Pork chops and sweet potato mash with black-eyed beans and leeks (for a girly lunch)

There are few things better than clothes swapping and a girly lunch on a Sunday afternoon. Now some girls may be satisfied with a chicken salad or something equally dainty, but me and Rubes just ain't those type of girls. I needed to make something warm, comforting, full of flavour, and a bit different. I saw a recipe for black-eyed beans and leeks on 101 cookbooks, which I adapted slightly to go with the pork chops I really fancied. I decided to go for sweet potato mash, as sweet potatoes are so good for you, and I thought they would work with all the other flavours in this meal (which they did)

Ingredients

Pork chops

Paprika

Ginger

Garlic

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Sweet potato

Butter

Garlic salt

Pepper

Leek

Sage

Dried thyme

Tin of black-eyed beans

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

I marinated the pork for a couple of hours in a mixture of olive oil, paprika, garlic, ginger and salt and pepper before baking for about 40 minutes in total. For 35 minutes the oven was on at 180 degrees, and for the final 5 minutes I put the grill on full blast, to crisp up the fat. The mash needs plenty of salted butter, garlic salt and pepper, to balance out the sweetness of the yams. You have the recipe for the black-eyed beans and leeks on the 101 cookbooks website - I simply replaced the butter with olive oil, and added fresh sage at the same time as the leeks. Then replaced marjoram with thyme. We drank a delicious, light prosecco from Treviso that my dad bought me in Borough Market