Time for lunch!
I confess, I don’t know the difference between ham, bacon and pork. Can anyone enlighten me?
In the meantime, I made Pea and Pork Soup. I needed to use up some green lentils, so that was all my three ingredients!
As you can see from the above picture (just before I roasted the pork), I went nuts on my freebie ingredients – fat, salt and pepper. I figured I’d need all the flavour I could get (next time, I reckon I’ll fry some onions instead of the lentils. Or use potatoes, so protein, vegie and starch are all covered. But I’ll actually probably use both – and herbs. And store-bought stock. But I digress).
After roasting the pork chops (which had bones, which I gather is important) and letting them cool, I chopped off chunks of meat for later and boiled the bones and fat with more salt and pepper. When it was as pulverised as possible, I took out the solids and added the rest to the soup – which was, quite simply, boiled peas and lentils. Then I blended the green mix & stock mix together, and put it all back in the saucepan with the pork chunks. When it was all hot again, I ate it.
I should confess I panicked (green food and I don’t get on, as a rule) and baked some potatoes. I also added cream to the soup later, but I couldn’t taste any difference.
It cost $7 (three pork chops) + $3 (2 packs dried peas) + $2 (lentils) = $12 altogether, and it serves six. The great thing about simple meals is that they tend to cost less (plus it’s less ingredients to remember at the grocery shop).
If you want to know how to make a truly expert 3-ingredient soup (for under $2 a serve), go here:
http://peaslovecarrots.blogspot.com/2009/11/10-days-10-recipes-3-ingredients-day_15.html
Did I solve the soup dilemma – the human feeling that if you haven’t chewed something, you haven’t eaten?
Conclusion: I think so. The pork chunks were good and solid. Generally speaking, this tasted surprisingly good (particularly considering I don’t like peas). Three cheers for the freebie flavours of salt, pepper and butter. But ultimately I think my attempt at making stock did actually work.
Next week: Lunch again – but this time, it’ll be Steff Metal style. I’ve already tasted the deliciousness, and it was incredible.