Barbecue Pork Loin Steaks with Apple, Walnut & Cress Wedge Salad and Cornbread

What a feast this was!

We put this meal together some time ago now, before the weather had turned from being monsoon-like into barbecue weather (albeit briefly) and so the pork steaks were cooked in the oven.

The two that are photographed here are the two from the Westin Gourmet pack (I think there's just the mince to blog about now, just in case you're getting fed up of hearing about Westin Gourmet!).  I was - in the same way as the French chicken - surprised and disappointed to discover that the pork steaks originated in Denmark.  Now we all know that Denmark are famous for their pork and bacon exports - but surely with all the great pork producers here in the U.K. Westin Gourmet could have come up with some British pork?

That aside, the pork steaks were undeniably tender and sweet tasting.  I had bought two pork chops for son & heir and myself to have and I can definitely confirm that the two Loin Steaks were by far the more tender.  Hubby gave me a taster, you see!

For all that, though, I can't help but say that I was happier with my locally produced pork chop, then ever I would have been with the steaks.  I'd take locally produced and more robust over imported and tender any day.  Quite apart from the miles it has travelled, there's always a question in my mind as to how the product got to be that tender.  Had it gone through some procedure(s) that made it so?  There's nothing on the packaging to say the meat has received any such attention and I wouldn't expect there to be.  It just leaves a question mark in my mind.

Anyway, getting back to the recipe side of things, it was another excuse to break out the excellent Mic's Chilli El Loco BBQ sauce and I slathered the steaks in it before putting them into a hot oven for 25 minutes or so (slightly longer for the chops, as they were bigger).

I served the pork with a wedge salad of Iceberg lettuce covered with shredded apple, crushed walnuts and cress - finishing it all off with the excellent Mary Berry & Daughter's Caesar Salad Dressing.  Delicious!  The walnuts and apple were scrummy with the cheesy salad dressing and it was lovely to have the crunch and freshness of the Iceberg lettuce.

I had been at something of a loss to think of what sort of carbohydrate to put with this meal.  We'd had a number of potato dishes recently and hubby isn't a great fan of potatoes at the best of times.  Pasta wouldn't do and all the grains such as quinoa and wheat weren't universally liked.  I suddenly remembered that I'd found a bag of cornmeal in the supermarket and bought it with cornbread in mind.  Perfect!   It had been absolutely years since we'd had any cornbread, so that would do the job.

I'd picked up a little jar of Chipotle chilli paste in the "marked down" section of the supermarket, so decided to use some of that along with some cheddar cheese in the cornbread, just to gee it up a little.

Gosh, but I'd forgotten how much I love cornbread.  I remember when I made my first batch and we were so surprised at how "cakey" the texture was.  Like most Brits, I'd been expecting something more "bready" and wasn't sure about this fairy cake texture at all.  That was until I bit into it and got a mouthful of the unique flavour that cornbread has.  That was it, then.  I was a confirmed cornbread fan from thereon in.

With the chipotle past and cheese included, the cornbread bakes up a little heavier than normal, but still with the deliciously corny flavour that all cornbreads have.  The chipotle paste adds a certain warmth and smoky flavour, with the cheesy depth that a good strong cheddar will add.  Gorgeous!

I've included the recipe I used for the cornbread below, just in case you want to try it.  Don't worry about adding flavours (such as the chilli paste or cheese) to it if it's your first go - make it plain (just leave them out) and sample it in its pure form to begin with.  Then you can decide whether you want to jazz it up for your next go.  I'm sure there will be a next go!

CHILLI AND CHEESE CORNBREAD  (makes 9-10 portions)

Ingredients :

190g plain flour
115g corn meal
half a tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
40g sugar
240ml buttermilk (or plain yoghurt)
1 large egg
55g butter, melted
3 tsp chipotle chilli paste
2 big handfuls of grated strong cheddar.

Method :

1.  Preheat the oven to 200degC/400degF/Gas 6.

2.  Grease a 9in baking pan with melted butter - or alternatively line with baking parchment, then grease with melted butter (helps with turning the loaf out).

3.  In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients, including the cheese if you're using it.

4.  In a small bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients, including the chipotle paste if you're using it.

5.  Add the contents of the small bowl to the large one and mix together quickly but thoroughly.

6.  Pour into the prepared pan and level the surface.  Then bake for approximately 20 minutes (check it at 20 mins, it should be risen and brown on the surface, springy to the touch and a cocktail stick inserted into the middle should come out clean).

7.  Once baked, allow to cool slightly before turning out onto a wire rack to cool further.

8.  Is delicious served warm from the oven, but can be kept for a day or so (if you've any left, which is unlikely!).

Printable version
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Keeping the planning straight in the face of many changes!

It all boils down to this .....

For once, there's a fairly good reason why this meal planning post is a tad delayed.

I put the plan together on Monday evening, as usual.  Then, that evening, I watched "The Food Hospital" on Channel 4 (all about using food as medicine), which reminded me that I was going to try to find the website which gave the Inflammation Factor for various foodstuffs.

Versus this!

Having done so, I quickly realised that a great number of the foodstuffs that I had been eating were right up there on the scale of "foods that are really bad for people with inflammatory conditions".  If you consider that both Polymyalgia Rheumatica (inflammation of the blood vessels) and Arthritis (inflammation of the joints) are both conditions that have contributed towards my current disability, then perhaps I needed to do something about it.

Hence, my diet has changed fairly radically - and the menu plan had to be changed along with it. Interestingly, it didn't have to be changed all that much.  I had planned to have Macaroni Cheese on one evening, which has had to be ditched, but otherwise everything else has stayed (pretty much) the same.  It's more a case of changing what I had for breakfast and lunch, rather than the dinner meal.  In brief, the dietary changes involve the loss of a great deal of carbohydrate and the input of foodstuffs with positive scores for inflammation such as mackerel (+465), chilli (+498), green leafy veg etc.

I've got to say, that although I am missing our oaty bread (-49 for 1 ounce), I am absolutely cock-a-hoop about increasing my vegetable consumption.  I absolutely adore veggies of all kinds, so to be "forced" to eat more of them is so far up my street that it's not even funny.

You may notice a change in the types of dishes I'm blogging about, but it will be interesting to see how that change manifests itself - if at all!

No doubt I'll bore you all to tears with talk of "Inflammation Factor" scores (breakfast today - mackerel & horseradish on toast - scored +350, for instance).

So, it's probably a good thing that I didn't do all of this until Monday evening - which was after we'd been to Macdonalds to cheer up a very glum Son & heir.  (It worked, he was much more cheerful after a "Big Tasty" burger).

Here's the plan for this week :

Tues : Macdonalds - Big Tasty burgers all round!

Weds : Prawn Patia, Saag Bhajee & white rice

Thurs : son - pizza, adults - Bacon & brussels sprout risotto

Fri : Chicken & Tenderstem® casserole with cheddar dumplings

Sat : Toad in the hole with carrots, swede & Tenderstem® broccoli

Sun : Roast gammon ham with baked Mozzarella gnocchi

Mon : BBQ glazed pork steaks with baked sweet potatoes and peas.

There now, doesn't really sound like "diet" food does it?  I would say that's because it really isn't "diet" food.  For instance, with the chicken casserole with cheddar dumplings - I will have more of the vegetables than the chicken and dumplings.  So dishes that might score a potential negative score, I'll just have more of the positive scoring elements.  Easy!

I was looking forward to making the Prawn Patia (which is an Anjum Anand recipe) and had sourced an alternative Spinach Bhajee recipe from a curry recipe book that we'd had for donkey's years.

In the event, the Patia was fairly successful but the Spinach wasn't.  At all.  Anyway, I'll leave the explanation of that for the blog posting or I'll be repeating myself - and considering I'm taking Cod Liver Oil capsules at the moment, that's the last thing I want to be doing!

Hubby had a mad rush of blood to the head on Thursday and, instead of making a Bacon, Mushroom & Sundried Tomato risotto, he opted for a Bacon & Brussels Sprout risotto!  This from the man who professes to abhor Brussels Sprouts!  Is it any wonder I get confused?

I'm afraid that again, this is one which will have to wait until its own blog post to be explained fully.  However, the fact that it is getting its own blog post should tell you that I thought it was remarkably successful.

This evening (Friday), we've just had the Chicken & Tenderstem® Broccoli Casserole with Cheddar Dumplings and it was really lovely.  Well done Jo Pratt for putting together such a yummy casserole dish.  If you're curious ahead of the blog post, you can find its original format on the Tenderstem website here.  You won't be surprised to hear that I tinkered about with the recipe a little bit!


Tomorrow is hubby's first go at a Toad in the Hole.  He's bought some lovely chipolata sausages to have in the Toad, as he has a theory as to the length of time a sausage takes to cook -v- the depth of the Yorkshire pudding batter.  We've even bought a new roasting pan especially for the Toad, such is our dedication to getting it right.


I'm looking forward to this one, as I am completely useless at making Yorkshire Pudding. It will be interesting to see how hubby gets on with it - and fingers crossed that he gets a lovely crispy, risen Toad in the hole.


As I said in my last blog post, I am opting for easier dinners on a Sunday for the foreseeable future.  As such, this Sunday I shall be pot-roasting a gorgeous piece of Gammon, which we'll be having with Baked Gnocchi with Spinach, Tomato and Mozzarella (instead of Mascarpone).  Both are simple "assemble, cook and serve" dishes which should go well together.  Hopefully, I'll be capable of getting from the kitchen to the living room this time!

I'm really looking forward to Monday's dinner.  Not because of the pork, although the BBQ glaze sounds really delicious - and I absolutely adore pork - but because of the baked sweet potatoes.  I'll be making chilli cream to go in them again and just know they'll be utterly gorgeous.


Now, as far as additional bits of cooking are concerned, in the pipeline for this week I have a recipe for a lovely Cream of Celery Soup, using some truly gorgeous Fenland Celery that was sent to me to try.  I find it completely bizarre that you can't get Cream of Celery soup any longer and wonder what the majority of the celery crop gets used for!  It probably gets sent abroad because us Brits are useless at finding uses for it - like so many of our fine produce.


Aside from that, I'm just waiting for Son & heir's birthday cake to be finished, whereupon I'll be making an Avocado Pound Cake.  Hopefully this will happen before the beginning of December, as I want to enter the Avocado Brotherhood's "Blog an Avo" competition!


Oh, and of course, I'm trying to find suitable things to have for breakfast.  Breakfast seems to be the hardest meal to fulfil without using carbohydrates.  After all, we get so used to eating cereal and toast!

Jonty is hopeful of a taste!

So far this week, I've had tinned mackerel & horseradish on one slice of toast - which as I said above, worked out to be a positive IF score even with the one slice of toast.  I also had a fresh orange, which bumped the score up a bit.  A spectacular success was the cherry tomato, parsley and chilli omelette (see above), followed by a Kiwi Fruit, which went down extremely well - although timing helps with that one. I tend to have my breakfast when I return home from taking Son & heir to school - which makes eating things like mackerel and chilli a lot easier.  I couldn't eat any of that, having just got out of bed!  Even a cup of tea is often a challenge, first thing in the morning.

If anyone has any bright ideas as to savoury or fruity (particularly citrus - but not grapefruit) items that don't include carbohydrates that can be eaten for breakfast, I'm all ears!

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