Just a quick post tonight as we’re busy sorting out Cubs Towers ahead of the Summer of Works. Exciting.

We had a glut of strawberries to use up, I wanted a salad, Paul wanted a roast dinner, so this was the happy compromise. You might wrinkle your nose at the thought of using strawberry but it pairs nicely with pork – think plum sauce with duck and you’ve got the right idea. We served it with roast potatoes which were PERFECT. In fact, let’s cover off how we did our roasties.

you’ll be needing

• enough potatoes to fill that echoing belly of yours, cut up into decent chunks
• Frylight or oil – just a drop or two
• a lamb Oxo cube
• an Actifry (if you don’t have one, don’t shit the bed, you can do it in the oven and I’ll cover that in a second

then…

• squirt the chopped potato with a spritz of spray or a drop of oil
• chuck in the actifry
• cook for twenty minutes
• crumble a lamb Oxo cube on there and splash a good tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce on them
• cook for another twenty minutes or until they look just right
• serve!

The Actifry is possibly the best thing we’ve bought since joining Slimming World – not least because it does make genuinely proper tasty chips. You can get others like it but they’re not quite as good (the Airfryer, for example). It’s expensive, but we fry off our meatballs, sausages, chips and potatoes in it with little to no oil. If you’re on the fence about one, take it from us that you won’t regret the expense. You can buy it on Amazon by clicking here. Why not treat yourself?

Too tight for an actifry? Don’t worry. Just put them in the oven for 20 minutes, take them out, shake them, splash them and crumble that cube on the top, and cook again. The key is letting them sit for a few minutes before they cook for the second time.

I’ve seen a lot of people gobble on about those Oxo potatoes where you cook them half submerged in stock…well yes, but then you end up getting potatoes that look like athletes foot, all soft and crinkled and mushy. If that works for you, champion, but I’m not quite at the stage in my life where I need to gum my food. Try the above! 

Anyway, the main event:

you’ll be needing this (this serves 4):

• pork tenderloin – with fat removed, ours was around 1kg
• eight slices of bacon with fat removed (if only it was that easy!)
• 300g of strawberries, nicely ripe, sliced
• 125ml of balsamic vinegar
• three cloves of garlic
• bag of rocket

and then, once you’ve finished being all hysterical, do this:

• wrap the tenderloin in bacon – use cocktail sticks to secure if you want
• put it into the oven on 200 degrees for 30 minutes, then take it out and turn it over and cook for another thirty minutes
• meanwhile, finely chop (remember: buy a mini chopper, easier, and no stinkin’ fingers) the garlic and pop in a pan over a medium high heat with a drop of oil or a squirt of Frylight
• cook for around two minutes until slightly golden
• add the balsamic vinegar and half of the strawberries
• bring to a boil and then allow to simmer for ten minutes – your kitchen will smell lovely at this point
• once the second half of the pork is done, take it out, baste it with a few tablespoons of the balsamic strawberries and whack it under the grill for about two minutes to colour it
• throw the other half of the sliced strawberries into the balsamic pan just so you get a nice difference in texture 
• remove the pork, cut into thick slices, serve on the rocket with a drizzle of the balsamic and strawberry sauce
• enjoy, you posh bastard.

Here, I was GOING to call it a reduction, because I suppose it is, but that’s just too wank, even for me!

ENJOY.

J