BLOGMAS Day 22: Cooking With Gem: Garlic, Rosemary & Thyme Pork Loin...

I love to cook from scratch at home and one of mine and Si's fave things to eat is garlic, rosemary and thyme pork loin. I cooked it the other day and thought I'd share with you how I make it :). I can't remember when I first discovered a recipe for pork loin or the cut of meat in general, but it was some time ago now as I was making this dish back when we were living at mom's house. The main part of the meal is the pork loin. I always prepare and season this the same every time, as it's just too yummy not to. The sides that I serve it with tend to differ, but you will see what I chose to serve it with this time, below.

Before I start anything, I pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

This is the cut of pork loin after I've removed all the sinew. I'm really fussy with meat, so I like that there is no fat on a pork loin. The way I cook it ensures that it isn't dry either, so it's still really enjoyable. I cook the loin in a ceramic baking dish as I like to scrape off the bits at the bottom after cooking to create a lovely gravy (as you will see later on). Using this ceramic dish to do that means I won't scratch up a normal baking dish/tray.

Here I have massaged garlic powder, rosemary, thyme, a little salt and pepper into both sides of the loin. I add a drizzle of oil (I just use vegetable oil) to the loin to ensure all the seasoning sticks to the loin. I cook it for 50 minutes. When 50 minutes is up, I cut through the thickest part of the loin and if it isn't pink any more then I know it's done.

I peeled and cut up my potatoes for the mash and put them in a saucepan of water, with a little salt, on the hob ready to be boiled, along with the peas (in a separate saucepan of course). I don't put the heat on until there's about 20 minutes to go on the loin. I put them on a medium heat. Obviously when the potatoes are soft, they're done. I drain the potatoes and put them back into the saucepan, adding a little milk, a knob of butter, salt and pepper to taste and then I just mash them with a regular mashing utensil.

Above is the batter mix that I made for home-made Yorkshire puddings. I have a four hole large Yorkshire pudding tin, so wanted to make four. I looked online for the amount of ingredients I'd need. I used 70g of plain flour, 2 eggs, 100ml of milk, salt, pepper and some oil for cooking. I put the flour and eggs into a bowl and mixed them together, then I gradually added the milk until it looked like it does in the image above. I also added some salt and pepper to taste.

I wiped some vegetable oil around each hole in my tin to stop the Yorkshire puddings from sticking. I then popped the tin in the oven, so the oil heated up whilst I was making the mix. Leave the tin in the oven until you are ready to cook the Yorkshire puddings.

The Yorkshire puddings take about 20 minutes to cook, so I put the Yorkshire pudding mix into the holes in the tin and start cooking them five minutes before I start cooking the potatoes and peas. This will mean that the meat, potatoes and peas will be cooked at around the same time and the Yorkshire puddings will have a few more minutes whilst you're preparing the meat. They are fine to be cooked at the same temperature as the pork loin.

This was the first time I'd made Yorkshire puddings this big and by using my own ingredients, instead of a packet mix. They soon puffed up. I took them out at just the right time, when they were nice and browned on top. They look quite dark in the image, but they weren't burnt. They were the perfect size to fit all the other parts of the meal in.

When the pork loin is done, turn the heat for the potatoes and peas down to the minimum, whilst you're preparing the meat. The image above shows the pork loin when it's cooked, after 50 minutes. The bottom of the dish looks burnt but it's actually gooey, gorgeous flavour that makes for a flavoursome gravy!

I normally leave the pork loin to rest for a couple of minutes (with foil on the top) and then cut it up. I use a knife to hold the meat down and a fork to cut and pull away at the meat. It's so succulent and cuts really easily. I boiled the kettle with fresh water, sprinkled some gravy granules into the dish and poured a little boiled water on top. Add the water gradually until the gravy reaches your preferred consistency. You can then let the meat soak up some of the juices and scrape away at the bottom of the dish to add the extra flavour to the gravy. I love doing gravy this way, it's just so tasty! Whilst I'm preparing the mashed potatoes, I put the foil back on top of the pork, which keeps the heat in.

Mmmm! Succulent, gravy soaked pork loin!

This is how I served up our meal. The Yorkshire puddings are on the bottom, filled with mashed potatoes, peas and the gorgeous pork loin. I poured over any gravy left in the baking dish.

Like I said, me and Si love this meal and I've been making it for some time now. Sometimes I leave the Yorkshire puddings out completely and sometimes I serve with boiled potatoes instead of mashed potatoes and wilted garlic spinach instead of peas. It just depends what we have in or what we fancy. Any of these combinations are lovely though!

If you have a go at making this meal, let me know in the comments section below or on Twitter @GemsGemz86 :). I'd love to see pictures too!

Don't forget to like, comment and follow to keep up to date with the rest of my Blogmas posts :).

Thanks for reading lovelies!

Gem XxOo

BLOGMAS Day 12: BBC Good Food Show Winter...

I've been going to the BBC Good Food Show Winter in Birmingham since I was in high school. I studied food technology and I remember the teacher organising a day trip to the show. It was so much fun and since then I've been numerous times with my mom, my husband and sometimes my sister too. Since I've been blogging, I've had the opportunity to attend the show as press, which is lovely considering I've been going there for years! If you love food and drink then you'll love this show :). We went on the 30th of November this year, which was the last day of the show.

Me and mom having a jolly good time!

Me and my sister, resting our legs.

The BBC Good Food Show Winter is usually held over four days, in a huge hall at The NEC in Birmingham. The show is full of exhibitors that sell food, drink, cooking accessories and appliances and there are a few general home-ware stands thrown in in-between. There are also a lot of appliance and cooking demonstrations going on around the show and you can just stop and watch as you like. The food and drink exhibitors tend to offer samples, so that you can try before you buy and some of them are quite generous. You can also get better deals on some products within the show, rather than if you were to buy them outside of the show. There are live stages around the show, where celebrity chefs carry out cooking demonstrations. You can get a show guide as you go into the show (free of charge), so you can see where the live stages are and who is going to be on at certain times. The only live performance you have to book for (included within the admission ticket price), is the Supertheatre performance. This is for large audiences and when you book your admission ticket you can choose who you'd like to see and at what time.

We had a lovely day and Si (bless him) was snapping away so that I had some good pictures for my blog :). We also bought a few things, so I thought I'd share them with you too...

Arkay Sales 'Intelligent' Soup Maker. This was a demonstration that we watched where you can make hot smooth or chunky soup in minutes, using this one machine! Find out more here.

I tend to get the pre-prepared garlic in a jar because I hate the smell on my fingers when chopping it up! This Garlic Twist is something that I've seen time and time again at this show and it would make a lovely gift if you know someone who loves garlic, but doesn't like chopping it up. This little gadget minces garlic to perfection! Find out more here.

My mom bought this Lakeland Compact Chopper and I probably would have too but she has actually bought me something similar for Christmas from QVC, that I said I liked. It's normally £22.99 on the Lakeland website, but it was only £9.99 at the show, so it was a right bargain! Find out more here.

Rachel Allen carrying out a live cooking demonstration.

These little tubs are full of edible, crunchy bugs. Si was brave and tried a few of them but I was having none of it! I suppose if you're thinking of having a bush tucker challenge party, then these Crunchy Critters would be great. You can see what kind of bugs they have to offer here, you can even buy edible tarantula's :/.

Si trying a crunchy cricket! He didn't seem that fazed by it to be honest, he just kept mentioning that it was stuck in his teeth...nice!

This was the Jack And Gill Crafts stand. They specialise in embossing rolling pins (usually used with icing), and workshops. We had a good look at this stand as my mom loves making cakes, she bought one of their embossing rolling pins. See what they have to offer here.

This is the result of the embossing rolling pin that my mom bought. You can buy it here.

Here are some examples of cakes that were decorated using Jack And Gill Crafts products.

A Smeg fridge that I love the look of! I'd love one of these fridges, maybe in a different colour but I just love how retro it looks!

I picked this up at the show and remembered to take a snap of it before I finished it off! B Fresh make fresh, cold, pressed juices in Shropshire, England. They had many samples to try and they were sooo fresh! They have juices made with ingredients such as, carrot, beetroot, kale and spinach to name a few. I chose this one because it was the sweetest, it contains the most apple juice out of their range. Some of the others aren't sweet at all, but are good for different reasons. Find out more about their juices here.

We saw The Hairy Bikers in the Supertheatre.

They showed us how to make three recipes: scallops with coral sauce & cauliflower purée, turkey chilli with cauliflower rice and baked peaches. The chilli and peaches really appealed to me and I'll probably make them for me and Si :). I can only find two of the recipes online, but I've linked them for you anyway!

This stand was a favourite, especially for Si. Curry Dave specialise in making naan bread curry pizza! We got to this stand as the show was close to finishing, so we were given a couple of samples to try. It was delicious! You can see what they have to offer here.

Our sample of Curry Dave's naan bread pizza.

Here are the products that me and Si bought from the show, to take home...

I love it when a decision isn't hard to make and as soon as I had a sample of this, I knew I had to get it! It was £10 for a 500ml bottle, which I thought was a great deal! I love strawberries and vodka drinks, especially cocktails, so this appealed to me straight away! XUXU Strawberry Vodka is made with fresh strawberry pulp, crystal clear vodka and a squeeze of lime (also a favourite of mine). I'm looking forward to drinking it with sparkling wine at Christmas! It is made with 66% fruit and you can find ways of using it within drinks/cocktails here. You can purchase it here.

I thought I'd show you the drink within a glass. You can see that it coats the glass slightly, which shows you the fruit pulp and that it isn't just a pure vodka liquid, if you know what I mean :).

We came across the Suhana stand towards the end of the show, so we were pulled in by their offering of potato and curry sauce samples. Me and Si love curry and prefer to make our own the majority of the time, rather than get a takeaway. When we got there, they had a deal on where you could get 20 curry spice packets for £10. My mom asked if we wanted to go halves, so we both had 10 curry spice packets for £5 each. We love butter chicken (we've tried their Suhana Butter Chicken Mix before, we found it in B&M's and when I made it, it was delicious) so we chose a few of those, along with the Suhana Chicken Tikka Masala Mix and the Suhana Chicken Tandoori Mix. Just because it says 'chicken' on the ones I've mentioned, it doesn't mean you can't use vegetables instead. You can see their range of spice mixes here. I love their homepage, it looks like steam is coming off of the curry!

Here are the spice mixes we bought from the Suhana stand.

This Bekaert's Biscuit Butter is something that Si spotted before me and advised me to try it. It's a caramelised biscuit spread with hints of cinnamon and nutmeg. One thing I will say is that it is very moreish, so if you initially like it, you'll want more and more. They had a crunchy option, but we opted for smooth. We actually bought some biscuits whilst we were in Birmingham to have with this, back in our hotel room, ha ha! As soon as you taste it, you get the biscuit taste and then the cinnamon comes through, mmm. I'm actually having more of it now, so I can try and describe it to you :), blogging purposes and all that! You can order, check out recipes and more on the website.

Excuse the state of it, but this is what the Biscuit Butter looks like :), it's really smooth and velvety!

I only have a couple of squares of this left! I love Eton Mess, so when I saw this chocolate bar, I had to have it. It is made with Hanley's luxury white chocolate, natural strawberry flavour, freeze dried strawberries and meringue pieces. I paid £3 for this at the show. You can buy this and find out more about Hanley's Premium Confectionery here.

The BBC Good Food Show, Birmingham is also on in the summer, but I've only ever been to the winter one. If you've been to the summer show, feel free to share your experiences in the comments section below :). BBC Good Food also have other shows that you can attend. Find out more and book tickets here.

Have you ever been to a BBC Good Food Show?

Don't forget to like, comment and follow to keep up to date with the rest of my Blogmas posts :).

Thanks for reading lovelies!

Gem XxOo

* I was able to attend the show free of charge, as press. Me and Si took a lot of our own pictures and it was my own choice to feature the above on my blog. Also, I was not gifted any of the items mentioned above.

Cathedral City Cheese Taste Test...

I was recently asked if I would like to carry out a Cathedral City cheese taste test. As a big lover of cheese I was thrilled to be able to take part. It wasn't so much a requirement, but I had the option to re-create a Cathedral City recipe aswell, from their website. I am also a huge fan of cooking from fresh at home, so I was also keen to do this.

                          Mature cheese.                                      Mature lighter cheese.

I was provided with a £10 voucher for Waitrose in which I was required to buy a mature cheese and a lighter cheese from the Cathedral City cheese range. I chose to get the mature...yet mellow cheddar and the mature...yet mellow lighter cheddar. I am a huge fan of mature cheese, the stronger the better in my eyes. In all honesty, I don't tend to buy mild or lighter cheeses just because of the assumption that it won't taste as strong and to me, mild cheese, that tastes like nothing, isn't worth eating. I kind of feel the same about lighter cheeses as there are definitely cheeses out there that I feel are great when they are mature but try the lighter version and the taste is significantly different.

                                    Mature cheese.                    Mature lighter cheese.

I was excited and interested in carrying out this taste test as I thought there would be a significant difference in the taste. Each pack was 200g, but I cut a bit from the slab of "mature" cheddar and picked out a pinch of the "mature lighter" cheddar. At the time of purchase the slab of "mature" cheddar cost £2.17 and the grated "mature lighter" cheddar cost £2.23. So, for a product with less fat in, it is a couple of pence more. Both cheeses are suitable for vegetarians and are made only with milk from British farms. The fat content in the "mature" cheddar is 34.9g and in the "mature lighter" cheddar it is 21.3g, which is 30% less fat than the "mature" cheddar for just a couple of pence more.

Here are the results of my taste test:

Cathedral City mature...yet mellow cheddar: The taste from this cheese is amazingly strong, just my cup of tea. The taste hits you straight away eating it straight from the packet. It really gets your taste buds! It has a really creamy taste and the cheese kind of melts in the mouth. I love this cheese. This is one we buy regularly in our household, I love it. It has such a deep flavour that will come through when you mix it with other ingredients in a meal. Although this is a mature...yet mellow variety, it sure doesn't lack in taste what-so-ever!

Cathedral City mature...yet mellow lighter cheddar: When tasting this cheese, I was pleasantly surprised because the matureness of the cheese still came through quite a lot! The flavour/taste didn't lack at all, so for 30% less fat, you aren't being deprived of flavour, which I was surprised but pleased about because this is something I can now look to buying regularly in the future. There is a subtle difference and I couldn't put my finger on it or the word to describe it. All I could think of was that it had a certain lightness to it, which is a pretty lame way to describe it as it's a "lighter" cheddar, ha! If you know how these cheeses taste or do a taste test yourself, you will know what I mean. It's probably to do with the ingredients, but it feels a lot lighter on the tongue and more airy. However, there is no major difference and for once with a food item, you won't be missing out on anything by getting the lighter version.

In all honesty I would probably promote the lighter version more for the simple fact that it is more healthier, but doesn't lack in flavour or taste. It is a few pennies more, but there are often deals and offers on these days in supermarkets and you never know, it might be cheaper than the full fat version at times. Bonus!

Like I said above, I carried out one of the recipes from the Cathedral City website. I made my own Cheese and Leek croquettes and you can see my video on how I made them below:

As stated above, I bought my cheese from Waitrose, but they are available at the majority of other supermarkets.

Have you ever tasted this brand of cheese? If so, what are your thoughts?

Do you find that there is often a difference between full fat and lighter food products?

Much Love,

Gem XxOo