FLOWER POT KITCHEN: FIVE SPICED CRISPY PORK BELLY WITH PAN SEARED GARLIC COURGETTES AND WILD RICE

25 Jul 2017

FIVE SPICED CRISPY PORK BELLY WITH PAN SEARED GARLIC COURGETTES AND WILD RICE

Self Sufficient Living

This fills my heart with joy, another organic grown, raised and loved meal from our garden and small holding the only ingredient not from ourselves is the wild rice, this is our first ever harvest of purple peas and for the first time EVER we are succeeding at growing yellow courgettes! I know I know everyone can grow them, well not me but of course I can grow cabbages and purple broccoli till there coming out of my ears! Who figures? I also fail at tomatoes I know there is some eerie vegetable jinx On me 😆 I must have broken a unspoken law somewhere...How?...I even re-home my slugs and snails down the farm rather than dispatch them, use natural animal predators to combat the sap sucking aphids and ants when they get to many and I don't mind sharing our veg with the bugs, slugs and snails, eating salad and spinach with holes in, bugs just don't eat it all!

Marinating time min 1hour / Cooking time 55 minutes + 5 mins resting time

Cooking Time Line Pork in / 30 mins later Rice on / 20 mins after Rice on put Veggies on

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

1 1kg high welfare pork belly skin scored

3 tbsp five spice make your own recipe below

1 tbsp coconut or olive oil

1 onion chopped

6 cloves garlic chopped

1 courgette rough chopped

200g spinach

100g mangetout sliced

100g kale torn

1 mug brown basmati rice

Pork Belly

Take your pork belly and place skin side down on a paper towel, generously rub the five spice all over the meat and sides, but not on the skin. Place in a glass dish or zip lock bag and place in the fridge for at least one hour or up to 24-48 hrs not a problem.

Pre heat your oven to 220 C / 420 F and place your belly pork skin side up on a baking tray in the oven for 35 minutes at this heat, this is to ensure crispy crackling skin, then turn the oven heat down to 180 C / 350 F for a further 20 minutes to finish cooking the pork. When cooked cover and leave to rest on the side for 5 minutes before carving, this allows the juices to evenly distribute through your juicy pork belly.

Perfect Brown Rice

Place your rice in a pan with a lid and add two and a quarter mugs of water bring up to a simmer, pop on the lid and turn down to a slow simmer, leave in touched for 25 minutes then take off the heat leaving the lid on for a further five minutes then you rice is ready to be served and cooked perfectly.

Pan Seared Vegetables for the Rice

Heat the coconut or olive oil medium hot, add the onion, garlic, mangetout and courgettes and cook for approx 5 minutes then add the torn kale and cook for a further 3 minutes and finally add the spinach and take off the heat and stir in to the brown rice, pop the lid back on while you carve the pork then your ready to serve your gorgeous food.

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LIFE MY PASSION

Welcome to my daily life of cooking, one winters day many years ago my family and I were all inspired by a back to back rainy day of River Cottage this got us to stop talking about and start actually doing, suddenly three weeks later eight vegetable beds were dug, greenhouse erected and our first vegetables were propagating, this was the start to raising and growing our own food, our fabulous son Oscar changed our path in life which lead us to sell our small thriving restaurant of 10 yrs and to start our new life (Terrifying!) a life of the self sufficient in touch with nature and seasons, taking a step back and looking forward to a slower change of pace and making the most of every moment.

My passion for cooking was stronger than ever and having time at home with Oscar I found I had a new direction and I was no longer striving for perfection, I was suddenly very passionate for the enjoyment of the other side of food, something I had not realised, being the Chef/Cook and every other duty of your own small restaurant made me see that I never actually took time to cook what I wanted!

So there I was muddy boots and hands digging deep in more than one sense and I found myself transported back in time to where everyone grew some of their own food, it is a wonderful world with a real sense of achievement and loss, Slugs Snails and Caterpillars! But thats another story! Childhood memories of summers when I lived with my grand parents reminded me of so much that I had learnt about the make do and mend generation that I had forgotten.

Now as a family we love our free wild food days where we gather what nature has provided, have gone from being mini mini garden urban small holders, who did raised pigs at home because we could not wait to find land and supporting ourselves from our garden to now owning a very small farm that allows us to grow more vegetables for the whole of our family and neighbours, raise our own gorgeous Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, (Sausages!) and pets! Dorset Down sheep, chickens for eggs and pet goats! Suddenly having large quantities of produce started to wake up the Cook in me!

The Cook was awake that part of me that wants to cook for the masses and I found myself setting up Flowerpot Kitchen, a Farmers Market Stall, I wanted to use our honest raised meats and make old fashioned pork pies, rabbit pies and game pies from the local game keeper along with old fashioned techniques and the best hot water crust pastry. This in turn grew to a small cottage industry from home weekly supplying three farm shops and a deli along with also attending three farmers markets A few years later there came a time when my son Oscar's health changed and it was an easy decision to stop.

I still hold the occasional pop up 40 seater restaurant or gourmet lunch which we do for local charities for the love of sharing food and to remind that Cook in me why I love our go slower self sufficient life!

So here I am sitting amoung the vegetables watching the chickens loving that every season nature teaches me something new and that nature is in charge! She has taught me to just go with it and grow. Give it a try from a tray of salad on your windowsill to a few tomato plants it all counts.