Pulled Pickled Pork and Apple Slaw Sandwiches wih Onion rings; Happy Anniversary Cheese Toast

Tonight's Dinner: Pulled Pickled Pork and Apple slaw Sandwiches with Onion rings and Sweet Potato Wedges.

OK, so it's a year on (almost to the day, yesterday was our 1 year anniversary, but more about that later), and I'm still hooked on American food.

So, with Mr G still loving his pickled pork (i seem to continuously be drowning in it, but it's a cheap economical meat and it keeps me creative), I thought all my Christmas' had come at one when i stumbled across a post on Pinterest (yes, i have a problem) for Pulled Pickled Pork. So as i am wont to do, i pinned it for later, and so with a gap in the weekly scheduled meals appearing and a leg of pickled pork in the fridge needing to be cooked, i was in business.

Once slight hitch. The recipe (originally from Paula Dean) didn't use pickled pork. It instead used pork that is then cooked in a crock pot in pickling brine. My heart fell.

So, not one to let these things get me down, i whipped up a quick fruity glaze and marinated the pickled pork in it over night then roasted it the next day, as is standard practice for pickled pork in our house.

So then yesterday morning while planning this weeks meals, i saw the leg of pickled pork sitting in there. Being one to not let anything go to waste, and not to let a good idea go astray, i decided to try making "pulled pork style" pickled pork.

So into the crock pot it went, with simply some water (it still had a thick layer of the fruity sweet glaze over the top) and 8 hours later, we have it falling off the bone.

After leaving it the fridge overnight, i stripped off as much as i needed for the two of us (which left a very large very meaty bone which i have since turned into "Lachlan Soup"), mixed it with some BBQ sauce and some of the fruity jellied stock from the bottom of the crock pot, and reheated it over the stove.

The Apple slaw is simple as, and one of my favourites at the moment. Just take your favourite coleslaw veggie's (tonight's was a simple traditional blend of red and white cabbage, carrot and some cavelo nero, but usually it will also include julienne broccoli stem and fresh beetroot and sometime celeriac or fennel or radish) and add apple. Dress to your liking, which in our house is 2 tbsp whole egg mustard, 1 tbsp Japanese Mayo and a slosh of honey vinegar. Mix and chill. serve with the hot BBQ pulled pickled pork in warmed slightly hollowed out bread rolls . And because it's Sunday night and I'm feeling naughty, i also whipped up some onion rings and sweet potato wedges to boot.

Now remember that anniversary i mentioned earlier?

So it's been 1 year, and as our luck would have it, we both get sick :( So no weekend away, no games with friends, no dinner and movies, just us in bed not wanting to be near each other, but trying to stay good humoured (which Mr G is way better at than i am).

So it comes time for dinner. I don't want to cook, we've nothing in the house because we haven''t been grocery shopping, and we can't go out (and quite frankly I'm really sick of our order in options).

So i say to Mr G "Decide what you want for dinner and we'll go get the ingredients, or are we ordering in?"

He says " I wan't grilled cheese".

I say "We don't have any bread"

He says "Make some of your quick bread!!"

I sigh.

Quick Bread is a sort of Damper / Soda Bread Hybrid that i make out of whatever is at hand (lemonade, soda, Champagne, cider etc).

But it is our anniversary, and it's grilled cheese, and Mr G deserves to have what he wants (no matter how minuscule a request). So i bring to you, Grilled Cheese, The B&D way:

So first things first, i threw together some quick bread and got it going in the oven, , then i looked in the fridge to see what we had.

I asked Mr G "what cheese do you want?"

He says" what do we have?"

Another sigh ( i sigh a lot when I'm sick).

"Parmesan, Provolone, Dutch Feta, Cheddar, Processed Cheddar". Yes we really do usually have at least 5 types of cheese in the house at any one time.

"Surprise me" he says.

So we ended up with a 3 cheese blend of Parmesan, Provolone and Cheddar.

So then i decided to make toppers for the grilled cheese. Our house is never devoid of food and i can usually make a meal just by cleaning out the fridge, and tonight was definitely no exception. We ended up with Grilled Cheese 3 ways: Bacon & Fried Green Tomato; Garlic Mushroom & Twin Olive And Balsamic Tomato.

First up, I found some bacon, which i started to render down.

Next, I looked around the kitchen. I had ventured into the garden earlier in the day and picked a giant basket of tomatoes from our currently abundant garden. Among the usual plethora of cherry tomatoes were some green zebra tomatoes. Honestly, I'm not much of a fan of these. I find them too firm for a tomato, but when life gives you green tomatoes, fry them. So i sliced them and tossed them in some polenta seasoned with smokes paprika, white pepper and garlic salt. And then after  removing the bacon from the pan (and placing it under the grill to crisp up), i cooked the polenta coated tomatoes in the remaining bacon fact with a bit of olive oil added. There was one topping.

I also found some mushrooms in the crisper. In a separate pan I gently cooked down the mushrooms with some left over muscado and garlic butter until meltingly tender. There was the second topping.

Finally i looked at the cherry tomatoes. I had bought some beautiful dry cured black olives and we still have some wet cured lemon & garlic green olives in the fridge also, so i mixed these with our fresh cherry toms, cut in half, and dressed it with truffles balsamic reduction.

By this time the bread was cooked, so straight out of the oven it was sliced. It was crumbling as i sliced it and it was so hot the cheese started to melt when it was put on top.

I chucked it under the grill and 5 minutes later, there you have it. Perfect grilled cheese, and a happy anniversary :)