Saturday 30th July 2011
The invites were out...
The RSVP's were back...
We were all ready to ...
All the pork recipes on the menu were taken from the book I was given when I visited Jimmy's Farm. I know, I know, I had Jimmy sign it over to Claire as she had just left home to live in the middle of the countryside. Honestly, I have let her read it... once... and she loved it, the game recipes and real country feel of this book is right up her street!
Like I was saying, I used the book for the pork recipes, it was very easy to follow, a great read in its own right and I promise I will now give it back to its rightful owner!
We nibble these as appetisers with drinks
- Perfect pork crackling
- Mini Sausage bites from my butcher (Pork & Ginger and Pork, Cider & Apple)
- Mixed Olives
Our main course
Stuffed hock and trotters!
- Rillettes
- Stuffed hock with trotters
- BBQ Sheet ribs
- Mini pork souvalaki (From Falling Cloudberries by Tessa Kiros)
- Traditional Rustic French Bread
- Tomato Salad
- Homemade Hummus
We had a choice of two desserts ( No real photos of them as the wine was flowing and the kids were impatient, I did capture the chocolate sauce that managed to stick itself to Arty's face... does that count?)
- Apple Brown Betty & Pouring cream
- Homemade Profiteroles with dark chocolate sauce
- Buzzards Valley English Regional Wine
- Pinot Grigio
- Merlot
- Stella Artois
- Cherry Tango
- Pepsi
The conversation flowed....
- Using real butchers over supermarkets
- Supporting the British farming industry
- The recent Pampered Chef Conference & relevant gossip (!)
- The merits of having teenage kids (or not!)
- How cute Rachel was when she was little (very!)
The verdict?
We all really enjoyed ourselves and enjoyed the pork dishes to different degrees. The rillettes after slow cooking for 3 hours were a great flavour but didn't have that pull apart loveliest promised in the book :-(
The hock meat was tender and tasty but needed to be picked out of the debris that was the rest of the hock... the stuffing was very tasty especially the caramelised bit that oozed from the opening of the hock.
Sadly the trotters were left untouched, they looked pretty gruesome and with the rack of moist meaty ribs there was no competition!
Thanks for the Flowers Rachel x
&
the thank you card from the Jackson.
Lambfest next you say....hmmm, that could be arranged!
Lambfest indeed! If you do it up as well as you did this Pork Fest, I'll be there!! I am impressed Julie. You did a fab job with this, as always! xxoo
ReplyDelete