Indoor Barbecue

Here at Letters From Home, we are not really into barbecues.  In our part of the world, it is rarely warm enough to actually eat outdoors, at least that's how we feel.  So this weekend I have discovered I can do barbecue food, kind of, in my trusty slow cooker.

  

It was so delicious, I want to get it all down here before I forget what I did!  

Firstly, I browned some veggies, 2 onions, a sliced red pepper, 2 sliced courgettes, some sweetcorn.  I put all the browned veggies into the slow cooker, then I browned 8 sliced of pork fillet.

This meal was to serve 4 people, but I usually cook a double amount and chill or freeze half of it for another day.  I love the fact that I only have to cook about 4 times a week!

I placed the pork on top of the veggies.  I find that slow cooked meals always work best when the veg is at the bottom, otherwise the meal cooks well but the veg can be a little undercooked.

Then I heated about half a jar of barbecue sauce in my pan, along with a can of chopped tomatoes and a can of vegetable soup (Sainsburys cheapest, about 17p a can, probably not very nice taken as soup, but fine in the slow cooker.

I then tipped this sauce mix into the slow cooker, and switched the cooker onto High for about an hour, the length of time it took me to get ready to go out to lovely Stratford upon Avon for a shopping trip.

Then just before leaving the house, I switched it to Low.

About 5-6 hours later, i.e. the time it took us to go to Stratford, buy a new dress at Laura Ashley, some new shoes, have a coffee at Cafe Nero, just next door to Shakespeare's birthplace, etc. etc, I arived home and boiled up some rice and peas and served this with our "Barbecued Pork".  

I had never cooked meat in barbecue sauce before, I just used Sainsburys own brand of sauce, and it tasted absolutely delicious.  

That was yesterday.  Today, we came home from church and ate the rest of the barbecue pork sauce with pasta, which was nice and quick and just as delicious.  You could serve this with salad and crusty bread, maybe with a little crème fraiche on top.  With a little imagination you could do all sorts of things, maybe some tortilla chips alongside would be nice.

Here is the dress I bought from Laura Ashley.  There was a 25% discount on all clothes, so it was a bit of a bargain, although as I usually buy a lot of my clothes from charity shops it still seemed quite expensive, but it's beautiful and comfortable, and I'm sure I will wear it a lot, so well worth it.

 

We are all on tenterhooks here at "Letters", as we are expecting the birth of our first grandchild any time in the next week or so.  You can imagine how excited we all are.  This baby will create two new parents, four new grandparents, and three aunties and two uncles!  I'll let you know when we have some news.

I am currently reading The Book of Margery Kempe, the oldest known biography written in the English language.  I hadn't chosen it, it is a set text for my son's English Literature degree for this year, so I am reading it before he returns to university, and I am enjoying it immensely.  She was a Medieval Mystic, who had an extraordinary life.

I'll try not to leave it so long before my next post, although the new term starts at the University next week, so that means I will be back at work, but I am looking forward to meeting new people and taking on new challenges.

Enjoy your weekend!