Pork roast

Daisy the pig transformed, in part, into a beautiful boneless pork roast adorned with baked potatoes, carrots and onions and apple sauce. All washed down with a few bottles of fine lager. Pretty good!

Liadhan and I enjoyed the meal with Dominic and Callum my second and third eldest son and their friend Noah.

As the roast took several hours to do, six in fact, we fed the little children early (they couldn’t bear to eat Daisy so soon and besides they get hungry earlier than we do) and while we feasted, they watched a video of Beatrix Potters’ Peter Rabbit.

I am not a great one for cooking, it is not high on my list of enjoyable activities, but with Liadhan not being so well with morning sickness and fatigue I have sometimes been left with no alternative but to don the chefs hat and give it my best shot.

Usually it is very simple fare, eggs on toast, something retrieved from the freezer and heated up, cous cous and chick peas to name but a few meals I have prepared under duress. But, inspired by so much fresh pork in the fridge, a burst of energy from who knows where and the imminent arrival of my older children I threw myself into the task of cooking Miss Daisy.

Cooking at our place can be pretty challenging. The kitchen is outside and measures 1 metre by 3 metres. We have a three ring gas cooker, a very small oven/grill and a power point.  Inside is the wood heater which is great for cooking on if it is cranked up and generally good for keeping things warm.  We have got used to this arrangement.

The roast went into the slow cooker along with the carrots, onions, garlic and thyme.  I baked the potatoes and pulled them out about half an hour before the roast was ready and put them in a pot, keeping them warm on top of the fire.  The roast then went into the oven to crispen up the fat into crackling.  The apple sauce was prepared several months prior from apples picked in our own orchard and defrosted earlier in the day.

Am i inspired to cook more?