Crunchy Pea Salad with Bacon

Thanks to Big Rigs 'n Lil' Cookies for the inspiration.  I changed things around a bit not having some ingredients but it still worked.  I am not a huge pea fan so finding something tasty to do with them is a real boon.

Ingredients:

Frozen peas (thawed and drained)

Chopped nuts – brazil nuts

Spring onion (scallion)

2 slices of bacon

Small amount of chopped onion

Handful of dried cranberries and sour cherries

¼ cup mayo

Vinegar – a little splosh

Sugar – 1 cube

Soy sauce & Worcestershire sauce – tiny splosh of each

Salt & pepper

Method:

Thaw and drain your peas – I used about half ordinary peas and half baby minted

Cook your bacon with the onion.  Let it cool and put it on kitchen paper and then transfer to a board to cut up.

In a small container mix the mayo, vinegar, sugar, soy and Worcestershire.  Don't overdo the soy and Worcestershire – you want the other flavours to shine.

Put the peas, nuts and dried fruit into a larger bowl, add the cooled bacon bits.  Pour the dressing over and mix. Taste and add salt and pepper to your taste.

Chill for at least 1 hour.  When it came to eating time I found it just a bit cold – should have left it out for 20 minutes or so.

Need Some Inspiration? Try Cherries & Berries!

Mixed Berry Pudding

Food on Friday: May  had some great ideas for using cherries & berries.  Here are some which I'd like to share with you today. 

The pic at the top was brought over by MJ's Kitchen  - a lovely Mixed Berry Pudding

 

Raspberry Custard Pie by the talented guys at Platter Talk

Dorothy of Shockingly Delicious posted her great Kale Salad with  Cherries, Walnuts & Tofu Croutons

Finally, Christoph from James & Everett  came up with these delightful Berry Crumble Bars

For other cherry/berry inspiration head over to this Pinboard

Food on Friday: May 2019

It's the second Friday of the month so here is Food on Friday. 

As you can see, there are 3 new themes – Cheese, Cherries & Berries and Chicken.  I hope you'll find some great stuff to share in those categories.

Feel free to add a number of things under each category and come back later in the month to add more if you would like to.   

To add your dishes, just put the name of the dish together with your blog name/name into the first Mr Linky box you will find below.  Then paste the url for your post about it into the second box. Mr Linky now makes you tick a compliance box which I always forget first time!

I'll be pinning your creations to the relevant Pinboards – Cheese, Cherries & Berries and Chicken

Have fun!

Food on Friday: May 2019

Cherry Jam Anticipation

Cherries will be in season in a couple of months and so I decided to remind myself of some indulgent Cherry Jam.  It turned out to be a bit runny but with a lovely flavour.

Thanks to Mr Google I found a new way to pip the cherries.  It worked perfectly and didn't even result in cherry stained fingers.  I used a plastic straw.  You just push it down onto the part of the cherry that the stalk attaches to – and, the pip just pops out the other side!

Ingredients:

Kilo of cherries

Kilo of jam setting sugar

Squeeze of lemon juice

Cherry brandy

Method:

Put your pipped cherries into the pot and give them a mash with a potato masher.  (I didn't mash it quite enough)  Add the sugar and stir.  Let it sit in the pot for 20 minutes or so.  Add your lemon juice.

Boil until the jam reaches setting point.  This is the bit I didn't get quite right.  I put a saucer into the freezer and then put a bit of the jam onto the cold dish and waited a moment and looked to see if it would set.  I thought it was ok so I took the jam off the heat and added a spoonful of cherry brandy. 

I poured the jam into clean jars and turned them over a bit to try to distribute the cherries evenly through the jam.  The next morning I found the jam was still too runny so I reboiled it – and what do you know the same thing happened so I decided to leave it runny.  This is a much better option than letting the jam boil for too long with inedible results.

Pork Chop with Spicy Cherry Sauce

I had some frozen cherries in the freezer (left over from Christmas) and thought it was time to use them.  The meat on hand was shoulder pork chops.  So a dish was invented.

Ingredients:

Pork chop

Rub – salt, pepper, cumin, chilli powder, drops of garlic oil

Sauce – cherries, cranberry jelly, chili jam, lemon juice, ginger, fish sauce, cognac

Method:

I mixed the rub ingredients together and massaged it into the pork chop around breakfast time.  The exact quantities of the rub don't matter.  The only one I'd be cautious about is cumin – I only used a quarter teaspoon.  Instead of the garlic oil (which is the only way I can eat garlic now) you could use garlic powder.

About 45 minutes before dinner, sear the chop on a high heat and then pop it into a lowish oven to finish cooking gently.

While the chop cooks put the ingredients for the sauce into a little pot and let them simmer.  For about a half cup of cherries I used a spoonful of each of the other ingredients.  The intention was to make a spicy sweet/sour dish.  I didn't mash up the cherries which meant the sauce was not smooth – but it tasted just fine.