Yummy dinner and no Purple Pickle

Tonight I tried the second Save with Jamie recipe with my big piece of pork and it was even better than yesterdays. It looked interesting enough to give a go but there were a few parts that worried me. It is a baguette that is spread with a home-made pate, then topped with pickled vegetables, sweet chilli pork and fresh chilli and coriander. I was slightly dubious as I like pate but not liver and I was worried that with just onion, liver and coriander, and being warm, that it would be overpowering. I am also not a fan of a strong vinegar taste and didn't want the pickles to take over. I should have had more faith as it was all balanced. The pickles were more sweet and sour than just "vinegar" and the pate was subtle and meaty. The pork was amazing and would not have been out of place on noodles or stir fry. It was easy to make but was a little time consuming. I was unable to get white cabbage and despite much discussion in our house decided that a red cabbage was the way forward rather than a savoy as I decided it needed to be nice and firm to pickle. After the "blue buns" I did pickle my cabbage separate to the cucumber and carrot so I did not have a purple pickle.

Bahn Mi 

In terms of cost this was a cheap meal for us, I say "for us" because we have been cooking a lot of Jamie Oliver meals so our cupboard contains a lot of the ingredients he frequently uses. This sticks with the policy of the book but if you were starting out with this type of food then forking out for the base ingredients will feel expensive. Saying that, however, it will let you then cook a lot of the recipes from the book cheaply after the initial cost.

I also made a pudding tonight from the book. 300g of frozen pineapple, 300g of natural yoghurt and half a teaspoon of honey mixed in a blender. It made an amazing creamy icecream/frozen yoghurt. I think I will be trying this with lots of different fruit in the future - next up frozen berries or banana!