Roast Pork & Apricot Stuffing

Pork

• 1.8-2kg/4 pound pork roll roast
• salt and pepper

Stuffing recipe

• 2 large onions finely chopped
• 3 to 4 sprigs fresh thyme, finely chopped (I used lemon thyme)
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 50g butter
• ½ cup dried Turkish apricots, finely chopped
• 50ml/1.7 fl ozs. brandy
• 400ml/13.5 fl ozs. cream
• 300g/10 ozs. sourdough bread (crust off) cut into 2cm cubes

Step 1 - Prepare the pork rind to make crackling by making sure that the rind is as dry as possible by pressing paper towels against the rind only. Score the rind on top with your sharpest knife and rub salt over the rind. Preheat the oven to 230C/450F.

 

Step 2 - Firstly make the stuffing. Place onions, thyme, garlic and butter into a pot and sweat off until onions are translucent and soft-don't hurry this, the onions must be soft and lose all acridness. Add 1/2 cup dried apricots finely diced and sweat off for a few minutes. Deglaze the pan with 50 ml brandy and cook for a minute then add the cream and bring to the boil. Add sourdough then turn heat down to low and place a lid on the pot, stirring occasionally for about 30 minutes or until the bread has absorbed all the liquid. Season with salt and pepper.

 

 

Step 3 - Untie the pork roll. Spread the mixture onto the meat & re tie. Pleace pork roll in a roasting tin with olive oil. Bake it for 20 minutes to blister the skin.

Step 4 - Lower the heat to 180C/350F and then bake it still skin side up up for 45 minutes. Place the extra stuffing in a dish or molds and place in oven for about 20 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to rest under loosely covered foil. Slice and serve. It is fantastically good in sandwiches with some great mayonnaise.

 

 

 

 

Times are a changing.....

I never thought farm equipment could make me emotional, but seeing these 2 get sold on has made me feel a bit sad.

I remember when we first purchased the tractor. It was our first piece of "real" farm equipment. I was a bit intimidated when it first arrived, but after a few goes I loved it. My favourite thing was dragging the harrow behind it. To the non-farming amongst you- that's a large rake like thingy (do you like my technical talk) that you drag behind the tractor to harrow....that's a nice way of saying it spreads cow poo!

I also loved the June long weekend when Trent would connect the trailer and take the kids for tractor rides around the farm

This little guy was a bit of an experiment. We thought it would be useful but we never imagined just how much we'd use it.

It was also loads of fun to just zoom around the farm!

Both have now been upgraded to bigger & better versions of themselves...