Same old same old..

I haven't posted for a while because I have been a bit slack and cooking really boring things and having stuff like eggs on toast and tinned salmon and salad for dinner But on wednesday night I cooked a pork cutlet with white wine sauce and gremolata on mashed potato and baby spinach. It was my version of an amazing meal that is on the menu and my favourite local restuarant. It was really nice, but the pork was a little dry; I don't usually cook pork very often; I think it is the whole thing of pork being similar to human flesh or something, but of course ham, bacon, pancetta etc is exempt from this!


My local coles only had curly parsley not flat leaf so it looked a bit daggy and the flavour of the gremolata was not quite as good. I remember as a very small child in the late 80's picking parsely for Mum for her cooking and always wanting to pick the curly stuff as that was what was used in restaurants on everything at the time. Mum always wanted flat leaf because the flavour was so much better; she was way ahead of her time, you would be hard pressed to find curly parsley in anything but the tackiest of eating establishments these days! (Also if not chopped finely enough it is like a hairball in your throat!)

Tonight I had moroccon lamb sausages on mashed potato and spinach (again) and with a brown onion and porcini sauce. I bought some lovely dried porcinis from my local health food store and have been looking for ways to use them.

I added the mushrooms and the soaking liquid to the sauce and it was yummy. I was also impressed as the 50g jar I bought was only around $12 and the flavour and smell of them are very nice. As a side note, lamb is also something I only cook rarely; I think it is the smell of it cooking that I don't like, so lamb roasts are out but I don't mind shanks, cutlets or using lamb mince in moussaka for instance.

On an unrealted note; watching Master Chef tonight (I love it, I'm totally addicted) one of the contestants got booted off because she thought the farro in a minestrone was barley. I actually had to google farro, and I think I have a pretty good knowledge of obscure grains, eg quinoa, amaranth, millett I can recognise and have cooked with. I really want to buy the book "1001 foods to try before you die" but it is quite expensive for something that it not a reference cookbook. I visit it whenever I am in a bookshop! I do like poring through my "Maggies Harvest" which is my favourite cookbook for inspiration in using new and unusual ingredients. I will have to do a bit of an I love Maggie post and go into raptures about her books, she is fab!

Thats all, will try and post soon!