Marrowfat Pea and Ham Soup

I haven't posted anything for a while, but I made this for taster night at group this week, so thought I'd share the recipe. It's very filling, and just the thing to warm you up as the nights start drawing in.

It's based on a recipe I found for Lancashire Pea and Ham Soup, but I've simplified and slimmified it.  The original recipe calls for a ham shank, but I used a cooked ham joint instead.  It also has chopped carrots in it, but my other half isn't keen so I left them out. Add them back in if you like.

Ingredients

500g dried marrowfat peas

500g cooked ham joint, cubed

2 onions, finely chopped

3-4 celery sticks, finely sliced

A few sprigs of thyme

2-3 chicken stock cubes

Water 

A handful of chopped fresh parsley

Method

1. Prepare your dried marrowfat peas. Either: 

- soak them in tepid water overnight (about 8 hours) 

or

- boil them up in a pan of water for 3 minutes, and then cover and simmer for a further 45 to 60 minutes until the peas are tender.

2.  Drain your prepared peas, and put in a large heavy saucepan / stockpot with the ham, onion, celery, thyme, 2 chicken stock cubes and 4 pints of water.  Bring to the boil then turn down the heat, cover and simmer for 2 hours.

3. At this point the original recipe says to liquidise half the soup, but I skipped this step.

4. For best results, make a day in advance and refrigerate overnight.  Reheat for 15-20 minutes the next day, adding water to loosen it if necessary.

5. Before serving, stir the parsley through and check the seasoning. You might want to add another stock cube if you think it needs it, plus the usual salt and pepper of course.

Euro 2016 Food Challenge: England: SP All Day Breakfast with Traditional Oxford Sausages

Being English there were any number of English dishes I could have chosen for the challenge, but I wanted to do something a bit different. I'd never heard of Oxford sausages until I started researching English dishes. Traditionally they were made without casings, so I thought they'd be worth a try as a syn-free sausage replacement (I know they sell them in Iceland, I'm just not a fan).  These are supposed to be made with pork and veal, but I've used pork and beef instead.

Verdict: not bad. The low fat meat gives quite a dense texture, but the taste is good. I oven baked mine, but they ended up quite dry so I'll pan fry them next time. 

Oxford Sausages

250g lean pork mince

250g lean beef mince

Half an onion, finely chopped

A handful of sage, chopped

1 tsp mace

Plenty of salt and pepper

Place all the ingredients in a food processor, and blitz until the mixture comes together like sausage meat.  Form into sausages. Pan fry in Frylight.

I served mine with beans, bacon medallions, grilled tomato, mushrooms pan fried with thyme leaves, and 2 slices of toast (HEB). I don't like fried eggs do I left those out, and black pudding was too many syns! So this was a Not-Quite-Full-English...