Live Below the Line: Spicy Carrot & Dal Soup with Toasty Triangles

Onwards with the challenge, and now for lunch. I have made a soup and divvied out some portions to take to work. I used yellow split peas for this as they seemed to be the cheapest pulse on the supermarket shelf, at 53p for 500g. So here goes:

Oil: 10ml vegetable oil = 1p
Onions: 18 little ones for 63p from Aldi = 3½p each.
I used 2 = 7p
Carrots: 16 for 49p from Aldi = 3p each
I used 8 = 24p
250g dal = 26½p
2 veg stock cubes = 6p
1 tin tomatoes = 31p
A few pinches of cheap salt - a twentieth of a penny!
2 grams (1 tsp) chilli powder = 3.4p
2 grams (1 tsp) cumin powder = 4p
Total cost: £1.03p
Per portion: 21p

The bread came from a loaf which cost 40p. I counted 22 slices, which makes a slice cost 1.8p

My lunch therefore reached a grand total of 22.8p

Live Below the Line - £1 a day challenge: Coffee & breakfast

Today I began the "Live Below the Line" challenge, where I will live on £1 a day for five days. A few of us at work are doing it together, and I have slightly enjoyed the research and meal planning, and finally the shopping. The weighing and calculating I have enjoyed slightly less (headache). However I think I have just about got my 5 day menu together, and I am going to post it all here, with the recipes and everything!

Coffee - a serious bloody consideration. I got Tesco value coffee granules which cost 50p for 100g. I measured out two exact 5ml teaspoons, and the coffee weighed 3 grams. The cost of my cup of black coffee is 1½p. With coffee, I can cope with anything ...

Breakfast:

This is porridge with lemon curd. Tesco value oats cost 75p for a kilo. I used 50g (which is pretty much half a measuring cup) and this comes in at 3¾p. Just made with water of course and it is actually lovely, I won't make it with milk again. (It is nice to drizzle a bit of cold milk or cream on top .. but not this week).

The lemon curd cost 22p a jar and was slightly cheaper than the cheapest jam. I weighed out 15g  which costs ¾p.

My breakfast therefore costs (including the coffee) 6 pence.

Slow Cooker Beans & Sausage with Pangritata

I have cause to celebrate: a slow cooker recipe which WORKS and is DELICIOUS. Although, yes, the final stage did involve whizzing up the pangritata and finishing off the whole thing in the oven. Can I also thank the obscure, relatively unknown cookery writer Mr Jamie Oliver for showing me how to make pangritata, cos it is amazing. It is basically like crumbled up crispy garlic breadcrumbs all over your dinner. 

This is what I did:

Soaked and boiled up about 250g (half a bag) of dried cannellini beans

Put them in the slow cooker and add a jar of good tomato pasta sauce, a tin of chopped tomatoes, and some nice sausages (I used toulouse sausages).

Cook on low for 10 hours or whatever. 

When you get in from work, transfer the contents of the slow cooker into an ovenproof dish.

Lightly toast 2 thick slices of bread.

Whizz them up in a food processor with a couple of cloves of garlic. If you feel you would like to add say, some lemon zest or oregano, I say bloody go for it!

Melt a nob of butter with a splash of olive oil in a frying pan. Add the garlicky crumbs and fry them for about 5 mins. Keep moving them around. When they are toasty, tip them over the sausage and beans and spread them out gently. Don't press them down though.

Bake in a hot oven for 30 mins.

Beef Short Ribs

Wine, meat and long slow cooking = SICK. And I mean sick in a good way of course; not vomit. Like someone said on Towie the other night, "this is such a sick club!" and they were clearly having a very nice time. Anyway, anything involving meat, doused in red wine, plus some veg, herbs and whatever, then braised slowly all afternoon to tender unctuousness .. just cannot fail.

So I had a beef short rib in my meat box from Field & Flower. It was quite long actually, a bit too long for my casserole pot. I had to do it in a roasting tin, but this was no hardship.

I seasoned the rib with salt & pepper, then browned it on all sides in the roasting tin, over the heat. This took a couple of mins. Then I let it sit on one side, while I gently softened some chopped onion, celery, carrot and garlic in a pan. I added a bit of dried thyme and a spoon of flour, and stirred that in. 

The next step was to pour red wine into the hot pan. It was about a third of a bottle. I let it boil and reduce quite a bit. Then I added some stock, about half a pint I'd say. I gently poured the contents of the pan into the roasting tin, around the rib. I added black pepper but not salt (best not to until the end).

It cooked for three hours at about 150c. I checked it every hour and added a bit more water to the liquid, so it didn't dry out. If you had it in a casserole with a lid, you might not need to worry - however, I liked cooking it uncovered because the meat and fat on the rib went a bit crispy and burnished. You do want this to happen. 

So it kept on roasting, and I topped up the liquid a couple of times. All ovens are different aren't they, so twiddle with the temperature as you see fit. 

When it was done, the bone just pulled away easily. I lifted the meat out and let it rest. Then I poured the winey, meaty, vegetables and juice into a saucepan. It would be possible to do whatever you liked to this gravy. Strain it if you want (I didn't) or increase its volume by adding more water or whatever. It was necessary to spoon off some of the fat. It tasted amazing. 

I cut the meat into two pieces, sat them on some mash, then ladled the gravy on top. 

Spicy Parsnip & Apple Soup, with Onion Bhaji Onions

A very simple soup, with a special garnish.

The soup was made by chopping, peeling and softening 2 onions, 3 apples and about 4 parsnips in a nob of butter. It felt good to say "nob" there. Then I added a spoonful of curry paste (I like Mr Hudas) and then about a litre and a half of vegetable stock. It then simmered until everything was very soft, then I whizzed it with a whizz stick.

The onion bhaji onions were made as follows: Slice 2 onions thinly. You want to get them as dry as possible, so dab them with kitchen paper. Sprinkle on salt, leave them a bit, then dab them very well again. Then sprinkle on (and don't be shy) turmeric, chilli powder, any other kind of spicy powder you are interested in, black pepper, then a generous tablespoon of gram flour. Shake the onions and toss them around with your hand to distribute everything evenly. Heat up  some oil, about 1cm deep, in a frying pan. When its really hot, in with the onions. I did them in two batches so as not to overcrowd the pan. Just make sure they are nicely spread out so they don't clump together. Keep an eye on them and when they are golden, scoop them out with a strainer.

Welcome to Slutty Kitchen 2015

Welcome to my relaunch. Here is a light snack to keep you going:

Beer Braised Pulled Pork

Pulled pork is bloody everywhere in the UK at the moment, and I have to admit that this has been getting on my nerves. It seems to be part of a tidal wave of barbecue-piri piri-barbacoa-sloppy joe-sweet chilli-chipotle-hickory-bollocks, washing over the country. I feel quite loyal to the traditional British way to do a roast pork sandwich (with stuffing, apple sauce and crackling) you see, and would quite like to shout at the americans about it.

But it does all look bloody tasty. So, with a sigh of resignation, I embarked on this recipe today. When I found it, I was attracted to it because it did not seem either overly sweet or too vinegary. This was something chuffing else.

Just give me a moment and imagine, right now, what you would say if you had to demand sex, assertively and using the strongest, most offensive language in your vocabulary. Go on, think about that, then look at this picture:

Basically, if you put "beer braised barbecue pork" into a search engine, you will come across a recipe by a man called Dave Lieberman (thanks Dave .. and by the way, does your surname mean, "loverman"? Which does figure) and you will also see that its been tweaked and blogged about by a few other people. I can't pretend to have done anything different. One difficulty I had was understanding the quantity of meat involved. As I understood it, Mr Loverman suggests a 15lb piece of meat, a quantity out of the question for most normal people. Would that fit in your oven, anyway?  How many children have you got, Mr Loverman? So I was not sure whether my 1.3 kilo piece would be overpowered. Anyway, this is what I did; and if you want to follow, you need to procure the following:

a big piece of pork shoulder, with the crackling removed. Mine was 1.3 kilos.
A spice rub, made of the following, mixed together in a bowl:
½ tablespoon of salt
40 grinds of black pepper
1 tablespoon chilli powder (less if you are scared)
1 tablespoon garlic powder
½ tablespoon chinese 5 spice
½ tablespoon smoked paprika

I'd say the salt, pepper, chilli and garlic are essentials. You could play around with the rest.

You will also need:
a bottle of beer
½ cup tomato ketchup
2 tablespoons french mustard
3 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
⅓ cup dark brown sugar

Rub the powder all over the meat. Get your oven really hot; I had my fan oven at 220c. Place the pork in a roasting tin and cook it, uncovered, for 40 minutes.
Pour the beer over the pork, into the roasting tin. Cover it all with foil, and poke a few holes in the foil. Reduce the oven temperature to 150c (fan) and cook for 2½ hours more.
Remove from the oven, lift out the meat and put it on a big plate, or dish you plan to serve it in. Pour the beer and juices from the tin into a saucepan, and add the rest of the ingredients. Simmer it on the hob until it has reduced by half; it will go thick, dark, and syrupy.

While the sauce is reducing, get two forks and shred, or pull the meat apart. It should be very soft and tender. When the sauce is ready, just pour it over and mix in. Your sticky, delicious, aromatic and rich pulled pork is now done.

As you can see, I ate mine the way it is eaten in the US; on a white roll with some coleslaw. I could not waste the crackling of course. I put that on a baking sheet and cooked it on the shelf below the pork, for its final hour. Then, while the sauce was cooking, I whacked the oven up to 220c and within 20 minutes or so, I had a slab of crackling so golden and crunchy that when I cut it, bits of it flew up into my face.

The pork tasted almost like hoisin. The whole thing reminded me of the classic crispy duck with pancakes. Something about the dark, sticky soft meat, encased in soft and pappy white dough, all with some cool salad, to bring crispness and crunch. Maybe I am a pulled pork fan after all. Now I am dreaming that we could all live in a kind of multicultural foodie utopia! It could work!

Thankyou, America. Although with regards crackling, sage & onion stuffing and apple sauce: you still don't know what you are missing.. I will have to introduce you another time.