with 2 forks (remove the crackling first)
Serve with your chosen veg, potatoes and applesauce.

Meal Planning Monday: The Christmas Edition

Hi there Meal Planners, long time no see. A broken right wrist and a hectic work and volunteering schedule have made for a ridiculously difficult couple of months. Still, with Dragon installed on the laptop and a Blogger app on my phone, I'm hoping to be a bit more productive and interactive over the coming weeks and months.

This being the last week before Christmas is no different to the last few, and I'm even training twice. But fortunately no overnight stays mean that I'm in control of my food a bit more, that said you may wish to put your fingers in your ears and shut your eyes when it comes to Wednesday's dinner.

I should add a small caveat to this, I seem to have lost my appetite. It happens from time to time, normally in line with a med change (gotta love those anti-convulsants) but I think this is down to a(nother) cold which has completely shot my sense of smell. I could just make out that Mark was wearing my favourite scent of his (Lush, Dirty) but had no idea that the roast dinner was nearly done earlier.

OK, so here we have it... Christmas week in the Pantry:

Monday: Work Christmas lunch (which I may or may not stay for as a) I don't want anyone to have to cut my food up for me. Did I mention it's my right wrist? I'm right handed and b) I'm full of cold) and then leftover curry before heading up to my upstairs neighbour's for drinks. I'm taking Stollen which isn't homemade, but a Sainsbury's Taste the Difference one. It looks amazing. I may bash it up a bit and have no shame try and pass it off as my own. *flutters eyelashes*

Tuesday: Mushroom soup for lunch and then pork and roasted veg (peppers, beetroot and anything else standing still in the fridge) for dinner

Wednesday: Chicken kiev, oven chips and veg

Thursday: Beef casserole (we're at Mum's so this is up to her) which will be helpful as I'm anaemic again - don't worry, it happens, I get run down, tired, forget to eat properly and anaemia follows. I shall try not to do a Miss Bergman and die... *channels Groff* "...of ANAEMIA!!!"

Friday: Freezer surprise... I quite seriously have no idea, and seem to have taken a Russian roulette approach to labelling. There is none. It could be stewed fruit, curry, anything...

Saturday: I will make a big pan of something up *vague* Either a chilli con carne, or a sausage casserole. Mark's parents are going to midnight mass, so something we can either have hot at lunchtime, and then make a Nigella ham and have sarnies later. I'm quite set on the chilli actually. Maybe the butternut squash and cannelini bean one I've done before. Whichever way I do it, I'll make it on Friday.

Sunday: I'm staying in bed. Oh OK, I'm going to pop the breadmaker on overnight to make a loaf, then Mark and his parents will have warm bread and jam/ honey/ marmalade. Then a roast for lunch. See people. It's *just* a roast. I will be telling myself that all week, and turkey sandwiches and picky bits for supper.

I've got a few posts lined up for this week, hopefully to take the stress out of what is essentially a week where lots of people come together and eat a roast dinner. I have been making roast dinners since I could see over the oven. Please don't get anxious or worried about it.

Global Fusion Taste Team: Garlic, chilli and ginger

There's been a little bit of excitement in the Pantry of late, which should hopefully produce some interesting posts going forwards. Today is the first in a series of posts in my role as a member of the Global Fusion Taste Team. I answered a callout on Twitter for team members (I'm always a bit reticent to do that as I'm never sure I'm 'good' enough - well that's not true, I know I am, I just know that this blog and it's little following *waves* aren't up there with the big hitters) Anyway, this week a big box arrived, which had he been here would have led Mark to roll his eyes and ask if I've been online shopping at Lush again. In it was, a pinny, a recipe notebook (stationery and a pinny - can Worldfoods read my mind?) as well as a huge range of sauces and dips for me to try, work with and feed Mark with over the coming weeks. Excited? I am.

So Wednesday night loomed and courtesy of a meeting at work being cancelled we had a night in together. Off to Sainsos we went with the first challenge looming in my mind. It involved a garlic, chilli and ginger, dipping, or stir fry sauce. Having spent much of the recent weeks in hotels a stir fry really appealed, with lots of veg and some brown basmati rice.

Ginger, garlic and trinity are often hailed as the 'holy trinity' (apologies for the blasphemy) of Chinese cooking, and if I'm just doing a bog standard stir fry I will press or chop a couple of cloves of garlic, grate variable amounts of ginger and chop up a chilli as my base. Initially I thought the jar would work as a sub for these, but on sniff test and finger taste I felt it needed a bit more oomph for my tastebuds. On investigation, the recipe suggestion was to add more, so lesson learned - READ things in advance Penelope. I should also say that the last time I did a stir fry out of a jar it was about 10 years ago and I intially worried that it was going to be that incredibly cloying sweet synthetic taste I remembered, however this was light, fresh and not at all syrupy.

I should point out here that Mark likes things significantly milder than I do so I actually made two generous dishes from one jar of sauce, and both those dishes did two solid meals. Mark had his leftovers for lunch the next day, and mine went in the freezer for a later date.

Pantry Prawns; courtesy of Worldfoods

1 clove of garlic, pressed
Large peice of ginger grated
(to my shame) teaspoonful of lazy chilli
250g prawns (Mark had 2 chicken thighs finely sliced, and cooked until brown)
Red pepper chopped
Courgette chopped
Onion finely chopped
Spinach
Sweetcorn
(I forgot I had edamame beans and green beans in the freezer, but had I remembered I would have added those too)
Half a jar of Worldfoods Chinese ginger, garlic & chilli sauce

In a large pan or wok, heat up some flavourless oil and add your garlic, chilli, ginger and onion. Sweat the onion off, stirring constantly
Add prawns, and cook until they turn pink,
Add vegetables and cook until they just start to soften
Add sauce and reduce down

It took, less than 10 minutes to cook this, bearing in mind I also did a chicken one that was missing the extra spices, and rice as well. Perfect for a quick, easy supper when you've been at work all day and done battle with Mr Sainsburys to boot. You'll see from the pic, that I had got out soy sauce to use as a condiment as I hadn't added salt at any point, but really didn't feel that the dish needed it - I'm terrible for underseasoning things though so do a taste test yourself, and add soy or salt to taste.

The only thing I think I would do different again, would be to add some coriander at the end to freshen it up.

So, there you have it, my first challenge as a member of the Global Fusion Taste Team... watch this space for more installments, including my favourite - Pad Thai!