Bleurgh. Sunday lunch bleurgh.

Last night (Saturday) I had the best night EVER.  I trekked from South East London to blinking Hackney to visit the extremely wonderful @MissWhiplash with @shedlikesfood and @miss_jordi.  We had a fabulous night of champagne, onglet, actual deep fried naughty chips, wine, pudding wine, tarte tatin (Miss W made her own puff pastry, the nutjob.)

The night was fun.  MORE than fun - it was brilliant.  While I was there, I discussed methods of cooking pork belly with Miss W.  The consensus was Long And Slow.  When I got home, I decided to score my beasty belly up, which was all well and good until I encountered this:

AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!  THERE ARE NIPPLES!  NIFFLES!  SNIFFLES! Nipples.  Actually, they didn't freak me out.  They made me laugh my ass off (I was drunk).  However, I was aware that my guest would not appreciate a crunchy mammory gland, so I removed the offending section.  I slightly regret losing the extra crunch.

Feeling smug about my midnight preparation, I rolled into bed (which was filled with glass due to a broken lightbulb) where I barely slept at all due to the gits that live a few doors down from me who decided to party until 5am (DISAPPROVING, OLD FACE) and the skin tag on my back which, unbeknownst to me, had turned entirely black overnight - possessed by Satan.  One way or another, I had naff all sleep.

So getting up at 8am to cook a pork belly p***ed me off an inordinate amount.  I wanted to KILL.  But I am, if nothing else, a hostess with the mostest, so I cracked on and threw the non-nippley belly in the oven and trotted back to bed... where I was abused by this little lady jumping all over me:

HOW PRETTY??  Much as I love her, I desperately wanted her to be removed from my body buffer zone so I could do masses of snoozing.  It wasn't to be.  SO.  On with the naughty pork.  Tom from The English Pig had told me that I should do it for 1 hour at 200c, 1 hour at 150c, 4 hours at 100c.  This is what happened:

This is the beauty after 1 hour!  BEAUTIFUL.  Massive concern that it was cooking too fast.

4 hours.  Looking a bit scary and burnt and soggy in the middle.  However, it all worked out a treat.  I chucked the oven up to 220c for a little while (15 mins) and the crackling became a thing of great beauty.

 FOOD PORN!  Actual food porn.  CRUNCHY.  Do you want to see The Plate?  OK...

Yeah, I know.   Ming.  MING-A-LING.  Why?  My friend and I ate lunch at around 2pm.  I made this plate up out of cold skanky food at around 8pm.  BLEURGH. (I did eat it yes.  The crackling was still aces 6 hours later!  I ROCK.)

SO.  I think we can safely say that pork belly, yorkshire puddings, buttery mash and about 4 gallons of wine is not Diet Food.  Yes, I suck.

The diet starts tomorrow, 22 August 2011.  I have fruit, vegetables....and no guests.  It starts here kidz.  Roll on next Friday.

x