Pork & Fennel with Vegetable Rice

"Procrastination is the thief of time" Edward Young, English Poet

This was one of those occasions when I start cooking before I've decided what I'm actually going to make.   I'm chopping an onion and boiling some hot water, still with no idea what we're having to eat (so much for menu plans eh?).  However, I did have some organic minced pork out of the fridge which I mashed in a bowl before adding some brown bread crumbs, a couple of eggs, some chopped parsley, onion and a wedge of raw fennel which I'd blitzed in the food processor. I'd usually shape something like this into small balls, but I was worried they'd dry out in the oven and I didn't fancy frying them.  So instead I pressed the mixture into a buttered loaf tin and baked in the oven for just over an hour.   We ate it with vegetable rice and corn on the cob.  Very nice it was too - I cautiously put some soy sauce on the table, but no-one added any. 

The kids struggle to eat meat and in it's softer forms, they are often happier, so a meat loaf has been on the back of my mind for a while and was worth a spin. 

Cauliflower & Fennel Soup

“Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams” W.B. Yeats (He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven)

A wilting cauliflower had been pulled from the back of the fridge and left on the kitchen island. My husband walked into the kitchen and asked ‘what are you going to do with that?’; I replied; “cheesed, souped or curried – you decide”.  He asked for soup and I after a quick visit to the book shelf, I found what I thought would be the perfect soup for him, in Jane Grigson’s English Food.  This is favourite book of my husbands and the recipe she gives is from Scarista House on the Island of Harris. My husband and I ate here about five years ago on a very happy holiday.  You cook the chopped cauliflower and fennel with an onion in a little oil until the onion is soft.  Then add water and simmer for ten minutes.  Add cream (I used milk) and the juice of a lemon.  I knocked up a wholemeal loaf of bread (Doris Grant loaf, incidentally also recorded in Grigson’s English Food) and was very satisfied with this lunch offering.  I tasted a spoonful of the soup and thought it rather good, though it did need seasoning.  Cauliflower soup usually punches above its weight, and I thought the fennel and lemon gave it lightness and, dare I say, sophistication. 

Unfortunately my efforts were in vain; my husband thought it “disgusting”, “too thick” and complained that you couldn’t even taste the cauliflower.  I’ve frozen the remainder in individual cups for me to digest, alone.