Left. Over. Roger: bbq pork breakfast burrito

Carla at Can be bribed with food, has launched a new blogging challenge - Left. Over. Roger. With the support of Love Food, Hate Waste, it is going to showcase the best ways bloggers can come up with to use leftovers and minimise food waste, which is something I can totally get behind. I've often posted dishes using leftovers, because I think it is really important for a cook to learn how to be economical and make the most of everything that passes through the kitchen. And sometimes just packing leftovers into a lunchbox for the following day isn't quite enough.

BBQ pork shank

With apologies to my readers who visit for Meat-Free Mondays, generally speaking, we end up with leftover meat most often. We get better results cooking a larger piece of meat and frankly we like having leftover meat! We'd slowly roasted a shank of Tamworth pork in the barbecue (lid on, indirect heat, quite a lot of cherrywood smoking dust) until it was tender and succulent. Even after eating our fill there was quite a lot of meat and rind leftover.

The rinds went into a hot oven for a few minutes to crackle up and render down, and we had them as scratchings with a little afternoon drinkie.

The rest of the pork became a magnificent brunch of well-stuffed burritos. I cut the meat into chunks and sauteed it (in a little of the rendered lard from the rinds - mmmmm lard!) until browned and crisp around the edges then poured on some beaten eggs to make an omelette. I stuffed the omelette into soft flour tortillas (my new favourite way to reheat tortillas is to run them under the cold tap, then microwave them for a minute - they go unbelievably fluffy and pliable). I topped them with grated cheese, avocado, tomato and coriander salsa and a good slosh of smoked chilli sauce. They were almost too full to roll, but where there is a will there's a way.

pork breakfast burrito

Barbecued Mackerel

We've had two weeks of rain. Now, this is a Good Thing because we are in drought, but on a damp-footed day-to-day level it's a bit of a drag. I know they talk fondly about April showers, but these bursts of torrential rain, howling wind, hail, thunder and lightning followed by 10 minutes of bright hot sunshine are very challenging to the wardrobe. Layers come into play (rookie error - I wore a black bra under a white shirt to work the other day, assuming I wouldn't get warm enough to take off my pullover). It makes a girl very much aware that her boots need re-soling and that wet trouser hems just don't dry all day. 

It's weather that makes you want comforting, starchy food, but at the same time fresh, zingy summer flavours are calling.

In one 45 minute gap between cloudbursts, we lit the barbecue. Peppers, courgette and salt-rubbed mackerel were soon joined by some wedges of hispi cabbage. Just before the heavens opened again, we whisked it all off the grill, bathed it in a sort of Asian-y marinade of soy, mirin, ginger, garlic and a little sesame oil and got to appreciate a little taste of sunshine.

Barbecued mackerel, courgette and red peppers

Meat-Free Monday: We should cocoa

I've been watching the We should cocoa event for a while with interest. Sue and Caroline always make tempting-looking treats for it, but I didn't really think it was for me. I love blogger events but no one can do all of them and we don't eat that much chocolate, so I had been happy to admire this one from afar until I saw on twitter the other day that this month's challenge was chocolate and cheese. Well. That pretty much sold me on it straight away. I may not be the biggest chocolate fan in the world but I am certainly in the top 10 for cheese consumption! The thought of combining salty, creamy cheese with sweet, creamy chocolate was quite fascinating and I decided to give it a go.

I remembered the wonderful chocolate balsamic reduction from Chantal Coady's book Real Chocolate. I don't have the book any more (can't remember if I gave it to someone or misplaced it in a move), but I do remember a happy period before we left Australia when I was chucking the reduction all over the place. Well - onto kangaroo steaks mostly. The rich chocolate flavour is supported by the balsamic to make a really superb condiment for game meats. I thought it would be lovely with cheese too. Fortunately, the recipe was available online.

Chocolate balsamic reduction - a very useful condiment!

For the cheese component I was planning to do goat's cheese croutons. I ran the idea past Paul who suggested deep-frying the cheese. Clearly, that was a much, much better idea!

I bought a log of a young British goat's cheese, cut neatly into 6 rounds, and floured, egged and crumbed them. I haven't had a huge amount of success with deep-fried cheese in the past, so I was very careful to coat them thoroughly. I double coated them and chilled them for half an hour for good measure.

I deep-fried the cheese at 180C for 3 minutes, then drained them and piled them onto a rocket salad, sprinkled with pumpkin seeds and dressed with olive oil and a good slosh of the chocolate balsamic, then drizzled some more chocolate balsamic over the top.

It was a really lovely lunch! The cheese was mild and creamy, so it wasn't incongruous with the very chocolatey balsamic and the various textures of crisp leaf, crumb and pumpkin seed against smooth sauce and soft cheese was really exciting to eat. I was very happy with how my inaugural We Should Cocoa entry went!

Breaded, deep-fried goats cheese, mixed leaves and chocolate balsamic

Other Blogger's Dishes: burgers, chicken, pie and snacks

As usual, a lot of the stuff we are eating day to day is inspired by my jaunts around the blogosphere. My usual sort of routine on a Sunday is to sit with blogs open in one tab, a menu plan in another and my grocery shopping in a third, so as I see something delicious I can make a plan to cook it immediately. I usually have a spreadsheet open at the same time, so I can note dishes that aren't for this week but I do want to make at some point. It can be a complicated business being a Virgo.

Technically, these burgers are another blogger's dish, although I actually saw them in Niamh's book, Comfort and Spice, not on her blog. She has blogged about them though, and indeed published the recipe in the Evening Standard! I am a bit of a burger purist, usually using only beef, salt and pepper in mine, but she is absolutely right that the earthy, sweet beetroot and clean, firey horseradish are brilliant additions. They are also a great way of using up the beetroot in the veg box! It's very Australian to put a slice of vinegary beetroot in a burger, so I knew that the flavours would work well. I confess that I didn't have fresh horseradish so I used a spoonful of jarred. Not ideal, but it gave a pretty good indication of what these burgers could be like. And the colour is fantastic.

These chipotle-garlic edamame from Esi at Dishing Up Delights are indeed a delight. Somehow I couldn't spot the ground cumin in the cupboard, so I made it with a spoonful of seeds and it was none the worse for that! It's such a good idea to take advantage of the way you scrape the beans from the pod with your teeth, and pile on spicy seasonings. They made a perfect little savoury snack for a weekend afternoon, alongside a beer.

Somewhat unusually, this bacon and egg pie looks very little like the bacon and egg pie that inspired it on Charlie's blog, Hotly Spiced. I thought her addition of a tomato-rich custard to the classic dish was absolutely brilliant, but I didn't have any tomatoes. Then I thought about how good spinach and eggs are together, and how much I love spinach and bacon together, and the fact that I had a bag of washed spinach leaves in the fridge. I scaled it up a bit, because I wanted 8 tidy portions, and I added a sprinkle of pil-pil mix and nutmeg to the spinach, and I used (bought) puff pastry instead of filo. But aside from that it is exactly the same dish! Anyway, it is really delicious. The mineral-y spinach undercuts the richness of the bacon and eggs and the whole thing is just wonderful. I can imagine the horror from my friend Penny who doesn't eat either bacon or eggs...

If you haven't read Hotly Spiced, I thoroughly recommend it. She's very, very funny. I am certainly going to try this pie using the tomato base too - it's a very good dish.

These hot wings from Emma's blog Souperior aren't precisely as written - Paul doesn't really care for chicken wings so I used drumsticks, and I used my home made smoked chilli sauce, cut with a little tomato ketchup to tone down the heat. It was a gorgeous, messy meal, although strangely my fiercely hot chilli sauce was possibly toned down too much. Next time (and there will be a next time!) I will use straight chilli sauce, I think. I added a big pile of carrot and celery sticks to make it a more balanced meal and we sat with the platter between us and a goodly supply of paper towels. Finger-licking is compulsory.

Meat Free Monday: sweet potato and corn fritters

These are very obedient little things. I had in mind something similar to my corn and sweet potato pancakes, but a bit more pakora-y. I ended up chucking all sorts of veg that wanted using up into them and they were fantastic. They also reheated well in the microwave (losing a bit of crispness but you can't have everything) so they made a very good work lunch.

These would be SO easy and quick if you have a food processor with a grating attachment. But I don't. Still easy but the veg prep is a bit time-consuming.

I served them with a garlicky blue cheese dip. Made with teaspoonfuls of batter, they'd make a really excellent nibble for a drinks party and the recipe is easy enough to size down if you aren't batch-cooking for a week's meals. I deep-fried but I can't really see them coming to any harm if you shallow fry. Just make sure they are set quite firmly before you try to flip them.

Sweet potato and corn fritters (makes about 20)

3 sweet potatoes, peeled and coarsely grated

4 cobs of corn, kernels sliced off

1 onion, finely sliced

2 leeks, finely sliced

1 green pepper, chopped

small bunch of coriander, chopped

3 large eggs

2 cups self-raising flour, approx

salt, pepper and smoked paprika

Mix all the veg in a large bowl with the eggs and season with salt, pepper and a little smoked paprika, then add flour until it forms a pretty thick batter.

Heat 2" of oil in a deep saucepan to 180C, then press handfuls of the batter into balls and carefully drop into the oil. Cook for about 4 minutes on each side, in batches, draining well on kitchen paper.

Rabanada: Brazilian French Toast

I'm not sure why I started thinking about deep-frying French toast, but the thought was there. I realised a long time ago that there is no such thing as originality in food - every idea I have ever had, someone else has had before me and has already blogged about it - so a quick search for deep-fried French toast turned up this divine confection Rabanada.

I didn't follow the recipe competely (didn't have condensed milk so just added some extra sugar, used stale brioche instead of baguette) but the essence of custard-soaked bread, deep-fried until crisp outside and melting in the middle, and then tossed in a mixture of cinnamon, sugar and cocoa, was there. I served it with strawberries macerated in a little icing sugar until they produced their own juicy syrup.

As an indulgent, special occasion version of French toast I think I still prefer torrijas, but this is definitely the way to go if you are making breakfast for people who don't want alcohol in the morning. It's probably also a good idea to make sure no one has any particular plans for the day after making this - it's a breakfast that encourages sloth and languor.

Haddock Tacos

This was a really good, fast, light dinner. Fillets of sustainably-caught haddock dusted with cornmeal seasoned with some pil-pil seasoning mix (this stuff is great - it's a dried mixture of garlic, parsley, chilli and paprika; friends buy it for us in Spain) and gently shallow-fried, stuffed into soft wheat tortillas with a tomato and avocado salsa, and topped with yoghurt flavoured with chipotle paste.

It took less than 10 minutes from fridge to plate and was very satisfying.