Recipe: Friday frenzy

Well, you guessed it, I'm procrastinating...hence the multiple posts. Funny enough, this Sunday, it's not ironing, it's cleaning! Yesterday consisted of a sleep-in, a shower, a change into more pyjamas and then a trip to Beverley for a pyjama party 21st. So apart from baking some birthday cupcakes, we didn't do much cleaning up. Hubby's parental units are coming to visit us and see our new home for the first time, we are eager to impress but yes I'd rather be sitting here talking about food than dusting and vacuuming up after my kitten.

Can I digress? They're not cat people, and Mingus isn't allowed on our bed, but he IS allowed to sleep on all the guest beds. Hee hee.

"Humans on my bed? I'm coming for a cuddle, shove up, incoming purr~purr furball...!"

Ahem. The cupcakes were the Nigella Lawson recipe and I did a basic orange-flavored buttercream frosting, and then tried a chocy version as well. There are a gazillion good cupcake blogs out there (start with cupcakeblog.com and work your way out from there if you're able) and it's the first time I've tried cupcake-ing since the phenomena took the world in a storm of fondant and silver teeth-breaking baubles. Hats off to all you cupcake goddesses out there, I'll leave it to you! It was easy but intricate work; I learned valuable lessons in the two batches baked, but I now vaguely understand why people will rely on Betty Crocker instead of whipping their own icing...seven cups of icing sugar so it's stiff enough to pipe? Eeek!

Back to my original intent: Friday night's dinner! I knew it was going to be a slightly frenetic weekend, so I set out to Farmer Jack's after work for two things...cupcake basics and an easy meal. It started out as a Chinese pork stir-fry, and ended up in the veggie aisle with fennel and apples. I'm self-distracting, I know...anyway, here's the recipe, partly inspired by the winter rosti recipe from Ross Dobson's Kitchen Seasons. Another birthday present from another beloved foodie friend, everything from this book is marvellously simple and showcases each ingredient to perfection.

Paprika pork chops, potato cake and apple fennel salad

Ingredients: (serves two hungry bunnies!)

2 pork chops

4 Ruby Lou potatoes ( 3 would've sufficed)

1 small sweet potato

some sage

2 Granny Smith apples

1 fennel bulb

olive oil (I used Dash tangerine infusion Agrumento style olive oil, purchased at the Araluen Chilli Festival)

balsamic vinegar (four leaf, buy the best you can, it really makes a difference!)

more olive oil to cook, about 3T

about 3T butter

Method:

Scrub and halve the spuds, peel the sweet potato, and cover the lot in a pot with cold water. Bring to boil, take off the heat, cover with a tight-fitting lid, and rest for 10 minutes.

Don't overcook, drain promptly, otherwise the result will be soggy.

Grate everything into a bowl, season and add shreds of sage leaf. Hooray for my food processor and its grating attachment!

Heat both your frying pans.

Heat half your butter and olive oil in frying pan 1 (I won't say non-stick because I've just said butter AND oil...!), swirl the pan to coat the sides too, then insert the potato mix and press down with a spatula / fish slice / ensuing friendly argument about correct name for said utensil.

Cook for 5 minutes on high heat, add oil round the edges and turn the heat down to medium. Cook for another 10 minutes, shaking often to avoid sticking.

Carefully upend onto a plate (helps if this is a larger diameter than your pan), re-oil and butter the pan and slide the potato back on, cooked side up, for another 10 minutes.

In frying pan 2 (or griddle plate), cook the chops about 10 minutes a side, dust with paprika towards the end. Start on a high heat for a few minutes and turn it down so avoid over-cooking.

In the meantime, also thinly slice the apples and fennel, and dress with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Citrus, fennel and apple are good friends; if you can't get your mitts on the Dash stuff, make your vinaigrette with three parts part olive oil one part orange juice and season to taste). Or better still, you already have some homemade, orange-infused olive oil handy! Go you good thing!

(We were given one of those apple twirly-ma-jigs for Christmas, it's such a treat! Stick apple in, wind it out the other end, peeled and spirally thin, with a cute lil' core for the wormy farm.)

Layer apple and fennel and drizzle, dressing on, cut wedges of rosti and present the chop on top. I dusted more paprika on, and some dried thyme, for color and fragrance.

Ta-daa! Far cry from the intended bok choy stir fry and way more fun!

Ok, booting myself off the puter, going to...bake some welcome goodies...ahaha...dusting can wait till tomorrow night...!