Red Cabbage, to go with Pork Involtini

I was home a little earlier tonight as a training course I have been on finished at 4:00, so I ducked into Cedric St to pick a couple of things up Jo needed, saving her the need to do so at a later hour. 

Whilst I was shopping about I picked up a red cabbage, to go with a nice pork fillet I already had in the basket, given I had that little bit of extra time, I thought I might do something different and hopefully nice for Jo Girl.  Having made that decision I picked up a bunch of asparagus and headed for the deli counter to order a few slices of prosciutto and a wedge of fontina cheese, so I could make my Pork Involtini.

Originally thinking I would steam the cabbage, then thought better of it as red cabbage can be a little bitter, so I headed for the PC to Google red cabbage, a couple of things came up, but nothing that really appealed, but I found enough info to inspire me into creating something which would match the pork perfectly.

Red Cabbage

2 tbl spn butter

1-2 shallots, finely sliced

1 golden delicious apple, grated

Pinch of nutmeg

½ red cabbage, washed and finely shredded

2 tbl spn balsamic vinegar

Melt butter over medium heat, add the shallots and cook slowly for about five minutes or until nice and tender.

Add the apple and a pinch of nutmeg, stir in well and cook for 3 – 4 minutes, then add the cabbage, mix in well, reduce heat to low and cover the pot, leave to cook for 4-5 minutes.

Season well with salt and pepper, add the balsamic, stir though and cook a couple more minutes with the lid off, add more butter, salt and pepper to taste, serve hot as a side dish.

Pork Involtini

300 – 400 gram pork fillet

Cabernet Paste

100g fontina cheese, cut into batons

Bunch asparagus

6 slices prosciutto

Salt and pepper

Prepare the pork by first slicing through the centre of the fillet, careful not to cut all the way through, butterfly out and pound with a rolling pin or an empty bottle.

Season well with salt and pepper, spread a couple of teaspoons of Maggie Beers Cabernet Paste over the meat, then lay half the asparagus and cheese across the meat, roll the meat over the asparagus and cheese back onto itself, allowing a little bit of an overlap, then cut through the fillet. 

Place on top of the slices of prosciutto and roll.  Repeat with the remaining ingredients to make a second roll.

To cook, quickly brown all over in a hot non-stick pan, transfer to a preheated oven @ 200 degrees for 15 minutes.  Remove from oven, rest for 5 minutes, slice across the roll cutting slices 12-15mm thick, serve with mashed potato, cabbage and a red wine sauce.

As luck would have it, Jo had to work back later than usual, but thankfully I had not started cooking the meat when she phoned so I was able to turn everything off and just reheat the vegetables whilst I rested the meat, made for a very tasty meal and the red cabbage was sensational!

Summer BBQ's

One of the things we love most about summer is it is BBQ weather, there is something about cooking outside that brings added flavour to the table, a steak cooked on the stove top may be fantastic, but there is always a nagging question in the back of my mind about as to how good it may have been if cooked on the barbie.  And it doesn't matter if it is a gas, electric or wood fire, though I don’t think you can beat wood fired BBQ meat.

We have become very fond of Beef Fillet steak and I like it cut thick, however whilst out shopping the other day, I found a couple of thick cut Sirloins, that looked so good I had to take them and give them a go, they had that nice little square shaped bit of fat right in the middle and were nicely marbled right through the meat.

I like the BBQ really hot when I cook my steak, so everything else I am cooking gets done first, things like boned shoulder of lamb marinated in Moroccan spices, beef or pork sausages, tandoori chicken, the use of baking paper for the marinated stuff helps keep the plate clean and once it is all cooked and taken off, I ramp the heat up to high and get the plate red hot.

Whilst the plate is heating season the meat with salt, pepper and coat with a little olive oil, set a timer for 8 – 9 minutes and you are ready to cook that beautiful piece of meat, place it on the hottest part of the plate and then do not touch for at least 4 minutes for thick cuts, if it is sizzling and smoking, you have got it right! Keep an eye on the timer and once that 4 minute interval is up turn the steaks and again do not touch for a least four minutes, if you like to ruin steak and take it past pink, you can leave on a little longer. 

I reset the timer as soon as the steak comes off for 5 – 10 minutes depending on how much there is to do to get the table ready, I find the longer you rest the meat the greater the flavour anyway.

The next best thing about a BBQ is the awesome flavours different salads make to the meal, and there are so many to choose from, I love a fresh garden salad and you got to have some form of potatoes, whether baked, au gratin or as a cold salad.

Love curried eggs!

Pickled Tomato, Onion and Cucmber

Another thing I love on my plate for a barbie is boiled egg, my sister in law Pieta makes the best, I have tried her recipe and they were great, but I think she deliberately leaves one or two ingredients out as mine are not as good!

Now you’ve got your salads ready, meat is cooked, table set all you need now is a crusty loaf of bread, an ice cold beer or glass of red and few mates to enjoy it all with.

Roasted Beetroot with Feta and Greens

Garden Salad

Potato with Egg and Bacon

Great spread!

YUM YUM

BTW those sirloins were sooo tender and sooo full of flavour YUM YUM!

bon appétit!

Mu Shu Pork

Jo has decided we need to go on a health kick, loose a few pounds, cut out some of the God given good stuff, like butter and cream etc.

I really don't know why she feels she needs to do this as she is looking pretty damn gorgeous if you ask me, maybe it is just her way to get me to loose a few pounds, she'll loose hers dieting, then I loose mine chasing her about!!

Still I figure if I loose a few pounds, I might just catch her a bit more often and as we are off on holidays soon there should be plenty of opportunities ahead.

I have got a stack of healthy recipe books in my pantry, in fact I have most of the recipes in an excel spreadsheet so that when we are right into it all I need do is filter out 5 or 6 meals for the week and I have an instant shopping list and daily menu, that is sad!!

Anyway tonight I felt like something a little different, in as far as different can be when cooking what is basically a stir fry, so I Googled "healthy recipes" and one of the top items caught my eye, one because of the name of the dish and two because it was on Taste, a website I have come to like for really good simple recipes that taste fantastic, the dish is called Quick Mu Shu Pork.  Now I do not know what Mu Shu means, but I do understand quick, and this was hands down the quickest meal I have ever cooked.  After slicing the meat and then browning off and removing to a bowl to add the sauces to marinade, I started a 10 minute timer, which actually went off whilst we were eating our meal, that is quick!

The best thing though was the flavour and the absolute YUM YUM YUMMINESS of this little dish, pork has never tasted so good!  I used a pork fillet which I sliced about a quarter of an inch thick and on the diagonal, it was so juicy and the marinade really brought out the flavours.

Oh by the way, that is a Lime Soda, no vino for two weeks!!!

When I look now at the photo on the recipe compared to my photo's it looks a little different, but then I remind myself that I did not have any cabbage, something Jo was pleased about as it tends to give her gas!  Instead I have used an Asian vegetable called Choy Sum, I love this vegie for it is flavour, but more so for the beautiful yellow flowers, which look great when presenting the meal to Gorgeous Jo.

Well here is the link to this wonderful recipe, if you like quick, inexpensive and tasty food, you'd best be getting a copy of this one!

PS just quietly, it was just as well that I only cooked enough for two serves or i could have been in it a little deeper than usual.

Gary Renwick is FIFTY!!!

50 year old man looks like this!

Jo and I were fortunate enough to be invited to my friend Gary’s 50^th Birthday celebrations on the weekend.  Gary and his lovely wife Cathy, live on a 2.5 acre property about twenty minutes drive from our place, and it was the venue for the party, and what a great venue it was.

Myself, Gary and my brother Kevin

Gary went all out to ensure he and his guest enjoyed the night, providing beautiful food, more liquid refreshments than you could poke a stick at and a live band, which played our sort of music, a fantastic night, one which we will remember for a long time.

There were around 70 guests in all, a big mob to feed, so how do you go about that? Well if you’re from a wee island in the South Pacific, as Gary is, then there is only one way, a Hangi of course.

This was my first Hangi experience and I can only hope that it is not too long before I get to enjoy such food again, it was awesome, to say the very least.  And how interesting to watch the Maoris do their stuff, first wheeling in the purpose built, portable, steaming Hangi oven and then disrobing it of sheet after sheet of damp hessian, then banana leaves, stones and finally a couple of trays of foil wrapped full of beautiful vegetables, finally to reveal 8 chickens, 4 legs of lamb, a slab of beef and a slab of pork.  

The chickens where stuffed, the slabs of meat were peppered with cloves of garlic, my mouth was watering watching them carve the meat up and it was music to my ears when the chap called out “come on you lot dig in”.

It really is hard to describe just how good the food was, the meat was so so tender and the vegies so full of flavour, when they revealed just how much food was in the Hangi, I said to Jo there is no way this lot will get through all that, but they did and now knowing how good Hangi food is I have realised what a silly statement that was!

Easy Company belting out "They say it's your Birthday"

"Hope you have had a good time"

Happy 50^th Birthday Gary and thanks to you and the lovely Cathy for a great night.

Murphy Christmas 2011

Christmas Day 2005, celebrated at Monica and Michael's home in Riverton

Growing up in a large family has it is moments, none more so than at Christmas, waking on Christmas Day and walking into our lounge to find the Christmas Tree laden with gifts, 12 excited kids in their PJ’s noisily picking out the gifts they hoped would be theirs and waiting with baited breathe in anticipation, these are memories I share with my siblings and I think we will all remember them days, till we depart this world, as treasured memories.

The twelve of us are all grown up now and have families of our own, and for more than half of us the family members include our grand children, so all of us gathering on Christmas Day to celebrate is a thing of the past, the family has become enormous, and it is nice now, for each family to share Christmas in their own way, together as a family on Christmas Day.

Nowadays, when the Murphy Family gather to celebrate Christmas, we do so the week before, gathering at one of the siblings homes and sharing the load, with each family bringing  food and drinks to share.  This year 88 of us gathered, hosted by my brother Kevin and his wife Debbie, at their home in Marmion.  In all two-thirds of the entire family attended, a great turnout, an event like this is big, it is noisy and in so many ways chaotic, but at the same time so enjoyable, to see all the kids so excited, running and playing around the gardens is fantastic, knowing that these kids will treasure these memories for years to come, makes it all the more enjoyable for my Mother, brothers and sisters.

Ready for the oven

Our contribution to the communal table was this wonderful leg of pork, all seven kilo’s of it, after scoring the rind, I ground some sea salt with fennel seeds with mortar and pestle and rub this into the rind, then applied a liberal dose of good olive oil, before baking for 40 minutes at 240°C and then reduced the temp to 180°C and cooked a further 3 hours.

Crackling up nicely

Ok, so a seven kilo leg of pork is pretty big, but I was still concerned whether it would be big enough to feed 88 people, so just in case I threw a 2.5 kilo lion of pork on the BBQ.

The leg came out of the oven looking unbelievably spectacular, I was so delighted, it looked mouth-watering.

I would have loved to rock up at the party carrying it in on a tray ready for carving, but to help make the night run smoothly the request was to bring the meat carved and ready to serve, so after resting  for 20 minutes the crackling came off and the carving commenced.

YUM YUM

We arrived at Kev and Deb's to find kids running and playing in the garden, just as we expected, up the drive and into the carport came the first evidence that a lot of work had gone into preparations for a sit down dinner for 88, the venue looked wonderful.

The food was laid out on a large square table and it looked amazing, so many of my favourite salads and vegetable bakes, I could not wait to dig in, it took a lot of will power not to get a jump start on everyone else!  We did not have to wait too long though, as I had timed our arrival so as to have the pork laid out just prior to serving so it was still warm.

Off with the covers, it is time to eat.

Mums, gather the children and plates begin to fill

They look pretty happy, now it is time for the adults to dig in.

Curried eggs always go quick!

It's time to chow down!

Kate and Matt

The Brady Bunch

Fran and Chrissie look pretty happy!

One of the biggest highlights of a Murphy Christmas has always been and still is the lighting of the Christmas Pudding, my Mum makes the pudding and it is magnificently rich with many kinds of fruit and nuts.  My sister in law Wendy has been charged with making the brandy sauce ever since becoming a Murphy some 45 years ago, it too is magnificent, add a dollop of cream and ice cream, it is impossible to say no to a serve, regardless of how full your belly may be.  I was saddened to have missed the moment the pudding was set alight, but it was made up or by seeing Mum there in her element serving it up to her family of 87 present, including children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, just as she has since she was the matriarch on of a family of three.

The 2011 Murphy Christmas was such a happy occasion, many thanks to Kevin and Debbie for hosting the event at their beautiful home and for all the hard work they put in to make it such a wonderful night.  Thanks also to all the family members that contributed so many superb dishes to the table and for their company and to the kids for being kids, always a lot of fun to have around, especially at Christmas time when there is so much fun to be had with the ones that matter the most in life, family.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to one and all, love and best wishes to the ones unable to be there last night, you were missed, but we all had you there in spirit, love to you all from Uncle Jack and Aunty Jo xx.

Hope we see you all again soon.

Now watch the video, enjoy!