Marks and Spencers Pork Medallions

Cooked and enjoyed Marks and Spencers’ Pork Medallions with a cider and shallot sauce.

I normally prefer to cook my own sauces than use shop ones, but as I was in Marks and Spencers and looking at their The Cook Menu range decided to give it a go.

Whatever you fancy for dinner and whatever the occasion, M&S’s NEW The Cook Menu has something to offer. You’ll find a variety of exciting dishes, inspired by flavours from around the world, which all use the very best ingredients: fresh vegetables, sustainable fish and quality cuts of meat from M&S-approved farms. The preparation work has been done for you, so you can concentrate on the enjoyment of cooking and add an individual touch.

So what do you get?

Well you get some pork fillet sliced and a sachet of sauce, not enough sauce really, more would have been nice.

So you pan fry the pork and then remove from the pan and heat through the sauce.

I served mine with some rice and steamed vegetables.

It wasn’t that bad actually, quite good really.

Yes you could do this all yourself, however I didn’t have a huge amount of time, and nor did I have the ingredients for the sauce and that’s the real time and money saver with these.

Would I buy it again, yes I would.

Slow roasted pork belly

You don’t always have to use expensive cuts of meat to make a wonderful meal, sometimes the cheapest cuts cooked really slowly can have fantastic flavour and texture.

I do have a passion for pork belly, and remembering a dish I had my local pub, when I saw a slab of pork belly on sale at Marks and Spencer decided to create my own version.

Turn on your oven to its highest temperature.

I chopped some root vegetable, onion and carrot, added some mushrooms and potatoes and placed it in a roasting pan.

I placed the belly pork on the root vegetables and seasoned it. I then placed this in the really hot oven, turning the temperature right down to 160. I then left the pork to roast for about two hours. This may not seem long, but it wasn’t a huge piece of pork like a leg joint.

As it cooked I did add some wine and water now and again to the bottom of the roasting pan, so it didn’t dry out.

The result was a fantastic moist, tender wonderfully flavoured piece of pork. Which I sliced and served with vegetables.

Slow roasted pork belly

The pan contained the cooked root veg and the juices and made a wonderfully rich sauce.

Slow roasted pork belly

Overall very tasty and a well received on the table.

Ginger Beer

Had a ginger beer today, first time in ages.

Ginger Beer

Not really a proper ginger beer (well it came in a can from marks and spencer) but it was not bad.