Its Pouring rain outside, falling straight down, thick and heavy, so heavy my lovely big river outside my window looks like the surface is boiling and I can barely see the trees on the other side. Everything feels cold and damp, we're rugged up like the Michelin Man and the heaters on, working hard and not making much of a difference to the temperature inside the house.
I've done all I can to make us more comfortable from the outside, time to warm us from the inside. Yep, its soup time. Smoky Ham Hock with Lentils and Vegetables, a massive pot enough for tea tonight and hearty leftovers for lunch tomorrow.
Our vegetarian visitors hardly made a dent in the huge vegetable haul I ordered in for them on the weekend so I'd better set to and put all this fresh produce to good use. Soup is a good start so I bought this large smoked Ham Hock with a thick brown soft chewy skin over rich dark gelatinous meat full of tendons and sinew, this will need a lot of long slow moist cooking to release all of that sticky succulent meat from the bone to flavour my soup, slow cooker will do it but you will need a long time, all the nutrients in the vegetables will have gone the way of the dodo bird by the time the meat is ready, which really negates the purpose of eating something healthy. Now, because I'm a 'want it now' kind of girl, the only sensible option is our Tefal Cook4Me, ridiculously quick, energy efficient, nutritionally sound, flavour enhancing, spectacularly simple and unbelievably easy to use and clean bench top appliance made just for this job. I don't even put it away in the cupboard in this weather, it happily sits on the bench waiting for another daily task to help me with. Help me it does, it bloops away making risottos in a wink, tenderising the most inexpensive, toughest cuts of meat and poultry to a succulent spoon tender consistency turns itself to the keep warm function, keeping my meal safely hot and ready to eat until everybody has come home from work, school or sport and even the stay cool handles help you decant the left over contents into a storage container for the fridge or freezer. Then is just a quick wipe out before its ready for its next job. Nothing sticks to the non stick surface and its light enough to handle easily. You probably could put it in the dish washer but its a large family sized vessel that would take up so much room on the rack, There wouldn't be much room for anything else. Being so easy to clean I've got the inner pot back in the Cook4Me before I can get the dishwasher open to load it in there.
I've done all I can to make us more comfortable from the outside, time to warm us from the inside. Yep, its soup time. Smoky Ham Hock with Lentils and Vegetables, a massive pot enough for tea tonight and hearty leftovers for lunch tomorrow.
Our vegetarian visitors hardly made a dent in the huge vegetable haul I ordered in for them on the weekend so I'd better set to and put all this fresh produce to good use. Soup is a good start so I bought this large smoked Ham Hock with a thick brown soft chewy skin over rich dark gelatinous meat full of tendons and sinew, this will need a lot of long slow moist cooking to release all of that sticky succulent meat from the bone to flavour my soup, slow cooker will do it but you will need a long time, all the nutrients in the vegetables will have gone the way of the dodo bird by the time the meat is ready, which really negates the purpose of eating something healthy. Now, because I'm a 'want it now' kind of girl, the only sensible option is our Tefal Cook4Me, ridiculously quick, energy efficient, nutritionally sound, flavour enhancing, spectacularly simple and unbelievably easy to use and clean bench top appliance made just for this job. I don't even put it away in the cupboard in this weather, it happily sits on the bench waiting for another daily task to help me with. Help me it does, it bloops away making risottos in a wink, tenderising the most inexpensive, toughest cuts of meat and poultry to a succulent spoon tender consistency turns itself to the keep warm function, keeping my meal safely hot and ready to eat until everybody has come home from work, school or sport and even the stay cool handles help you decant the left over contents into a storage container for the fridge or freezer. Then is just a quick wipe out before its ready for its next job. Nothing sticks to the non stick surface and its light enough to handle easily. You probably could put it in the dish washer but its a large family sized vessel that would take up so much room on the rack, There wouldn't be much room for anything else. Being so easy to clean I've got the inner pot back in the Cook4Me before I can get the dishwasher open to load it in there.
My soup was so delicious, in our video recipe we give you hints on how to stop your Tomato paste from going mouldy, how to peel a tomato in seconds without blanching and potentially burning yourself and of course how to prepare the star of the show, the Smoked Ham Hock, so everybody gets a decent portion of its smoky goodness in every serving.
Its comfort food in a bowl, we serve it as a meal with crusty parmesan, garlic, herb bread, all on the one slice (because its a compromise for everybody, saves arguments, we load it all on top and everyone gets their favourite, along with everyone elses favourite. LOL) and warmed to toasty perfection in the Tefal Actifry in about 4 minutes, which is about a quarter of the time it takes for my wall oven to get hot enough to heat it without even cooking it yet. This is fast, slow food at its best and we are delighted to share our recipe with you on our cheekyricho cooking channel.
https://youtu.be/JUze6SRA0tU
https://youtu.be/JUze6SRA0tU
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