Ideas for foodies

In my wanderings around the internet and through reading other peoples blogs,  I find myself on all sorts of blogs and often can't remember how I got there.  If they're interesting - cookery ones, or local,  then I bookmark them for checking every now and then.

One such site is this,  My Kitchen in Spain,  Janet is an American who has lived here for many years and writes about Spanish food.   Sometimes I think  'oh yes,  I could make that,' or  'that sounds tasty and a bit different'  so it's a blog that I go back to a couple of times a week.  Monday of last week she was writing about Ibérico pork and although we didn't have the same cut of meat the 'stuffing' that she used sounded so tasty that Sunday we used it in our joint of lomo (boneless loin).   If you read the article it's not stuffing as we know it,  not sage and onion, although I did make a bowl of that as well,  it's actually called larding.  And you make slits in the pork and put the mixture into the little pockets.

1 clove
10 peppercorns
1 teaspoon coarse salt
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Sprigs of fresh thyme
2 teaspoons olive oil 

First grind the clove and peppercorns, then chop the garlic  and mix everything together.  I only used 1 garlic as they were very large and I didn't want the garlic flavour to overpower the meat.  And I took the leaves off the thyme stalks first before mixing.  Also used more oil than that......Then I put the mix into the slits in the meat and roasted as normal.  Not quite how she cooked hers,  but  we had a different joint.  And it was wonderfully tasty,  the oil and flavours seeped out and basted the meat as it cooked.

Today, as we didn't eat all the pork on Sunday,  I've sliced the rest very thinly and layered it in the slow cooker with thinly sliced and partly cooked potatoes,  sauteed onions,  and cheese.  We had ends of cheeses that needed finishing off,  Gouda with chilli,  Roquefort,  Alpujarran goats cheese and  cream cheese.  Each layer has a bit of each cheese,  sounds a bit mixed up but after an afternoon on low heat it all melts and melds together.  Topped off with a layer of cheese sauce and put under the grill to brown and bubble just before serving, it's a good and tasty way of using up ends and leftovers.

The next  thing to try is the recipe she wrote the week before that,  stuffed apples baked in sweet Málaga wine,  we just happen to have a bottle in the wine rack,  all that is lacking are the apples  :(