Provencal Pork skewers

At the recent BBC Good Food show I ended up picking up a copy of Easy Cook magazine, as the stall had run out of the Vegetarian magazine I was originally hoping for in a special deal. To my surprise upon reading through, there are quite a few recipes I have marked for future making, including Aubergines stuffed with spicy lamb and a lush looking Pink Strawberry Cheesecake. As the magazine title suggests, none of the recipes require much effort but it does offer up a good range of easy, after work meals.

The first recipe I had to try however were these great Provencal Pork skewers, the 'marinade' takes a minute to throw together and about 15 minutes tops to assemble, including soaking the skewers! I really enjoyed these and will definitely be adding to the 'keeper' pile!

Pork fillet is a great cut, and considerably less pricier compared to beef fillet, my 400g (ish) piece was about £4.16 at the local butchers.

Serves 4

600g pork fillet
bunch of spring onions
2 tsp dried thyme (or basil)
grated rind and juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp clear honey
1 tbsp olive oil

If using wooden skewers, soak for 10 minutes - check they fit in your frying pan, I had to halve mine!

Cut the pork and spring onions into bite size pieces, place in a bowl with remaining ingredients, mix well and thread onto the skewers. Heat a suitable pan or grill and cook for 6-8 minutes, turning occasionally until browned.

We had ours with grilled potatoes and a little salad.

Cornish Blue & Apple salad

As readers of my blog, you have already probably guessed I love my food, however when it comes to portions, in particularly starters, I prefer something a bit lighter, but still tasty!

This is one of those simple, throw together starters that tastes great and can be easily scaled up or down accordingly, you could add some fresh bread to turn into something heartier.

Last Saturday, at the BBC Good Food show, I picked up some Cornish Blue cheese and was pleasantly surprised by its mild flavour, considering how 'Blue' it appeared to be! Its creamy, smooth and delicious, this is the star of this salad but you could choose any blue you enjoy, am sure something like Dolcellate here would be also good!

These quantities made a small plate for 3 people, though as mentioned above you can scale accordingly

Arrange as desired the following:

1 Granny smith apple, cored and sliced into thin pieces
2 Wedges Cornish Blue or similar cheese, per person
Handful of mixed herby salad leaves - mine was from a bag of organic Watercress, Rocket and baby spinach
2 tbsp lightly crushed walnut pieces

To make the dressing, mix together the following and dress the salad at the last minute, serve immediately

Juice of 1 fresh lemon
1 tbsp EVOO
pinch white pepper and sea salt
2 tsp good Balsamic vinegar
1/2 tbsp maple syrup



The slightly sweet dressing compliments the other flavours really well and
I hope you enjoy it!

This weeks recipes

I really have to apologise for my lack of recent postings! The job hunt is still on but starting to think a change of career is in order...I have a meeting on Monday to discuss and am nervous but positive about it!

I have tried a couple of new recipes this week, first up is this easy garlic bread from BBC Good Food, I saw it in the magazine a few months and bookmarked it. It rose really well and the resulting bread was lovely and soft, though I didn't weigh the cheese and think under calculated, however it was still good and our guests loved it!



A new favourite dessert is this lush Raspberry Jam coconut slice, from one of my favourite blogs Baking Cakes Galore. If I am ever stuck for what pud to make this is my first stop! This is gorgeously jammy, coconuty and ever jammier the next morning! Is also perfect with hot custard poured over!



This next dish is one of those 'throw it all in and hope for the best' dishes! Happily it turned out really good but of course I forgot to write down any quantities or take a picture when it was cooked (this is the before shot!) - it smelled so good I couldn't keep it from our guests any longer! Basically I made up a simple mild slow cooked chilli recipe (using 700g steak mince), stuffed it into herby tortilla wraps, folded into parcels, snuggled up together in a baking dish, poured over a sauce made from 500g carton of plain passata mixed with 100ml milk, topped with a torn up ball of mozzarella and a handful of grated cheddar and baked for 30 minutes. One good comment was Mexican style lasagne! However, I think it was far easier than making lasagne and almost as good! ;-)



I will report back soon how Monday goes, this weekend I will be at the Birmingham Good Food Show so feel free to say hi if you see me! :)