A three course, nourishing, guilt-free meal!

Sorry, I haven’t posted much food lately. My SLR is sick and being repaired. I hope to pick it up real soon, but in the meantime, I’ve had to make do with our point-and-shoot.

I wasn’t going to make a 3 course meal. Honest. It was mid week and not a special occasion. I was just intending to use up a huge broccoli by making a soup, then serving a main course after that. Simple. But then I went to Nosh Food Market and got inspired to make an easy dessert. Piako yoghurt was on special and I spied some gorgeous strawberries at the vegetable shop. The vegetable shop were closed but I begged them to let me buy a punnet of strawberries. They relented. Yusss!

I’ve been pondering about ethical meats lately, while reading Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s book Hugh Fearlessly Eats It All. Not long ago, I thought free-range and organic was an expensive luxury for the kinds people that we are not. I’ve bought, cooked and eaten organic chicken. I wasn’t convinced of any superior flavour. The birds were smaller than I was used to. The cost was double what I pay for normal chicken. I like a bargain and I didn’t feel like there was one there, so I abandoned that.

But.

I love animals. I love meat. How do we solve this problem? I refuse to cause a fuss at the dinner table or at the market, but if it’s easy to do so, and affordable, I’m going to choose ethical meat. It’s a step in the right direction. Nosh had some of their Freedom Farms pork on special so I popped that in the basket without hesitation. At $18 per kilo, it is comparable to farmed pork.

A three course, nourishing, guilt-free meal!

Starter: Broccoli and sage soup.

Most of a large broccoli, fresh sage from the garden, 2 potatoes, half an onion, stock and a splash of cream.

Main: Butterflied pork from Freedom Farms with roasted and caramalised kumara, royal gala apples and onion.

The pork was already marinated and I seared it on both sides to give a deep colour. Kumara peeled and chopped, both apples peeled, 1 apple grated, the other apple chopped, half an onion sliced, everything seasoned and all cooked in a hot oven for half an hour. Pork added to the roasting dish for the last 15 minutes. A dollop of onion marmalade (given to us by our friend Gene).