now you have the menu.

it is simple.

three dishes – three cuts of pork. simples.

winners will get some kinda pork cut to take home. woooh.

Crispy pork belly, grilled aubergine, basil and chili jam.

Pork loin marinated in vanilla with onions  

Pork ribeye, pumpkin, corn and chilli 

Sorry that it has taken me so long to getting around to judge pork of 2010 2011.

Stuff happened. Reasonably major stuff, however there is no excuse. Lovely people covered themselves in pork fat and experimented and I did nothing. Nothing I tell you.

Not to worry. I’m here now and I have my judging hat on – le chapeau du porc.

Following thousands of entries a few entries – all available below for your delectation:

@manne

@roguehousewife

@cgharding1

@lucmartin

@nonsensepipe

@getforkedthea

You may all be wondering exactly how this will be judged.

Will there be an experimental kitchen set up deep underground and each applicant ushered in with nothing but the ingredients in their hessian shopping bags whilst blindfolded? No Probably not.

It’s just me and the blog posts unfortunately,  we will be having a winners event where there will Pork and such.

It will take place at Galoupet in the late afternoon of the 27th November.

Keep it in your diary and drop us a line if you wanna pop along tickets are £10 to cover the pork costs and the booze.

I will reveal the winner on the evening.

Lets all pretend that there is a little excitement and that it has not taken over a year for this to takeplace!

Work has been sucking the life out of  me (in a good way).

I have let far too many thing drift to the wayside, in no particular order:

1. Marriage
2. Post
3. #porkoff2011

I dealt with the marriage bit on the weekend, took a day off had a BBQ and gave the wife a kiss.

I will hand a very large bag of post to the first person that applies for the position of my PA and let them get lots of paper cuts.

I WILL ORGANISE THE #PORKOFF2011 – RIGHT THIS VERY INSTANT.

If you have entered – well done on being dedicated to PORK.

IF you have not entered – you are out of time (just about) – I will leave the entries open until the end of this week.

NOW  - I don’t actually know what this competition is about. It all cam about very quickly on a Sunday morning some months ago….. ok ALOT of months ago.

This we do know:

There are entries

There are Judges (some of which may have forgotten by now!)

There is a Venue for the after party/judging

Surely this is enough?

The feelings are due to my inability to post and tweet as much as I want to. That is because I am deep in food heaven, but none the less Garlic Confit is sad.

I will be here again. Soon. (oh and with my X1)

That leaves me only approximately 2 years give or take to actually get this pork contest to happen.

Last year was a failure.

This year may well be more of the same.

I hope not.

Pork Off 2011

Why? Cos someone has to.

it is little old me.

sometimes things get in the way. sometimes even with the best of intentions, you just don’t get a moment to write anything down.

I do have a number of post sitting in the drafts pile, a few photos short or a few paragraphs light. They may make the light of day, then again they may not. The temporal hiatus may exist forever at garlicconfit.com.

I have of course been doing foodie things. Drinkie things too, the culmination of which should be on the landscape about January next year.

It will be hard to get fingers to keyboard over the next 6 months but I shall persist.

What pushed me to write now. Rousillon at lunch, that is what.

Au revoir.

GCx

There were a few friends popping over for an impromptu soireé and I found myself standing in the grocer’s staring at the produce, having a think as to what dish should herald the dawn of a season.

Pasta Salad at first does not really say Spring…that I will grant you.

We all know that Pasta should be used in hot dishes with sauces that have been lovingly nurtured from simple ingredients; not cloying mayonnaisey(sp?) plastic pots on supermarket shelves or big deep dishes of  farfalle next to a BBQ, with the sole purpose of soaking up the litres of Pimms that will follow.

Once in a while a little change can be a good thing, if Barrack says so it must be true. I have been a keen ‘leaf in pasta’ advocate for some time. A handful of rocket in any pasta dish always adds texture and spice. It was always used as a herb before its ubiquitous appearance in 80′s salads.

In essence this really is a Pasta Salad – Served warm and with  a lot of leaf it really makes a great simple supper.

Spring Pasta Salad

500g Spelt Penne ( Selezioni Monograno, Valentino Felicetti is my fave)

2 Red Onions

3 Pepper (Orange, Red and Yellow)

250g Chestnut Mushrooms

250g Sundried Tomatoes

200g mixed spicy leaves

200g Sugar Snap Peas

150g Blue Cheese (St Agur, Roquefort, Dolcelatte…whatever your preference)

25 ml Blasamic

50 ml Olive oil

10g Basil

Method

Cut up the peppers, onions and mushrooms into large chunks. Chop the sundried toms into bite-size pieces.

Pop the pasta on to cook. Pop all the fresh veggies in a large frying pan with a little olive oil. Fry on a high heat for about 5 mins till all soft, they should retain their crunch. Keep warm.

Slice the sugar snap peas lengthwise in strips.

In a large serving bowl,  soften the cheese with the oil and balsamic vinegar and then shred and add the basil and sundried tomatoes. Season.

Drain the pasta and immediately add the hot pasta and hot veg to the serving bowl. Toss and coat the pasta and veg with the melting cheese dressing. Add the sugar snaps and the leaves to the bowl and toss.

If necessary add a few more tablespoons of oil to loosen.

Serve Immediately.

It is a very good daily newsletter about what to watch on the box and it also gives you a great suggestion for what to eat, while watching the box.

Well, the lovely people at TV Bite have asked little old me to occasionally give them a recipe or two. They are very nice.

I suggest that you all sign-up and get just one more e-mail a day, it could be the tastiest thing you do.

SUBSCRIBE

It is going ok.

Breakfast always consists of porridge with a few stewed fruits – linseed and pumpkin seed.

It is actually quite tasty. At first I was sticking to the letter of the law and having quinoa porridge which tasted like arse. Grey wet arse. It was rank.

I decided that this was my diet and I was going to own it. No grain was going to beat me.

So I went traditional. Oats. Just Oats nowt else. Made with water of course, no dairy for me.

I love the Daily Oats from Rude Health – they are the best. Plain and Simple FACT.

Here is a picture of them in my cupboard, just in case you wanted to see how pretty the 1kg bag is.

This was one of my favourite things growing up. Crunchy carrots in a bath of mustard (oil/seed) and garlic and chillies. I have not made it for a while and today it popped into my head.

I am off to India for work and play at the end of Feb for most of March, the Ayurvedic diet should be easy enough to do out there, what with it being the home of Ayurveda. This means that when I get back the diet will be just about done. I can make a batch of this and watch it pickle and when it is done, I will be allowed to munch it.

I have also been planning a whole day of eating out once I have completed the cleanse. At the moment it looks like this…

• Breakfast at The Providores – Fry Up and Coffee
• Lunch at Polpo
• Dinner at Nobu (the Original not Berkeley, I hate the Berkeley)

This day will no doubt change a number of times over the next 6 weeks, but that is the plan at the moment.

Anyway, back to the pickle. The shape that you cut the carrots in makes a difference, I always do good solid batons and not rounds like my aunts used to do. They end up getting a tad soggy over time. Always sterilise the jars and lids, you know the score.

Carrot Pickle

600g Carrot Batons

1 Tbs Sea Salt

1 Tsp Heaped Turmeric Powder

2 Tbs Yellow Mustard Seeds

2 Tbs Black Mustard Seeds

2-4 Tsp Chilli Flakes

3 Tbs Garlic Crushed

8 Tbs Mustard Oil

100ml Water

Method

Crush the mustard seed roughly and place with all dry ingredients  into a bowl – Mix well.

In a pan warm the oil gently for a minute or so. Place the carrots in a tightly fitting jar. Cover with the oil and top up with the water.

Shake and leave in a cool dark spot for a week, turn occasionally. The carrots will have a good crunch and be spicy and tangy.