Breakfast

  • 2 x poached eggs, with 2 x gluten-free sausages and tomatoes
  • Or parsnip & pear fritters
  • Fruit: orange

Lunch

  • Baked sweet potato with tuna and paleo mayo or ham and paleo coleslaw

Dinner

  • Main: Crispy Pork Belly with greens and roasted sweet potato
  • Pudding: Chopped dates and nuts with cubes of fresh apples and whipped coconut milk.

 

Sunday Cook-up!

Today is also your day to get prepared for the coming week. Remember that planning and preparing is the key to sticking with the plan! Same as last Sunday you could do the following (all optional):

  1. Roast or grill chicken for salads during the week (I’m going to poach a whole chicken today – Jamie Oliver has a recipe where you poach it then take out chicken, take all meat off and put carcass back in to make a stock. You then have all the meat for salads etc) and a stock for stews and stuff during the week. Can do it in a big pan or a slow cooker). You could also make soup from the stock by adding some veggies 10-20 minutes before the end of cooking time. Remove the vegetables once cooked and place in a blender. Add as much stock as you want for soup and blend until smooth.
  2. Chop all your veggies (carrots, celery, cucumber, peppers etc) for crudites and store in an airtight container in the fridge
  3. Make your granola and store in an airtight container in the fridge (this will last you for the duration of the plan)
  4. Roast a batch of sweet potatoes and keep in the fridge for easy meals and snacks
  5. Make a batch of soup for the week
  6. Make guacamole or hummous for snacking on
  7. If you want to eat boiled eggs for a snack then you can boil a few fresh ones up today. They will last in the fridge (in their shells) until the sell by date on the eggs.
  8. Make your lunch for tomorrow if you won’t have time to make in the morning.

 

Parsnip & Pear Fritters

These are delicious for breakfast but can also be eaten for lunch or dinner – they are great with any kind of pork – from bacon or sausages to a full-scale roast. Makes eight cakes. You can actually do a combination of apple or pear instead of parsnip and make a sweet fritter. Omit the salt and pepper and use a little ground cinnamon and ginger to flavor instead.

Ingredients:

  • 1 large parsnip
  • 2 pears (or you could substitute pears for apples)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 level tbsp. coconut flour
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • Olive oil, ghee or coconut oil, for frying

Method:

  1. Peel the parsnip, quarter it and remove any tough core. Quarter the pears and cut out the cores, but don’t bother peeling them.
  2. Grate the parsnip and pears, combine the two, then add the egg, coconut flour and plenty of salt and pepper, and mix well.
  3. Heat a nonstick frying pan over a medium heat and add enough oil to coat the base all over. When the oil is hot, take a handful of the parsnip and pear mixture and squash into a rough patty. Squeeze out any excess liquid (there may not be any – it depends on the juiciness of your pears).
  4. Put the patty in the pan and press down with a spatula to make a thin cake. Repeat with more of the mixture (you’ll probably have to make these in two batches).
  5. Turn down the heat a little and fry for about 5-10 minutes, or until golden brown on the base, then turn carefully and fry the other side until golden brown. Keep the heat fairly low and fry the cakes slowly, to avoid burning. Serve hot.


 

Crispy Pork Belly – two methods

Of all the techniques that claim to give the perfect crisp roast pork every time, one stands head and shoulders above the rest: brining.

Curing the pork in a brine solution not only tenderises the meat but also helps to retain moisture within the cooked joint, whilst simultaneously removing excess water from the fat, which results in a wonderfully dense, crisp crackling. This honey brine recipe imbues the pork with a subtle sweetness that you will want to repeat again and again.

The recipe given uses pork belly as this gives the best crackling, but the brining method works equally well for all other pork joints, from knuckles and shanks to shoulders, neck, or even pork chops. The pork should be brined for at least 24 hours, up to a maximum of 48.

Ingredients

  • 1 kg pork belly, boned
    1 litre of water
  • 200g coarse sea salt or kosher salt
  • 150g honey
  • 12 black peppercorns
  • 2 cloves
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 sprig of thyme
  • (you can play about with the spice content of the brine to find a flavour that best suits your taste – white peppercorns, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, and mustard seeds all work well with pork)

BEST METHOD

For the brine:

  1. Place all of the ingredients in a pan and bring to the boil, stirring to ensure that the salt and honey have dissolved.
  2. Once fully dissolved, remove from the heat and allow to cool completely.

For the pork belly:

  1. Place the pork belly in a suitable, non-metallic container (the brine does not react well to metallics) and pour over the cooled brine solution. Cover and refrigerate for 24 to 48 hours.
  2. Once brined, remove the pork from the solution and pat it dry using a clean kitchen towel or kitchen paper. There is no need to score the skin.
  3. Place the pork on a wire rack and sit the rack on top of a roasting dish (this allows the fat to render away from the pork without the meat having to sit in it). Place in an oven preheated to 150°C/300F/Gas mark 2 for around 2 ½ to 3 hours, until the skin is deep golden in colour and crisp.
  4. Remove from the oven and allow to rest, uncovered, for at least 30 minutes before carving.

QUICK METHOD

Brining is by far the best method to achieving that perfect roast pork belly, but it is time consuming and requires plenty of preparation time. The most effective short cut involves acid (lemon) and salt.

Using a very sharp knife – a Stanley knife works well – score the surface skin of the pork belly (or other roasting joint), taking care to score the skin alone and not the muscle beneath it. Cut a lemon in half and rub the cut side all over the skin – this helps to open the pores. Next, sprinkle liberally with salt and use your hands to rub it quite firmly into the skin. You can also add a little picked thyme at this point for added flavor.

Place the pork in a very hot preheated oven – around 250°C/475F/Gas Mark 9 – for 10 to 15 minutes, and then turn down the temperature to 150°C/300F/Gas Mark 2 and allow to slowly roast until the skin has become deep golden and crisp. A kilo of unrolled pork belly will need around 2 hours cooking time, but timings for other thicker joints will vary according to their size