Pulled Pork!

On Sunday, I decided to throw energy efficiency to the wind and whacked my oven on for a massive 7 hours to cook the most lovely (actually only) pulled pork I have ever eaten.

Imagining I was in some Southern state of America or perhaps on a ranch I even donned a pair of cowboy boots and sang along by the stove as if I was Shania Twain (or Carolyn Poole-not a massive shock she was booted from the fix factor) as I whipped up my slow cooked banquet.

I'd bought a shoulder of pork a few weeks back and it had laid in the depths of my freezer until one hungover Sunday I was slobbing around watching Sunday Brunch (Tim Lovejoy-what.a.man) and Simon Rimmer made pulled pork on the show. Being a Man Vs Food fan, pulled pork seems to pop up quite a bit on it and I always found myself salivating over that juicy shredded meat, so I decided I would have to give it a go.

I loosely followed a few different recipes for the pork, of course Simon Rimmer's Cajun Pulled Pork one and another by The Fabulous Baker Boys.

I made like the Sunday Brunch boys and put onions and garlic and cider on my pork, scored the fat and rubbed a variety of spices in with Nigella like fervency such as dried thyme, rosemary, paprika a pinch of cayenne pepper (pretty much all of my herb and spice cupboard) and finished off with a glug of honey and the obligatory salt and pepper.

The one thing I failed to notice was that Simon Rimmer's recipe only calls for you to cook the pork for 4 hours whereas I decided to leave mine for a mammoth 7 at 140 degrees, resulting in my onions and garlic burning to a crisp and still being unable to get the roasting tray clean. We live and learn.

Whilst having all that time on my hands, I decided to whip up some tasty side dishes. The homemade coleslaw described in the Sunday Brunch recipe, (except never being one to make life easy for myself with homemade mayonnaise) my special potato salad and a strawberry and raspberry pavlova for good measure.

I approached the homemade mayonnaise with great caution; in fact the only reason I made it was partly because I wanted to show off and mostly because I was left with 4 egg yolks after making my pavlova.
However, I found the process relatively easy, I chucked my egg yolks into the food processor, whisked them up with a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, a splash of balsamic, grated garlic clove and salt and pepper
 then just added vegetable oil very slowly whisking after each addition until the mayonnaise had reached the desired consistency. Et voila! Entirely homemade coleslaw!

For the potato salad, I boiled up a bag of salad potatoes until fluffy at the edges, popped them in a pan with garlic, rosemary, salt pepper, prosciutto ham and spinach and fried it all off until the ham was crispy and the potatoes nice and golden. I'm not a fan of mayonnaise (all for the love of my boyfriend and family who were coming over for tea) so I use creme fraiche in my potato salad.

I forgot to take any photos of this meal, so you'll have to take my word for it that when the pork finished cooking and came out of the oven it was DREAMY. The pork shredded away with ease and served up with some big soft rolls, the coleslaw, potato salad, some barbecue sauce and simple green salad, it made for a perfect relaxed Sunday dinner.

A funny (ish) poem

Just browsing through my documents on my laptop and found this little gem from my uni creative writing days! It made me chuckle so I had to share...

A Day in the Life of a Student’s Bed

Day after day and night after night,

I suffer in silence of my tiresome plight.

While I may omit the occasional creak or groan,

It does not compare to how I wish I could moan:

“Get off your arse; stop lying on me all day!

You must have lectures to attend, to help you on your way?”

How you will cope in the real world and find a job,

Is simply beyond me, when you’re such a lazy slob.

You never change my sheets, stale and encrusted with dirt,

Unless you’re out on the pull, and looking for a bit of skirt.

You litter me with crumbs from your breakfasts in bed,

Even vomited on me once and cried you wish you were dead.

The cause was sambuca and a game of Ring of Fire,

Yet you still didn't clean me, just pulled the duvet higher.

You whinge that you’re skint and how life isn't fair,

If you found the money underneath me you’d be a millionaire.

Daily you subject me to Jeremy Kyle and This Morning,

Still I suppose anything is better than your deafening snoring.

An Incredible Curry

Last night, I made what can only be described as an incredible curry (I'm not even going to apologise for this brazen statement- it was that good).

It had been a long, hard day at work and after a weekend of debauchery at Fieldview Festival- it was amazing, check it out here- I needed something with a spicy kick to sort myself out.

I used to be one of those really annoying people that couldn't handle anything hotter than korma, but increasing visits to various Indian restaurants around the South West has tantalised my taste buds and I'm now a fully fledged curry convert!

However, that's not to say I don't still love a korma...I just prefer one with a bit of spice!

So here it is, my Korma with a kick recipe!

Feeds 2 and a half greedy people, 3 at a push.

You will need:

4 chicken breasts
1 onion
1/2 of a pot of natural yogurt
200ml coconut milk
pinch cayenne pepper
3 cloves of garlic
1 red chilli (seeds and all)
1tsp paprika
2 heaped tbsp mango chutney
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric
4 cardamon pods
salt
squeeze of tomato puree
pinch of garma masala

1. Chop the chicken into bite size pieces and put into a dish with half the natural yogurt,1 tablespoon of mango chutney, the paprika, salt and cayenne pepper. Leave to marinade in the fridge for half an hour.

2. Whilst the chicken is marinading, finely chop the onions, garlic and chilli. Sweat the onions in the pan with olive oil over a low heat and then add the garlic and chilli. Bash the green shells of the cardamon to reveal the brown/black seeds and add these, then add the coriander, turmeric and cumin. Add a squeeze of tomato puree and some salt.

3. Transfer this mixture into a food blender and blend until a nearly smooth paste. This step is not essential, I just prefer a smooth paste to coat the chicken.

4. When the chicken marinading time is over, pop it in the pan over a medium heat, then add the spice paste. Chuck in the other half of the yogurt and another tbsp of mango chutney and leave to simmer away nicely for about 15 minutes.

5. Add the coconut milk and garama masala add leave to finish off for another 5 minutes.

6. Serve with basmati rice, poppadoms, chutney, naan bread, green salad- whatever you fancy!

Rub a dub dub

I just love a good scrub. 

 

I know this is supposed to be a blog about the woes of being an unemployed graduate, but frankly, it's beginning to bore me. So what better than to do a mini review about Soap and Glory skincare! (I'll try and find a way of linking it into employment of sorts)

So, as I was saying, I love a scrub in the tub and I find Soap and Glory products do just the job. Not only do the products leave you feeling scrubbed and cleansed to perfection, their hilarious packaging will have you in stitches, revolutionising your skincare regime! I'm currently looking for a job in marketing and I think what Soap and Glory have done with their packaging and brand marketing is so original and entertaining. It defintely has me returning to buy their products over and over again. (See, I told you I could link it to a job search some how...!)

For an evening of perfect pampering, I start by running a lovely steamy bubble bath using Calm One Calm All, £5.11. Whilst the tub fills its time to turn your attention to your face. 

Start by dampening your skin and apply a generous squeeze of The Fab Pore Hot Cloth Cleanser, £9.19. Massage all over your face for at least a minute and then leave on for a further 60 seconds. Feel it melt away your muckiness! Wash off with the muslim cloth provided.

Next it's time to scrub yourself like you never have before! Apply a tiny dab of  Scrub Your Nose In It, £7.40  to your T-Zone and any other problem areas and massage in then rinse. If your skin begins to develop a rosy hue then you're doing it right. If your interested in the science bit, then exfoliating helps prevent large pores and blemishes. 


Now we move onto the mask. The Fab Pore Facial Peel, £7.15 is like a celebrity chemical peel (without causing the hole in your bank balance or frightning children post peel). The perfect anecdote to greasy and spot prone skin, rub into skin untill the green beads dissolve. Then jump in the bath and leave on for 15 minutes to work its magic. 

Now your in the tub it's time to treat your body. Smother yourself in Some Like It Hot, £7.92 and bask in the warming sensation of this body scrub. Exfoliating never felt so good!

So your out of the bath and your face mask is off, it's time to soothe your skin after all that action. Glow Job , £8.17 is a daily face moisturiser that leaves you with a gorgeous glow thanks to  its micro Bronzeburst beads. Finally, coat yourself in The Righteous Butter, £10.21 a sumptuous body butter that will leave your skin feeling silky smooth!


See, that took my mind of the job search for at least 30 minutes and now my skin looks and feels just lovely!

It's been a while...

It's been nearly 4 months since I last posted, and as much as I wish I could say it's because I am now working at the job of my dreams, that would unfortunately be a lie. I do have a job...(in a bank-not quite the creative outlet I had hoped for) however, there was a day when after folding pieces of paper and putting them into envelopes for a solid 4 hours, I couldn't help but reflect how my career path has gone slightly off track...

It's really not all doom and gloom though. In fact, if anything I think my current job has restored some faith in myself. After months on end of unpaid internships and an endless steam of rejection letters, (well actually more often than not I just don't hear anything-is it really that hard to send out a generic 'sorry, not this time thanks' email?) whilst I may not be in a job that challenges me, or excites me at the moment, at least I've realised that in fact I am employable, people seem to like me in a work environment and they recognise that I'm pretty hardworking too.

And that's not too shabby!

Pretending to be Nigella

So today I spent a large part of the day pretending to be Nigella Lawson-not in the metaphorical sense in the actual, physical sense. I had the house to myself so I finally got to work making the contents for the homemade hampers I have decided to make as Christmas presents for the in-laws, grandparents etc as I thought it would be a good way to give thoughtful and more importantly, cheap presents as I am skint. However, it has actually turned out to be quite expensive (whoever knew jars and sugar could be so pricey?)

Anyway to make it all a bit more interesting, I decided I would pretend I was on camera filming my very own cooking show-Nigella style obviously (please don't judge me-all this time alone with only Good Food and the Food Network Channel is obviously going to my head). So I tossed my hair around a bit (obviously not near the food-just as I shuffled from cupboard to stove) pouted a lot and  attempted a few seductive looks at the (invisible) camera. But the most amusing part was attempting the frankly ridiculous vocabulary Nigella uses to narrate her cooking...

"Oh look at the way the sugar cascades like a....snow fall over the...lusciously ripe fruit"

"mmm...I love the way the olive oil caresses the...crumbly cheese"

"Take the juicy strawberries, drop them in the pan and watch them ooze their delicious nectar" (I was getting into the flow of things by this point)


And so on-please free to comment with any of your own borderline pornographic Nigella specials.

Anyway, after about 10 minutes it became too hard to continue the Nigella charade, what with having to actually follow some recipe, not to mention the fact that I felt like a tit.

So here's what I made...

                                                  Marinated feta in lots of herbs and olive oil

                  Strawberry, Redcurrant and Champagne (cough, cava) Jam and Raspberry and Apple Jam

                                                                  Christmas Chutney

                                                                    Lemon Curd
                                                              

Another relationship analogy

Hot off the heels of my last post about comparing my affair with the gym to that of the worst kind of relationship you have ever been in, (missed it? you can check it out here) it got me thinking about another analogy, this time of comparing the experience of searching for a job with the kind of relationship that ends abruptly and with no explanation.

If you're lucky enough to have never experienced this sort of the relationship, then it goes a bit like this. Ironically, (in my experience) the said man-we'll call him T- relentlessly chased me and hounded me for a date. Feeling flattered, I agreed, to which I realised he was quite a nice chap. He was older, complimentary, attentive and gorgeous-I couldn't quite believe my luck. For the few weeks before and after our date, I felt quite overwhelmed by T's texts, calls etc, and allowed myself to think, hang about this bloke seems to really like me...

Preoccupied by thoughts of cosy evenings together, crisp, autumnal walks holding hands and gazing into each others eyes over candlelit dinners, I failed to notice that T's texts had in fact become less frequent, he signed off with less x's and he'd stopped emailing me at work. Before I knew it, it had been 3 days and I hadn't heard from him despite texting him no less than 5 times, checking my phone every 3 minutes, and texting myself just to check it's working properly.

His phone might be broken, I told myself, a fairly stupid presumption, since considering the abundance of social networking sites at our disposal, there's really no excuse for not getting in touch. The days stretched to weeks and that was it, I never heard a thing. Not a sausage. I felt very short changed.

Cue, my mind going in to complete, irrational overdrive. What's wrong with me? Did I come on to strong? Was I not interested enough? Am I not pretty enough? Am I really boring? Has he met someone prettier/nicer/smarter/thinner than me? I eventually found out nearly a year later that he was engaged and expecting a child, and he told me he thought we wanted different things and I was too career driven (which is ironic considering my current situation).


So as I've wittered on for some time now I better get to the point of this post. As it is drummed into us every day about the current tough situation for graduates, rising levels of unemployment, the crazy amount of people who apply for each job position etc, it seems to no longer the protocol for a company to even acknowledge your job application after you send it off flying through cyber space. And like the T situation, there's nothing worse than not knowing.

The deadline for applications pass, you have no real idea how long it will take for a decision to be made, so you obsessionally refresh your emails, the company's twitter feed, your sent folder (just to check it actually sent), hell I've even had my Linkedin tab permanently open in the hope that somebody from the company may have viewed my profile, giving me the faintest glimmer of hope.

But there's just a big load of NOTHING. Time passes and you realise you obviously aren't getting an interview, and that's when the crazy thoughts kick in: Is my CV really crap? Do I come across like a knob? Am I not clever enough? Was my grammar shit? AM I JUST ENTIRELY UNEMPLOYABLE?All these crushing thoughts that could so easily be dispelled by a simple email, jeez even an automated confirmation saying they had received your application would be nice.

Today I received an email telling me that I had not been successful in the job I had applied for 2 weeks ago as there were other people whose skills and experience suited the vacancy better than mine did. Yes it was disappointing, but I am so grateful to the lady in HR who sent me that email. Because although it wasn't the email I wanted to receive, it's a damn sight better than receiving nothing.

Take note T's of the world.