Tonight I made dinner for the ravening hoards. I had a pack of pork steaks (from the 3 for £10 range at Tesco but I usually get from Asda)  but my 16 year old daughter doesn’t like pork! She told me this in no uncertain terms, so I was desperate to disguise it. So here’s what I did:

Ingredients

Three small onions,  a yellow and an orange pepper,  half a family pack of mushrooms,   half a box of Arborio rice, 6 pork steaks, salt, pepper,  dried mixed herbs (you can of course put proper chopped herbs in if you have a lot more time than me) 1 tin of chopped tomatoes and 1 litre of chicken stock (I use two stock pots own brand per litre of boiling water but obviously you can use proper homemade stock again if you have some you made previously)

Preparation

Make the stock and set aside.  Chop the onions and peppers up reasonably small (dice) and slice the mushrooms then half the slices.  Chop the pork steaks with scissors into square shapes (take off the fat if there is any, mine were lean today).  Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a strong pan.  Fry the onions and peppers until softening,  add the seasoning then the chopped pork,  keep stirring well,  add the rice (now you must stir constantly) and the mushrooms.  When the meat is browned add the chopped tomatoes.  Stir it all together.  Do not stop stirring (have the stock to hand).  Add around 1/3 of the stock and stir thoroughly.  Turn the heat right down and let it simmer with the lid on the saucepan.  stir regularly if your pan is non-stick because the rice quickly sticks to the bottom of the pan.   When the first lot of stock is absorbed add the next 1/3 and stir thoroughly. Allow to soak up again (if you take the saucepan lid off it works quicker but it isn’t traditional!) then repeat with the rest of the stock.

I do usually use the boneless chicken breast packs which you buy in supermarkets (also on the 3 for £10!) but I thought that it was a really good way of making a filling and reasonably healthy dinner with the pork and even my 16 year old pork hater scraped the saucepan.

Only one downside,  this does take about 1 hour in total so no good if the kids are STARVING MUM and you didn’t come in until 8 or 9 o’clock.  Today I managed to get away from the office at 5 o’clock (miracle) and after calling at supermarket to shop I was in by 7 so we didn’t eat too late for once. I usually make it on a Saturday because there is more time then (in theory) and it goes down especially well in the winter.

Just to let you know that my younger kids are bone idle and rarely do housework or cooking.  My 20 year old is more of a help (probably because she has been at University a year and has had to become more self sufficient). Oh, and I don’t have a dishwasher!