Bang up meals at fine dining quality

I love when some nights, despite making something that cleans out the fridge, you end up with a meal you would have happily paid for. Tonight was such a night. As the storm rolled in on my way home and I listened to the ABC tell me that there was high wind gusts, my thoughts went to a night two years ago when I lost a tree full of mulberries in a storm. I'd been saving them for a mulberry vodka I wanted to make. Devastating. I still drank the vodka.

So I rushed round and picked every ripe and semi ripe mulberry on the tree. No waste this time. Unfortunately as much as I love mulberry smoothies I'm not a fan of mulberry pie, too much when I was young and I was racking my brains for a good use for the fresh fruit. I thought I'd have a bash at some jelly, there was not quite enough fruit for jam. The fruit got dumped in a pot with a dash of water, stems and all. Once the fruit had gone soft I added some caster sugar. Some is a magical measuring device at Lantanaland, which is very easy to measure and impossible to replicate.

After it cooked down some more I passed the hot liquid through a sieve and added 'some' gelatine, then into glasses and chilled in the milk fridge. Now for dinner. In the fridge I had the following things that needed using, carrots, some roast pork and a capsicum. I also had an onion, potatoes and garlic that were all starting to sprout. The onion, carrot garlic and capsicum were diced and sweated off until really soft, then some white wine, the roughly chopped pork, some frozen homemade pigs trotter stock, more wine, the potatoes and a bottle of sugo.

It was all slowly simmered until the potatoes started to break up, mixed with a dash of sour cream and into bowls with lots of grated Parmesan. Bang up meals have no right to taste this good, I'd happily make that again from scratch and ill definitely be using up roast pork that way again.

The mulberry jelly was served with some yoghurt and mint. It was fantastic. I can't wait for my finger limes to fruit, a few of the bursting bubbles of lime in that jelly and you could serve it anywhere, anytime. The fruit saved and the fridge cleared, not a bad way to eat.