Stephen Nottingham's Food Blog: Change4Life Supermeals Challenge Day 6

Saturday 4 February 2012

Change4Life Supermeals Challenge Day 6

I am cooking all 14 recipes in the Change4Life Supermeals booklet, which promotes healthy eating through quick, easy and inexpensive family meals. The sixth recipe in my challenge is pork with apples and celery.

This is very like a meal I often cook, although I would normally use a can of cider, rather than a stock and apple juice mixture, and mix in some Dijon mustard as an ingredient. However, I cooked the recipe as given (below), and it was very good. Pork with apple, sage, onion and celery is a great combination.

I served it with the mashed potatoes, as in the recipe, along with some seasonal purple-sprouting broccoli.

Additional vegetables could accompany a number of the recipes in the Supermeals booklet, if you want to ensure you get your 5 a day. Fresh fruit and vegetables are available at wholesale prices from around 300 Community Food Coops that operate on a weekly basis across Wales: http://www.ruralregeneration.org.uk/

pork with apples and celery
The ingredients: 750g potatoes (cooked and mashed), 2 tsp vegetable oil, 1 red apple (cored and sliced), ½ tsp caster sugar, 400g lean pork fillet (sliced), 2 tbsp sage, 1 onion (thinly sliced), 2 celery sticks (sliced), 150ml reduced salt chicken or vegetable stock, 150ml apple juice, ground black pepper, 4 tbsp semi-skimmed milk.

The method: roll pieces of pork in sage, fry in oil. After 3 mins add onions and celery, after 10-15 mins add apple juice and stock and simmer. Add pepper. Fry apple with sprinkling of sugar. Serve pork with the apple and the mash (total cooking time approx. 25 mins).