Pissed Potluck Pork

Hi!

I've been a bad blogger lately, haven't I? Would it help if I told you I'm planning my wedding? Yeah, well, I am. It's in *checks geeky countdown* 24 days time, and we're still scrambling to organise, well, everything. So cooking hasn't been high up on my agenda, unfortunately, I even lost my appetite for a few days, which NEVER happens. But now, I'm back in the game, and hopefully I'll be whipping up some lovely things for you over the next few days.

{Image source: danpeters, flickr}

Last night was the Uruguay vs Netherlands game, played here in Cape Town, and while the rest of the city's population was going bos in town, I was peacefully cooking sausages. Yes, sausages! Ok, to be fair, I did go and join in the gees with the boy when he got home, but first, I wanted to COOK!

This is a funny sort of dish, born from the fact that I had a ton of things in my fridge that I really needed to use up, and this is what I came up with. To be honest, I think you could use anything in this dish, and you could serve it with pasta, mashed potatoes, or roasted veggies, if that's what your heart desires.

So I had some slightly dodgy cherry tomatoes, half a punnet of mushrooms that would be going south pretty soon, and half a bag of baby potatoes, and this is what I came up with. The boy has a pretty funny Afrikaans term for this kind of throw-everything-from-the-fridge-in meals, but it escapes me. So Potluck Pork in Wine it is!

{Image source: yum9me, flickr}

Pissed Potluck Pork

Ingredients:

This is for 2 people (I used 4 sausages)

Pork sausages (take the number of people you're feeding, and budget about 1.5-2 sausages per person, unless you have greedy people, then budget 2.5-3)
Half a punnet of mushrooms
Half a punnet of cherry tomatoes (or a couple of whole tomatoes, chopped)
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic, diced finely
1 tsp minced ginger
1 tsp dried thyme
2 tsp dried rosemary
1 small bunch fresh curly leaf parsley, chopped roughly
Small lump of blue cheese, roughly diced
Small lump of sharp cheddar, grated (I had some lovely plaaskaas from the Hout Bay craft market, yum!)
Half a bag of baby potatoes

Method:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Heat a little oil in a pan, and lightly brown the sausages, being careful not to burn them. When browned, transfer to an ovenproof dish, and set aside.
3. In the same pan, fry the onions, until translucent. When the onions are almost cooked, add the ginger and garlic, and fry for a little, until fragrant.
4. Pour in half a cup of the wine, and allow to sizzle a little. This will loosen all the lovely browned bits at the bottom of the pan.
5. Meanwhile, boil the new potatoes in the microwave, about 10-12 minutes.
6. When the liquid has heated through, add the dried herbs, and cook a little while longer, about 5 minutes, adding a splash more of the wine if the pan seems too dry.
7. Remove from the heat, and pour the mixture, together with all the liquid and herbs over the sausages in the pan. Set aside again, and return the pan to the heat.
8. Melt a little butter in the pan, and fry the mushrooms for a couple of minutes, until they start to brown, and the water has fried off them.
9. When browned, add them to the top of the mixture in the ovenproof dish.
10. Pour the frozen peas over the top, along with the chopped parsley, and the blue cheese. Toss the whole lot a bit, and mix it all up.
11. Chop the new potatoes roughly, and lay over the top of the mixture. It doesn’t need to be a thick layer, just spread them out.
12. Spread the grated cheese over the whole lot, and pop it into the oven for about 20-30 minutes, until the cheese is melted, and the sausages are cooked through.

I entered this recipe in full as part of the For the Love of Wine (Kleine Zalze) bloggers competition. Just so you guys know. Also, due to the low quality of writing and posting relevance over on that blog, I'm dropping out of the competition. I value each and every one of my readers, and this blog, however small it is, and I'd rather not be associated with the low quality of posting that's going on over there.

Well, that's enough of my philosophising! I hope you guys understand, and that this doesn't negatively affect your attitude towards me and my little blog.

And make this! It may seem weird, but it's really delicious, and taste even better the next day when the flavours have melded a little more.

Enjoy!