Gorgeous Sunday afternoon, sunny and lovely, we had to make the most of it. Jedrus came, my friend, with whom we share the love for food. This particular young man used to be a bartender in Ubon, he came today equipped with lost of good stuff and produced some great mojitos.

Food wise, we started with chilli garlic shrimps, then the boys took out our medieval barbecue, cleaned it up and we chargrilled the pork on it. That was a splendid idea, as the pork shoulder steaks, flattened,simply seasoned with Gyros and sesame oil turned out to be soft and succulent. I served with fried potatoes and a simple french bean salad.

For dessert, a light and simple mousse cake. On a simple sponge I put roughly chopped strawberries and blueberries, mixed up with setting peach jelly, on that a layer of whipped cream, to which I added setting jelly again. Light, yummy, half of it went right away.

Nice! 🙂

Nicest thing about pork- its price. I was thinking about lamb shanks, but bloody hell, 14 quid?!! I have tried a beautiful pair of jeans on and DID NOT buy them, so I continued to be good and bought some pork shoulder steaks instead, for £4. Pat, pat. 🙂

I marinated my pork chunks in a mixture of soy sauce, about 4tbsp, same amount of rice wine, or mirin, half a chopped red chilli, some root ginger and a clove of garlic  and tossed it in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Upwarmed the oven to 160, gas mark 3, I fried a handful of chopped spring onions, another half of the chilli, more ginger and 2 garlic cloves, added the pork, its marinade and browned it all over. I added a good tsp of five spice, 2 tbsp of sugar and some cinnamon. Then transferred  it all to the casserole, poured hot chicken stock in, added a tbsp of tomato puree, stirred and put in the oven, covered, for over an hour.

The second part of the braising involved some plums, quartered, which thickened the whole thing nicely, as it was uncovered in the oven for another 1,5 hour( or until when Florek gets home! ) 🙂

It had 44 good reviews in Good Food, I think I’d do it again, but with sweet, very ripe plums, cause mine were not fantastic. But we ate the whole thing, served with rice and finished with more chopped spring onions. Decent. 7 out of 10.

My dessert this evening looked great, but tasted okeish. Florian said I should not have used salted butter for the base( that’s the only one I had), which I baked and then topped with a cream cheese, strawberry and icing sugar mixture. Pretty, but not particularly memorable.

Truly awesome. I found the recipe on Good Food’s website last night, I loved it right away, though it called for goat’s cheese, which I can’t stand. I replaced it with St Agur, goooooood stuff!

I roasted some butternut squash with a few shallots and a few garlic cloves, generously seasoned. I cooked gnocchi with a good handful of fresh spinach, which I have only threw  in about 20 seconds before the end. Drained, I added the gnocchi and spinach to the tin with the squash, tossed well with all the olive oil and goodness, added the crumbled cheese and served with extra freshly ground pepper and olive oil. Brilliant and so simple!

Dish inspired by one of the specials on the board at work. The original was served with a creamy teriyaki chanterelle sauce. I had no teriyaki, no chanterelles, but I have lovely dried mushrooms from my Mum, the best Polish forest has to offer.

I bought some good corn fed chicken, flattened and seasoned it, then stuffed with fried cup mushrooms and leeks, rolled and tied them with a string. I poached them slowly in a light sauce with chicken stock, lost of mushroom, some shallots and peppercorns. I took them out after about 30 minutes and finished the sauce with some flour, seasoned and returned the chicken rolls to the pan. I served i with some traditional Polish dumplings, recipe already in here under “Kluseczki z dziurkiem” and a simple salad with beetroot. Very nice, especially the sauce.