I'll convert you to sprouts!

Sprouts have an incredibly bad press. And it's true- an over boiled sprout is neither beautiful to behold, has a whiff of its own and tastes, well, like the proverbial sprout.

This dish- a spicy, crunchy, colourful meal- is none of those things!

For one (increase quantities for more people) (can be served with rice or noodles)

Ten fresh sprouts, quartered
A medium sized onion (or a couple of banana shallots), diced
Curry Powder (medium)
Toasted Sesame Oil
Olive Oil
half cupful of red-skin peanuts/ cashews (raw) or a mixture

Add a generous splash of toasted sesame oil to a wok, and a liberal amount of olive oil. Put on a high heat.

Add the nuts, and the chopped vegetables.

Add a generous sprinking of the curry powder.

Stir! The heat needs to be high to toast the nuts. However, the vegetables will burn if you do not pay attention!

This will take you twenty minutes to make (absolute maximum!) and is cheap, nutritious and delicious!

tip: I bought the sprouts on a tree, which should keep them fresher for longer : )

Huntsworth Pork Stirfry

There is nothing quite like a stirfry to use up ends in the fridge- the vegetables you bought on two-for-one or because they were cheaper by the kilo but you really only needed 500g.

I had a couple of friends coming over for dinner, and then invited a couple more, and a couple more. Which could have been 8, but ended up as four. Stirfry again is perfect here- you can add a bit of this and a bit of that, until you have the right quantity. One couple said they had a pork roasting joint that noone had time to roast, so I took it home, chopped it into mouth sized chunks and marinaded it. I HATE the idea of an animal dying to be binned. The marinade was also experimental, depending on what we had in the cupboard.

Juice of one Lime
Juice of one Lemon
glug of Olive Oil
glug of toasted sesame oil
heaped tablespoon of red curry paste
good pinch of ginger powder (fresh would have been better)
generous amount of brown sugar

The pork was marinaded for 3-4 hours in the fridge.

The cooking took 20 mins tops. Into a hot wok went the pork- there was plenty of oil in the marinade, some cashew nuts (if more people had come, we would have added more).We used up two heads of spring greens, which were just still fresh, cut into strips, one beautiful red pepper finely chopped, a not so young bunch of spring onions. There were courgettes waiting for some love. but we already had enough food. I chopped a couple of them into fine circles and stirred them into a pot of bolognese sauce I made for tonight. Extra nutrition- they will cook when I warm up the bolognese.

I had been a bit worried about the marinade- the sesame flavour have been overpowering when it was raw, but upon cooking the warm thai flavours came through and it was well balanced.

Worth doing again? Yes. Just what we needed on a Sunday night before a long week ahead!

Raw cashew nuts and peanuts are always worth having on hand to make a wok full of fried remnant vegetables into something quick delicious (and vegetarian).  This would have also been great with a sprinkling of sesame seeds.