Pork and mushroom bake with a potato and butternut squash topping

This is like a shepherds pie but made from pork instead of lamb.  I'm not sure what to call it, maybe Hog herd's pie?  Pigman Pie perhaps?  Let me know what your suggestions are, I may even publish them!  Anyway, this is a lovely winter warmer recipe and is uses the principles of Mediterranean cooking that are supposed to be so good for us, so those of you who think Mediterranean cooking is just about summer food, think again!  It's also a perfect one pot supper dish as it has so many vegetables in it, you really don't need anything else to accompany it.  Perfect for a mid-week meal.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium onions
3 sticks celery
2 onions
4 cloves garlic
500g reduced fat pork mince
100g chorizo (optional) 
250g chestnut mushrooms
A small glass of white wine
300ml chicken stock
Tomato purée
½ a small butternut squash
3-4 small potatoes
2 or 3 gratings of whole nutmeg
Salt & ground black pepper to taste

Method
First, make your Soffritto by peeling and chopping the onion, celery and carrot, heating the oil in a non stick pan and frying the vegetables over a low heat with a pinch of salt to soften.  Make sure you chop the carrot finely or it takes a lot longer to cook.

Heat the oven to 220°C.  While the Soffritto is cooking, peel and chop the garlic cloves, wash and dry the mushrooms and chop them roughly.  If you have time at this stage you can also prepare the squash and potato mash.

Turn the heat up to medium then add the pork mince (along with the chorizo if using) and start to brown the mince.  When everything is taking on a little colour, add wine, turn the heat up to full and reduce the wine by at least 50%.  Add the stock, garlic and mushrooms to the pan, bring to the boil then reduce the heat to medium and cook until the mushrooms have reduced in size and lost their water.  Turn the heat to low, add 4-5 tablespoons of tomato purée, give the whole thing a good stir and leave to reduce for 5 mins so the mix is good and thick.

If you haven't already made the mash, do that now.  Peel and cut the potatoes and squash into 2cm cubes.  To cook the potatoes with the squash, boil a pan of water, add a little salt and add the potatoes.  Boil for 3 minutes, then add the squash and cook until soft.  Drain and mash with a little extra virgin olive oil, salt and black pepper to taste and 2 or 3 gratings of whole nutmeg.

To finish off, tip the meat and vegetable mixture into an appropriate size baking dish and top with the mash.  Don't worry if you don't use all of the meat and vegetable mix, you can freeze the rest for another day.  Bake on the top of the oven until the top is nicely browned and serve as it is.  There are som many vegetables in this dish you don't need and side dishes with it, so an ideal one pot supper!  You can up the carb if you like by having some crusty white bread with it, but it's actually pretty filling as it is.

Bonfire night and a cassoulet - it's a bit of a tradition in our house.

For some years now I've been making a Cassoulet on bonfire night - it's a great party dish for a winter get together when you're going out and not sure when you'll get back as it really benefits from long, slow cooking and it's a one pot dish, perfect!  Traditionally, Cassoulet doesn't have tomatoes in it, but I like to add them to give colour and a bit more flavour.

A note before we start, a lot of the ingredients may take some time to get hold of, so I'd recommend buying and preparing well in advance and keeping them in the freezer or store cupboard until you need them.

If you've never had Cassoulet before, you should try it, it's from the Languedoc region of France and is a bit like a turbo charged sausage and beans. Let the fireworks begin.  This recipe served 12 comfortably.  Whatever's left over freezes well though and makes an extra special evening meal straight from the freezer.

Ingredients
4 duck breasts
750g dried haricot beans
300g pork belly

2 large onions
4 celery sticks
2 carrots
12 cloves of garlic
2 tins chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato puree
2 bay leaves
A pinch of ground cloves
24 sausages, a mix of your favourite (we love Clarks Hertforshire sausages) and some Toulouse sausages if you can find them.

Method
First, make your duck "confit".  You can buy it in tins of you like, but I like to make my own and although it's not genuine, it works very well in this recipe and it's really easy to make.  Heat the oven to 140C, put the duck breast in a shallow dish, add a little salt and pepper and roast them for 2-3 hours until all the fat has come out and the duck is cooked all the way through.  Take them out of the oven, let them cool and then freeze them with the cooking juices and fat until you need them.

The night before you are going to make the dish, put the haricot beans in a large bowl and add lots of water, at least 3 times the volume of beans, cover and leave to soak until the next day.  Take out the duck breasts you froze before and let them thaw overnight.

On the day, start by choosing a casserole that is large enough to hold all the ingredients (the beans will at least double in size, so it needs to be big).  Peel and roughly chop the onion, celery and carrots.  Peel and crush the garlic and roughly chop it.  Cut the rind off the pork belly and keep that to one side, then cut the pork belly into bite size chunks removing any bones that may be left over.

Heat the pan and add the duck fat and juices (but keep the breasts aside)  and a little olive oil, then once it's hot add the strips of pork belly rind and the diced pork and sauté over a medium heat until they are starting to brown.  Add the onions, celery, carrots and garlic and sweat them over a low to medium heat with the pork until everything is soft and the pork and garlic is golden.

Now drain the beans and add them to the dish with the tomatoes, tomato purée, bay leaves and ground cloves, now add water to fully cover the ingredients, bring to the boil and then cook over the lowest heat you have to simmer very gently for around 3 hours until the beans a lovely and soft.

While the beans are cooking, grill the sausages until they're cooked as you like them and leave them to cool.

Finally, 30 minutes before you're ready to eat, slice the duck breasts into bite size morsels and add them and the sauces to the casserole, give a good stir and wait for them to heat through.  If the sauce is looking a bit thin at this stage, take the lid off, turn the heat up and reduce it down, but be careful as it will burn easily on the bottom of the pan unless you stir continuously.

Serve directly from the casserole into bowls and we like to eat our Cassoulet with fresh, crusty bread to mop up any juices, but you could equally have baked potatoes.