Spiced autumn apple cake

Kitchen Garden Notes – Apple Festival at Clumber Park

Blackberry and apple jelly

Pork, leek & apple casserole

Pork, leek & apple casserole in the slow cooker

Everything has a perfect combination and with pork it has to be leeks or apple or indeed an amalgamation of all of them. The best herb? Of course it's sage. So gather together these ingredients, throw them in the slow cooker and in a couple of hours you'll have a delicious and warming dinner with minimum effort.

As ever this is one of my family thrifty meals. I used diced pork shoulder which I found reduced and here's the maths for the other ingredients. I haven't included the sage as it's part of my stock cupboard ingredients and I can't remember how much I paid for it. Also, life is too short to be weighing out dried herbs. 

Pork £1.29, carrots 9p (200g at 65p for 1.5kg, Sainsbury's), leeks 50p (2 out of a 4 pack at £1, Sainsbury's), apple juice carton 28p (1 out of 6 for £1.69, Sainsbury's), Oxo stock cube 4p (1 out of 24 for £1, Poundland), apple 17p (1 out of 6 for £1, Sainsbury's). Total: £2.37 or 59p per portion for 4.

With the above thrift notes I will be putting this forward to this month's Credit Crunch Munch which is a monthly challenge hosted by Camilla at Fab Food 4 All and Helen at Fuss Free Flavours.

Serves 4

Ingredients

Approximately 450g pork shoulder, diced or 8 pork cheeks or 4 pork loin chops

4 Carrots, chopped

2 Leeks, chopped

200ml Apple juice or 1 individual carton

300ml Chicken stock

1 tsp Dried sage

Salt & pepper to taste

1 Apple (any will do – whatever is lurking in your fruit bowl)

To serve: your choice of potatoes or rice

Method

1. Pre-heat the slow cooker to high while preparing the vegetables and measuring out the juice and stock.

2. Add all the ingredients except the apple to the slow cooker.

3. Cook on High for 4-6 hours or Low for 6-8 hours.

4. Before preparing the potatoes or rice cut the apple into wedges and add to the mixture.

5. If you think the liquor needs thickening add 1tbsp (15ml) cornflour to 1tbsp (15ml) water and pour into the casserole.

6. Serve when the potatoes or rice are ready.