Let me start by stating how much I hate winter.  Just so you get it… I HATE WINTER    But one thing  I do love about winter is a hot filling soup.  Without doubt I like the slow method of cooking soup; making a stock, refrigerating it overnight, skimming and then finally putting all the other ingredients in.  But there’s not always time to invest in the slow cook method and this is where this recipe comes into its own.  You’ll have hot tasty soup on the table within an hour!  My sister-in-law MissMedia shared this recipe and I’m thrilled she did because  by no means is this quick cook soup a disappointment.

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I have a problem…several actually but let’s stick to cooking    I can’t seem to cook small portions of food which means we always have alot of leftovers in the fridge.  Last Sunday night I cooked a very large porchetta.  It was fabulous, but I didn’t relish the thought of serving the same dinner two nights in a row or even again later in the week.  On one hand cooking large portions works well.  For example a large pot of spaghetti bolognese sauce can be frozen into several portions and eaten weeks or months later…but on the other hand there are loads of leftovers that can’t be frozen because they don’t defrost well.  So, what do you do with the leftovers from a large roast without repeating the same dinner over and over again?  Fear not dear readers  I have the answer to this and many more of life’s BIG questions…Okay, so I’m stretching the truth a bit…okay okay! I’m stretching the truth alot     But I do know what to do with roast leftovers so that you’re not eating the same thing over and over again   You make it into a terrine and wrap the slices in sour cream pastry…believe me you’ll be just as impressed with yourself as I was with myself and be justified in giving it a fancy smantzy name

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You could be forgiven for thinking Dexter has been dining at our house …this picture is seriously scary!  It’s two pork neck fillets in a marinade that includes red colouring.  If you haven’t already guessed I’m making Chinese BBQ pork…more commonly known as Char Siu

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Weeknights are busy at our house.  We don’t always get the time to cook from scratch even though it’s my preference to do so.  So we take shortcuts…that means instead of using home made meatballs i squeeze the meat out from Italian sausages from a good vendor (San Marino Meats, Central Markets) and use boutique bottled tomato sauce (Lucia’s Neopolitan sauce).

This recipe is a weekday staple in our home; it fills all the weekday criteria: quick, yummy, easy, nutritious!

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We’ve never really been big meat eaters, but over the past 12 months we’ve been reintroducing meat, of all kinds, back into our diet.  We’re all quite amazed at how much we’re actually enjoying it.  After watching Jamie Olivers’s ‘Save our pork’ I decided i’d like to have a go at cooking a shoulder of pork.

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Despite the rotten time i had trying to get the ingredients and make these, they turned out terrific…tomorrow i’ll make a curry for them and have them for dinner and can the rest for dinners at a later date.