I can’t wait to try this pork chop rub on the barbecue. Oh, except it’s snowing outside, in APRIL. At least I can start experimenting with recipes now and have them ready to go as soon as the slightest glimmer of sunshine appears. Oh yeah, I need to buy a barbecue too. This rub is aromatic and powerful but at the same time allows the flavour of the pork to take centre stage. The chops were really fat and juicy, from The Ginger Pig in Borough Market.

My secret ingredient in the rub was dried wild myrtle leaves and my even bigger secret was the fact that I bought them in Tescos! Tesco, selling an ingredient I’d never heard of?! It must just be me then….I bet you’ve all been using it by the bucket load, ‘wild myrtle is like, sooo last season!’ I read that they were similar in flavour to bay, and they are definitely gently aromatic in the same way. They are small, so I chucked a good handful into the rub mix along with some juniper berries, garlic, fennel seeds, lemon zest, rosemary and olive oil.

You may notice how I’ve snipped the fat along the side of the chops. This is to help it render down and crisp. As you can also see, I didn’t go the whole hog (pun intended) with the crisping because (sniff sniff) I am on a diet. It was hard, believe me, very hard. The way I usually do it is by holding the chops upright in the pan, to really get some contact on the fat and render a nice, crispy crackling effect. I’m saving my calories though for some crispy pork belly that I’ve been craving for weeks. I feel like some sort of loser writing that, like I’m throwing my foodie credentials out the window – refusing crispy pork fat? What’s wrong with you woman?!

The pear and beetroot salad is actually really nice. I was a little sceptical but the flavours came together really well. I’m really enjoying discovering these new combinations of different veggies and fruits, it’s renewed my interest in a lot of ingredients and the best thing is that they work.

I must just spread a little love for my new bowls, they are by Zac Designs and I bought them here, as an early birthday present to myself. I love their bright colours and their little feet.

Wildly Aromatic Pork Chops

2 large pork chops
The zest of 2 lemons
The juice of 1 lemon
2-3 garlic cloves
1 heaped tablespoon dried myrtle leaves
A small sprig of rosemary, chopped
6 juniper berries, crushed
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

- Crush the garlic to a paste with a pinch of salt in a pestle and mortar. Add the juniper berries and crush these too. Add the other ingredients except the olive oil and lemon juice and mush everything together. Stir in the lemon juice and add enough olive oil to loosen it to the desired consistency.
- Rub the marinade all over the chops and allow to marinate for around half an hour (or overnight, without the lemon juice. Add this about half an hour before you want to cook them) before cooking in a hot pan, under a grill or on the barbecue.

Beet and Pear Salad

1 medium beetroot, sliced into thin strips with a vegetable peeler
2 Williams pears, sliced in the same way
1 tablespoon flat leaf parsley, chopped
2 tablespoons chives, chopped
The juice of 1/2 lemon
1 teaspoon wholegrain mustard
Extra virgin olive oil
I also added a teaspoon of raspberry vinegar which was delicious but by no means necessary. You could add a pinch of sugar if it’s a bit tart

- Mix everything together. Voilà!

When I’m walking around Borough Market, I enter this sort of dream-like state. It’s as if I’m floating around, too stunned and excited by what I see to utter even the most basic pleasantries. It was fortunate then, that my most recent visit to Borough was with my oldest and best friend, after our planned visit to the design museum. For that is one of the best things about knowing someone for so long isn’t it? You don’t need to say anything just for the sake of it, you can just get on with enjoying yourself and each others company.

We stopped for paella with chorizo (below) before heading in, which is when I spotted people carrying Borough Market shopping bags. Not plastic bags, but ethical bags* like the ones we are all supposed to be using now, except with Borough Market stamped on the front in bold green. Being the food geek that I am, I had to have one and so we tracked them down, hastily handing over 3 quid each for the pleasure. As I admired my bag I became aware of my friend frantically rummaging and squealing with excitement. Food! There was food inside! A selection of the traders had sacrificed some of their wares by way of advertising and inside we found, organic dry cured bacon, a walnut loaf from DeGustibus, an ‘ultra’ chocolate brownie, a bag of coconut ice from the award winning Burnt Sugar, a Bramley, an orange and finally, a bag of farro.

Now strangely, I’ve never got around to cooking with farro. My first instinct was to use it in an autumnal broth but I wanted something to see Chris and I through the week for lunch and so I came up with this salad instead. I added chickpeas to enhance the nutty flavour of the grain and threw in lots of Mediterranean flavours, along with some radishes for a Turkish twist. Everything then gets a good dousing in a dressing made with Rose Harissa. If you haven’t tried this special harissa, I urge you to do it. Belazu do cute little jars of the stuff. It will set you back about 3 quid, but it’s well worth it. So much more punch than a regular (shop bought) harissa, but then balanced by the delicate perfume of rose petals. The dressing is particularly good if you use the oil that the marinated tomatoes come packed in.

There is something so satisfying about making up a batch of a salad like this; wholegrain goodness mixed with all kinds of delicious morsels – varying textures and flavours with every bite. I must admit I also feel a slight smugness when I pack up those neat little lunchboxes and hand one to Chris with a piece of fruit, flashing my, ‘aren’t I an organised domestic goddess smile’ . In reality, it’s a case of a bit of chopping (very therapeutic), a bit of mixing (couldn’t be easier) and then a lot of chucking everything into the same bowl (an idiot could do it – and it’s healthy!). Minimum effort for maximum reward.

I’ve been writing this post sat on the floor in an empty room, not because I’m masochistic, but because we are moving into a new flat this weekend. All our belongings are in storage and we are kipping in our friends’ living room for the next few days. As a consequence, I don’t expect to have the internet for a few weeks and so no posting for me. I will however, be like a whirling dervish in my new kitchen, so it’s just a case of manically posting here when I return.

Farro Salad with Rose Harissa Dressing

Farro (I used the entire bag you see pictured. The original bag was cooked and eaten too quickly), cooked according to packet instructions. I have used various brands since and found they all take 20 minutes or so.
15 kalamata olives, pitted
10-15 marinated tomatoes packed in oil, roughly chopped (I used Sainsbury’s ‘sunblush’ tomatoes marinated in oregano and garlic).
A handful each of basil, mint and parsley, roughly chopped (this is just what I had in the fridge but basil and mint are fantastic together I think).
1 standard pack of feta, crumbled
6 spring onions, chopped
1 standard tin of chickpeas packed in water, drained.

For the dressing

Rose harissa (I used Belazu)
Olive oil from the marinated tomatoes – about 4 tablespoons. (if you are using regular olive oil, add a crushed clove of garlic to the dressing).
Juice of ½-1 whole lemon.

- Cook the farro according to packet instructions.
- Meanwhile, chop everything, drain the chickpeas and add all the salad ingredients to a serving bowl.
- Make the dressing by stirring 1 ½ tablespoons of the harissa into the oil followed by a good squeeze of lemon juice.
- Allow the farro to cool slightly before mixing it with the other ingredients. It really makes a difference to add the dressing now while the farro is still warm.

* On the subject of bags, I’m so pleased that we are finally waking up to the fact that carrier bags are so unnecessary. I have been trying (not always successfully) to cut down on them for a couple of years now and it’s a relief that I no longer have to say, ‘no thanks, I don’t use them, we throw away 13 billion a year’ at the checkout. On reflection, I must have sounded like a self-righteous idiot but never mind. The advantage now is that shops are beginning to offer their own (ethical) shopping bags more readily. Forget Anya Hindmarch’s, ‘I’m not a plastic bag’, I’m talking about your local grocers, markets and the like. Of course, its symbiotic – you get a free bag and they get free advertising. Although I do try to avoid the supermarket, sometimes (quite often actually) it just isn’t possible and so I’d rather be carrying my groceries home in my trusty SMBS (health foods shop in East Dulwich) shopper than in a supermarket equivalent – aside from being bad for the environment, I don’t want to do them any favours.

The supermarkets are apparently now required to recycle their bags and as a consequence are making them thinner. I found this out first hand a few weeks back when I found myself with no option but to use a Sainsbury’s carrier. As I was leaving the store, I heard an almighty crack and felt a sharp pain in my foot. When I came to my senses I realised the bag had broken and my bottle of cider had smashed on the floor. As I was waiting for a replacement, I chatted to the lady at the customer services desk, ‘happens all the time now’ she said, ‘several times a week – they’re making them thinner’. Now of course, I can’t vouch for the truth of this, but it all seems a bit silly to me. Let’s get rid of them and be done with it. We’ll all get used to it in the end.

I feel happy just looking at this salad; it’s like a tomato kaleidoscope, perfect for a summer barbecue. I always make it to mark the start of summer but the weather this year has been so unsettled that this is my first. I think it is worth trying to get as many different varieties of tomatoes as you can when you are making a tomato salad. These are from Borough Market where we picked up varieties like, ‘Aunt Ruby’s German Green’ and ‘Brandywine’. It makes such a difference to have varying sweetness and flavour; some of them tasted almost minty. This is one of those recipes that I always come back to as soon as the tomatoes are in season. Nothing fancy here – it’s just a tomato salad, but that’s the point. This is my mum’s recipe. Cheers mum!

Rainbow Tomato Salad

½ small red onion, very finely chopped
2 small cloves garlic, very finely chopped
Balsamic vinegar, your good stuff
Extra virgin olive oil, again, your good stuff
Salt and pepper
Enough mixed tomatoes to fill your serving plate when sliced
Basil leaves

- Slice the tomatoes (about 1/2 cm thick) and arrange on a serving plate.
- Scatter over the red onion and garlic and drizzle with the balsamic and olive oil.
- Season and garnish with torn basil leaves.

This improves after marinating for a few hours. It makes an awesome addition to a BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato) sandwich, which is a personal favourite and speciality of mine. I have spent more time than is reasonable refining this sandwich and I am making a note to self now to post about it.

We ate the salad with some torn buffalo mozzarella, also from Borough Market (yes, we bought a lot of food there), drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and seasoned with a twist of black pepper. I love simple food like this on a hot summer’s day. We don’t have the heat yet but it’s summer in my kitchen.

We returned to Borough Market yesterday as promised and picked up some of those mushrooms that had caught our attention last week. We opted for the Buna Shimeji or Brown Beech mushrooms. These were perfect cooked in white wine and cream and eaten with some fat ostrich steaks. The flavour of the meat was rich and earthy and we cooked them rare, just like beef, as the seller suggested. Because the meat is so lean, it can be quite tricky to cut but once in the mouth, it is really tender. Next time though, I think thinner steaks will make for better eating.

We ate it with this fab yellow, round courgette, a little sweeter than the standard variety. The trusty barbecue came out for the steaks and courgette slices, drizzled with olive oil and seasoning and cooked just in time before the first few drops of rain.

Ostrich Steak with Brown Beech Mushroom Sauce and Yellow Courgettes

2 ostrich steaks
An average clump of Buna Shimeji (Brown Beech) mushrooms
Dash double cream
Dash white wine
Small handful thyme leaves
Olive oil
Generous knob butter
1 yellow courgette

- Slice the courgettes, coat with olive oil and seasoning (not too much salt) and grill on the barbecue.
- Cook the ostrich steaks for 2 minutes each side, then rest in a warm place for 6 minutes or so (I keep the oven on low) until the sauce is done.
- For the sauce, saute the mushrooms in the butter and a drop of olive oil for a couple of minutes before adding a healthy splash of white wine and allowing it to reduce nicely.
- Add the thyme and a dash of double cream, remove from the heat and adjust the seasoning.

Yum, yum yum! The sauce was so flavoursome; although not overly strong, the mushrooms had a nice little kick to them. We finished the meal with one of these ‘coconut drops cakes’.

They consisted of chunks of coconut, glued together with a sweet, gingery coating, very, very moreish, although not the kind of thing you can eat all at once.

For lunch this week, we ate some really fresh, hand dived, seared scallops, served with stir fry, bacon bits and bread. The scallops were perfectly cooked and juicy. How cool is Borough Market?! I could go there every week and it would take me a very long time to tire of it. Sadly, my bank balance will not allow this. Borough Market isn’t the cheapest place to shop, but you are paying for the quality of the produce. If more people started shopping in markets and local shops, then obviously the price would go down, although this is a tourist attraction too, which partly contributes to the prices. The crowds don’t seem too bad when you are there however, because it’s just so damn impressive.Next week I’ve promised myself a different farmer’s market, but it won’t be long before I return to Borough.