you’ve made your bed, now put your pork shoulder on it

There’s usually some kind of a commotion in the wee small hours around here. We’re well used to a bit of rowdiness. Last night the kids took it up a gear, and we were jolted from our slumber in ways I don’t care to dwell upon. Consequently I started the day already feeling a bit jaded, and generally unenthused. Schlepping round the supermarket when feeling unenthused isn’t a brilliant plan, but with four hungry kids in the house you can’t just mince around in your jammies waiting to feeling inspired.

In lieu of an actual plan for dinner I started by making something that looked pretty. Sliced plums, star anise, a cinnamon stick, fresh ginger, garlic cloves, bay leaves, olive oil. Sometimes in a house full of boys you really just need to take a moment to admire the purple flesh of a plum .. if you have boys you might know what I mean, or you might think that I am having one of my slightly strange days.

So I’d made my bed and I decided to slow roast a pork shoulder upon it. Covered tightly in foil and starting in a hot oven (around 220) then turning the heat straight down to a slow 140degrees and cooking all afternoon. I think I got that idea from Jamie Oliver or Nigel Slater or a hybrid of the two and seem to remember it being a successful endeavor a while ago. It could have been fabulous again, had I just paid it slightly more attention. If i’d actually covered it tightly in foil, rather than slung some over in a slapdash fashion.

As it was, the pork was pretty good – kept moist by the thick layer of fatty crackling. The pan, however, was crucified. The plumy, saucy, gravy of my imaginings, was just a crisp black smear, an idea of what the flavour might have been,clinging to the bottom of the joint.

Broken dreams.

apple, plum and blackberry crumble with gluten free ground almond and pumpkin seed topping

Does everyone have a pile of food memories for the people they love, or is it just me who thinks too often in terms of food?

I was thinking of my late Granddad today, and then became seized by a compulsion to make crumble. I used apples, plums and a cup full of blackberries from the freezer. For the topping; rubbed some butter  (maybe 30g) with a mix of ground almonds, brown rice flour and roughly ground pumpkin seeds. (just over a cup of dry ingredients in total).. a couple of spoons of sugar – mostly mixed into the topping with a little sprinkled into the fruit.

The pumpkin seeds work really well. A triumph of gluten free inspiration.

chia chocolate plum and almond cake (gluten free)

This cake is trying to be a good family afternoon tea, rather than the most indulgent chocolate cake you’ll ever eat. The chocolate is really a tool to hold all the healthy stuff together – chocolate is very useful like that. It’s not particularly sweet (for a chocolate cake) so you could increase the sugar / chocolate components if you wanted something richer. Also, this is a big cake – doubled up on my usual quantities.

Stew 4 big chopped and de-stoned plums (or more small ones..) in a little water with a couple of tablespoons of chia seeds. Over top, melt about 80g of chocolate (dark) and 70g butter. When the chocolate and butter are melted the plums will be soft, Mix together or blend depending whether you mind plum lumps. Put this to one side.

Whisk 5 eggs with 3/4 cup of granulated sugar, Add 2 cups of ground almonds, 1/2 cup brown rice flour, 1/2 cup cocoa and 1 teaspoon gf baking powder. Pour in the chocolate mix and beat together the bake. Took about 30 mins,

You can ice it with a little more melted chocolate mixed with a spoon of yogurt, if you are so inclined,… I was.

plum and pear chocolate orange almond upside-down cake (gluten free)

This cake has so much fruit in it it’s practically fruit salad – or maybe not. I’m in love with upside-down cakes now I’ve found out how easy they are.

Lined a cake tin with baking paper (greased and sprinkled with a little granulated sugar) covered liberally with slices of plum and pear. Mixed half a cup of melted butter with half a cup of soft brown sugar and 3 spoons of natural yogurt, zest of an orange, 3 eggs, 1/2 cup rice flour, 1/2 cup of cocoa, just under a cup of ground almonds. Beat everything together and cover the fruit in the cake-mix. Took about 15 – 20 mins to bake.

dark chocolate, fresh ginger and plum and almond muffins (gluten free)

We had 2 plums leftover in the fruit bowl from yesterday’s plum upside-down cake and this afternoon I found myself seized by the compulsion to bake some chocolate plum and ginger something – I find it’s always good to roll with these compulsions so started melting about 60g of dark chocolate over boiling water (baby under one arm – don’t worry was careful not to get the baby near the hot water.. the point being these muffins are so easy they can pretty much be done with a baby under one arm!) . Put about 50g of butter into the chocolate and grated in a decent size chunk of fresh ginger (had to put the baby down at this stage). While the butter and chocolate melted whisked up 3 eggs, half a cup of soft brown sugar and 2 cups of ground almonds – also added a tsp of gluten free baking powder. Added in the chocolate mix and then right at the end the plums cut into small chunks – baked for around 15 mins and lucky me because when I get the compulsion to eat some chocolate, plum, ginger something (in a few minutes time ) then I’ll have just the thing.

little chocolate almond cakes with plum and ginger

grate 2 plums into the chocolate melting bowl – add 50g butter, grated ginger (about 2cm cube) and 12 sqs dark chocolate. Melt over hot water. Meanwhile whisk 4 eggs, add 1/2 cup raw brown sugar and whisk more, add 2 cups ground almonds then pour in the chocolate mix – made 10 little cakes (cooked in muffin cases in oven at 180 for about 15mins)

honey, plum, pork

Well the point of this blog was to inspire me to make food I want to write about and honey, plum pork sure sounds pretty poetic. This came about as a kind of mix match of a Nigel Slater recipe and a Jamie Oliver style of cooking. It started with a bag of organic plums that Grant brought home on Friday – must be a kilo bag all ripe and wonderful and being organic unlikely to keep very long at all and so I’m doing a lot of cooking with plums right now. I have the fabulous ‘ Tender Volume 2’ out of the library and the legendary Mr Slater tells me in this biblical book that plums and pork go well together .. so in the supermarket I was on the hunt for a piece of pork and saw ribs which I’ve actually never cooked with but love so I grabbed those and they were so cheap couldn’t believe there would be enough meat on them for us (and also suspected I might well stuff up cooking them and wanted a back up) so grabbed a small piece of shoulder as well.

Put star anaise, olive oil, sliced garlic, red wine vinegar, spoon of honey, 4 chopped plums in a casserole dish and snuggled the pork all in together with the ribs stacked on the shoulder (fat off ). Slow cooked in a dish with tight lid for 3 hours on low. Went out for a walk and came back late having (got lost a bit to be honest) and so had to get dinner on the table quickly when I got home. Cooked some rice, shaved some fresh zucchini raw straight from the garden, sesame seeds and then pulled the pork apart and mixed it all up with the rice including the cooking juices – ribs on the side. Served it with lemon juice, fresh mint (seems the old mint is going with everything it’s just going crazy in the garden right now) and cashews.  It was all pretty good but I think this is definitely a work in progress – next time I’d be more confident with the ribs – they cooked beautifully with the meat falling off them so I’d probably just buy extra ribs and make the rice dish with more veg – probably cucumber and spring onion would work well.