Everything but Beetroot

My partner is away on business at the moment so I’m looking for things I can cook quickly without compromising on taste, and this fits the bill.

Ingedients

• 3 pork sausages
• handful of cherry tomatoes
• fresh sage
• penne pasta
• Parmesan & black pepper

Method

Pre-heat your oven to 200C.  Take the skin off the sausages and break the meat into rough balls.  Put them, the cherry tomatoes and fresh sage in a roasting tray along with a drizzle of olive oil, and cook for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile cook the pasta.

Once cooked mix together and serve.

sausage-and-sage-pasta [pdf]

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As I’m having a month without drinking alcohol I’m not sure if I’m cheating by using it in cooking.

Anyway this was a simple dish to prepare after an exhausting week.

You start by searing the pork in a little olive oil for a couple of minutes each side, then remove the steaks. Then fry an apple (cored and sliced into thin wedges) and half an onion (thinly sliced) for 4 – 6 minutes; when they are golden brown take them out and keep with the pork.

Now pour in 200ml of cider and boil until reduced by half. Add about the same amount of double cream and return everything else you’ve cooked to the pan. Cook for 5 minutes turning the steaks half way through.

Remove the pork again and then add as much spinach as you feel like eating to the sauce and allow it to wilt.

As you can see I served with mash potatoes, which allowed me to add the remaining cream to the mash, which was another small indulgence.

For some reason I don’t think I’ve ever made risotto before. I probably thought it was more difficult than it is, although I’m not saying it wasn’t a bit involved – but what recipe isn’t when you have a go for the first time?

This is a bastardised version of one of those recipe cards that supermarkets give away (from a fair few years ago by the looks of it) that ended up in our recipe folder.

I used:

• a finely chopped onion
• a clove of garlic
• olive oil
• 225g risotto rice
• 150 ml of white wine
• 600 ml of chicken stock
• a large pinch of saffron
• a large pork loin steak
• 1 tsp sweet paprika
• 10 olives halved
• 40g Stilton, cubed

Put a dish – it’s going to have to be big enough for all the ingredients to cook in – into a preheated oven at 150C.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a saucepan and fry the onion and garlic over a gentle heat for about 5 minutes. Add the rice and stir in.

Almost immediately add the chicken stock, wine and saffron and bring to the boil.

Put everything into the heated dish, stir and return it to the oven for 20 minutes.

Cut the pork loin into small bite size pieces and fry over a medium heat with the paprika until browned, about 10 minutes should do.

Take the risotto out of the oven again and this time stir in the remaining ingredients – pork, olives and cheese – before returning to the oven for one final time. After about 10 minutes the rice should be cooked if it’s still too wet leave it for another couple of minutes, if it’s too dry add some more stock and leave it in the oven for a couple more minutes.

Serve.

Spanish Risotto with Paprika Pork [pdf]