More pork soup

Despite the absence of frost, it is clearly wintry enough for us to be thinking of soup, as a few days ago we had another go at pork soup, maybe just a fortnight after the last occasion.

With one difference being that the pork was a lump which had been trimmed off the rolled shoulder of reference 2 and thrown in for good measure. Maybe 300 or 400g, between half a pound and a pound.

5oz of pearl barley. After that in order of addition to the brew, celery, onion, pork, a little left over potato, white cabbage, mushroom stalks, mushroom caps.

The other difference was supposed to be that I just did enough for the one meal, but as it turned out the saucepan was pretty much full again. Turned out rather well again, although looking at this snap it occurs to me that maybe I should take more trouble to remove the scum arising during the cooking process; it would certainly make for a prettier snap if nothing else. BH does when she does cooking of this sort.

I think we did something over half at the first sitting.

In the event, proceedings were interrupted and the second sitting was delayed. So by way of a change, over two days, I added a little water and passed the soup through the blender and took it in the form of a sort of porridge or gruel for breakfast. Very grey in colour and a little gritty with the chopped pork, not like porridge made with oats at all, but good all the same.

Notwithstanding, BH not tempted. Meat for breakfast, other than bacon, has no place in her scheme of things.

PS 1: the blender had been bought in the course of the expedition noticed at reference 3, just about a year ago now. I remember that at the time we were a bit put out because we were unable to buy a blender which was anything like the one that was being retired, with a large clear plastic just sitting on top. Fashions in such things had moved on. To France. And then, when we got it home, it took us a while to work out how to drive it. But all sweetness & light now, having more or got the hang of the thing.

From the people at reference 4, very like although not identical to the one snapped above. Perhaps we have last year's model. Cuisinart Mini Prep Pro (ECH4U).

Between us, we might do a fair amount of cooking, but BH does not feel the need for one of those big jobs, costing hundreds of pounds. And I knead my own bread with my own bare hands.

PS 2: not French at all, but from the US. From a company which is owned by Conair of reference 6 which is owned by the money men of reference 7. This knowledge from Wikipedia at reference 5: I did not work it out from either reference 4 or reference 6. But at least the people at reference 7 are not coy about the great old miscellany of brands which they own. Which includes, for example, North American Partners in Anesthesia, the leading single-specialty anesthesia and perioperative management company in the United States.

PS 3: interested to read over breakfast, in the context of a piece in yesterday's Guardian about disaffected youth by Marina Hyde, of our Prime Minister staying for free in a fancy flat in Covent Garden last year, a freebie declared as £20,000 when a more likely rent would have been £100,000. And then that an enormously rich oligarch was not above fiddling the VAT on the running costs of his fleet of fancy yachts. Is it any wonder that said youth think that they are missing out? That all that moralising by their ever-so-woke leaders is just so much guff. They are just in it for themselves. I worry that such leaders are just paving the way for the likes of Farage and Trump - not to mention the far right in large chunks of Europe or our very own fat leader of not so long ago. Or, indeed, past master Blair, who has done very well out of unsavoury regimes in central Asia.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/pork-soup.html. Last time around.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/pork-imperfect.html. The source of the pork this time around.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/02/valentines.html.

Reference 4: https://www.cuisinart.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisinart.

Reference 6: https://www.conair.com/. More into hair dryers and grooming than food.

Reference 7: https://www.american-securities.com/.