01 August 2012

Posie Limp Bits Challenge - Week 1: cooking

Greetings all,
Welcome to Week 1: Cooking of the Posie Limp Bits Challenge.  Sound the trumpets!!  
Link up your post of something you have challenged yourself to . . . 
bake, cook, roast, sauté, BBQ, grill, smoke, poach . . . over the next 7 days.
My lame confession . . . after 15 years of marriage & spending literally years home alone preparing dinner for my children while my handsome soldier takes all his culinary skills to war zones, i had never cooked a roast.  Oh the shame.  So last night, i made this, mmmm, Roast Pork.  I kept the vegetables simple (carrots, potato, broccoli) as my eldest daughter had a volleyball match at 6p.m. so i had to whip this in & out of the oven in under 2 hours.  Nothing says success like crispy crunchy crackling!!  My children gobbled it down (like they do at Christmas) & came back for thirds!!
My awesome tip . . . pour boiling water over the uncooked pork, pat dry with paper towel then dry thoroughly with a hair dryer.  Rub liberally with vegetable oil & salt for crackling heaven.  
 I cooked it over a foil tray, no washing up (i actually couldn't find the rack for the roasting pan so had to improvise & use an old cake cooler, worked just as well!!)
 Please include what your willing taste testers thought too!!  My children gave me the thumbs up & asked if we could have pigs on the farm, mmmm, homegrown bacon, ribs & roast pork, hell yeah.  


Grab the badge & have fun.  Week 2: Craft - challenge yourself to a new skill or pick up an old favourite you haven't utilised for a while.  I've had 3 crochet lessons & i still struggle, yet continue to try.  Thanks for joining in, medals will be awarded!!  Love Posie

15 comments:

TexWisGirl said...

glad your roast was a success!

The Accidental Housewife said...

Well done on your roast! I find crackling is very oven and location dependent, I rocked it in Wagga, failed miserably in t'ville, and only now have worked out how to make in here in Canberra - I need to turn my oven way way up for a very long time to make it decent.

I looked up the promised chili mussel recipe, apparently it's rated as "easy" and takes only 5mins cooking! I probably should have tried it before now, ahem...

posie blogs Jennie McClelland said...

Ok, so i have the same Army-issued-cheap-oven issues as The Accidental Housewife, so i feel her pain. I cooked the pork (this was 1kg, plenty for 6 hungry pig lovers) at 140C for an hour, took the pork out, then cranked the oven up to 230C, then when it reached that heat, popped the pork back in for another half hour. I needed way more than that extra half hour to cook through. I have learned the hard way, Army ovens (think cheap rental house ovens) just don't get the heat, so always bank on extra time & be flexible when you serve dinner!! Thus my simple vegetables. Love Posie

Mum on the Run said...

Yum!
I'm no talent in the kitchen, but a roast is my no-fail option - so I cook it almost weekly here!!

Especially since replacing our oven a couple of years ago.
Happy roasting!
:-) x

Pip said...

Yum, I'm hungry right now after reading that post. If you have the time, another good tip for crackling is to unwrap the meat,loosely cover with greaseproof paper then leave in the fridge overnight, that way the skin will dry out and help make good crackling.

Becky said...

Posie, we always do it the other way. Put the pork into the VERY hot oven, then when the crackle is lovely turn the oven down and wrap some foil over the top of the crackle and leave it in to finish cooking. Keeps it simple as you don't have to wait for the oven to further heat up.

We eat roasts often on a Sunday, they are such a good easy option and we love the leftovers on Monday :)

Sarah B said...

Ha! I hope you didn't cook the whole roast with that hair drier! Only joking :)
I do roasts for my other half but don't east them as I'm a vego. love roast veg though. Pork really creeps me out though! There's one in the freezer waiting to be cooked. Creepy!
(i know, I'm a bit odd)

posie blogs Jennie McClelland said...

Sarah, i agree with you, especially raw pork, it's pretty gross to look at, but roasted, mmmmmmm . . . love Posie

emma @ frog, goose and bear said...

drying the meat with a hairdryer - classic! I might have to try it! We had roast lamb here last night. It's of my failsafe meals that requires little effort but a winner all round! That's some impressive crackling you have there. I feel a lot safer doing a lamb roast, but you've inspired me to give pork another go by using your tips - my Dad is a pork producer after all and we do get free pork!!!

creations.1 said...

How good does that look. crackling tip is great!! Well done. And I am going to join in the Limp Bits Challenge!! See how I go1

Mother Down Under said...

That looks amazingly good!

I too have been too afraid to attempt a roast...partly because my oven is an original Early Kooka (think 1950s oven) and is too small to even fit a roast!

ally said...

Loving the limp bits
Still reeling that you don't roast....

alison@thisblooominglife said...

Well done you! Personally, I find pork the most difficult roast to master (and the messiest, all that spitting over the oven walls). Did you know there is such as thing as a professional oven cleaner? I didn't (faux fuschia tip) but don't know if they come out here - if they do I'm sure they would charge a 'distance' fee. Now that gets my goat - we're closer to town than most suburbs!!! Anyway, off my high horse now and I will try the hair drier trick next time. Take a bow Posie.

tash said...

ahem - i just realised that I posted my link up for the next weeks challenge!
sorry!

The Accidental Housewife said...

Damn, I didn't get time to make my mussels and post them up! We've done a mad dash to Perth for a week, seeing an ailing Papa and a visiting Italian sister in law... But I will still make them, you inspired me.
(p.s. It's ridiculously warm over here - I took the girls to the park yesterday afternoon in skirts and singlet tops, and they weren't a bit cold. I may never come back to the freezing depths of our town. Well, you know, I wouldn't come back if I hadn't left my husband back there out at Majura!)