Lamb Salad with Pesto Dressing - Red Tractor February

I thought I should squeeze in the Red Tractor February recipe in February.  This month's recipe was Lamb Salad with Pesto Dressing.

The calendar quote for this month is about collecting: 

I thought it was quite cute, but I really have to stop collecting - I have too much stuff.

The lamb salad was quite tasty, and the pesto was surprisingly good.  I used almonds instead of pine nuts because I couldn't find my pine nuts.

Without further ado, here is the recipe:

500g lamb (they said backstrap, I cut the meat off some chops)
250g green beans, topped
3 large tomatoes, coarsely chopped
2 lebanese cucumbers, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced (I used qukes)
1/2 bunch watercress (I left this out)

1 cup firmly packed basil leaves
75g toasted pine nuts
1/3 cup shredded parmesan
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup lemon juice

Heat a frying pan, add the lamb and cook for 4-5 minutes each side before transferring to a plate and slicing thinly.

Cook the beans in boiling water then rinse under cold water - they should remain bright green and crisp.

Put the basil, pine nuts, parmesan and garlic in a food processor and process until coarsely chopped. With the motor running, add the oil in a steady stream until well combined, then add the lemon juice and process until smooth.

Put the beans, tomatoes, cucumber and watercress into a bowl. Divide among 4-6 plates, top with lamb and drizzle over pesto.  Season with pepper.

Plum Glazed Leg of Lamb

It is winter here, and time for hearty, comforting recipes.  Accordingly, I thought it very fitting that this month's Red Tractor recipe is Plum Glazed Lamb. 

How delicious - a small leg of lamb is glazed with a spicy plum jam sauce, and coated with sesame seeds.  I roasted my lamb with potatoes and brussels sprouts, and also served it with boiled beans. 

If you fancy making this recipe, you will need:

470g plum jam
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon hot English mustard
1.5kg leg of lamb
3 garlic cloves (peeled and halved)
sprigs of rosemary
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
1 tablespoon plain flour

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  In a bowl, mix together the sauces and jam til smooth and set aside.

Score the lamb with a knife and insert the garlic pieces into the cuts.  Line the base of a roasting pan with the rosemary, and put the lamb on top of them.

Pour the sauce over the meat and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Roast the lamb in the oven for an hour and a half or until cooked to your desired level of doneness.

Remove the lamb and rosemary from the roasting pan.  Add the flour to the sauce in the pan, and stir over the heat until the sauce thickens to make a gravy.

Carve the lamb and serve with the gravy and vegetables of your choice.

Hairy Dieters' Lamb, Potato and Spinach Curry

I recently acquired two of The Hairy Dieters cookbooks and have been making a few recipes from them.  Recently, I made the Lamb, Potato and Spinach Curry from The Hairy Dieters - How to Love Food and Lose Weight.  You can also find the recipe online here.

Although less calorific than your standard curry, it is full of rich flavours so that you don't feel like you are missing out.  It also has the convenience of being a one pot dish, as your meat and vegetables are cooked in the same pot.

This curry was quick, easy and tasty, and not so heavy on the calories - a winner all round.

Julie Goodwin's Mongolian Lamb with Asian Stir Fry Vegetables

For dinner one evening, I made this Mongolian lamb recipe by Julie Goodwin, published in the November 2015 edition of The Australian Womens Weekly to promote Julie's new book, Homemade Takeaway.

I liked this recipe because it was quick and tasty - it was like healthy Chinese takeout.

I served my Mongolian lamb with stir fry vegetables for a complete meal, and really enjoyed it.  I'd make this recipe again.

FFWD - Celebration Week #1: The AHA Moment - Lamb Tagine with Apricots

This week for French Fridays with Dorie, we have to choose your favorite, loved the most, best recipe in FFWD to share this week and explain why, and share our top 5 favorites.

There are many recipes in Around My French Table that I really loved.  When I went back through my FFWD posts to make a list of the recipes that I liked the most, I noticed that a recurring theme was Dorie's meat and fruit combinations - chicken tagine with sweet potato and prunes, duck with kumquats and pork with mango and lychees.  Accordingly, it made sense to me that I would choose one of these meat and fruit dishes as my AHA! moment.  It was hard to pick one dish over another, but I landed on Dorie's Lamb Tagine with Apricots.

 

This tagine pairs meat with fruit in a classic sweet and savoury combination, and jazzes it all up with a mix of spices.  My experience is that the tagine tastes best next day, when the flavours have had time to develop and meld.

 

I have made tagines before Dorie's, but not all of them hit the mark.  This one is particularly good, and tastes fabulous with Dorie's cardamom rice pilaf, or ordinary brown rice.

 

In addition to the Lamb Tagine with Apricots, five of my other favourite dishes from AMFT are:

 

• Chicken Tagine with Sweet Potatoes and Prunes
• Pan Seared Duck Breasts with Oranges
• Duck with Peaches
• Chicken B'stilla
• Scallops and Double Carrots

 

To see  what the other Doristas regarded as their AHA! moment from AMFT, visit the LYL section of the FFWD website.

FFWD - Lamb & Dried Apricot Tagine

For FFWD this week, our recipe was Lamb & Dried Apricot Tagine.  Now this is my kind of dish!    I love the fruit and meat combination, and the sauce was delightful.

I served my tagine with cous cous:

If you love a good stew, the recipe is online here.

To see what the other Doristas thought of this dish, visit the LYL section of the FFWD website and inhale the aroma.

WWDH - Lamb shanks with Tomato and Thyme

For Wednesdays with Donna Hay this week, Sarah chose Lamb Shanks with Tomato and Rosemary from Modern Classics book I.  I didn't have any rosemary, so I substituted thyme.

I love lamb shanks, but for some reason, they are very exxy here.  Two lamb shanks from Lens in Malvern Central weighing around 500g cost roughly $14.  Ouch!!  I know that I could probably get them a bit cheaper at the market, but it was Sunday afternoon so too late for that, and Woolworths did not have any, nor did they answer my two rings of the butchery bell at their South Yarra store. Luckily, I found that one shank was plenty for a meal for me, so I will get two meals out of it.  Donna recommended eight shanks with 2 shanks per person - I would have been rolling in the aisle.

I loved the thick, rich wine-based gravy that these shanks were cooked in.  Even better, because I only had two shanks, I had enough left in my mini bottle of wine so that I could have a glass of red wine with dinner - bonus!  My wine was Cat Amongst the Pigeons Shiraz.  

Instead of mash, I served my shank with stir fried vegetables.

Kayte is on a break at the moment, but you can see what Sarah, Margaret and Chaya thought on their websites.

Lamb shanks with pumpkin, cranberry and quinoa salad and broccolini with garlic

A couple of weeks ago, I held a dinner party for some close friends at my house.  I have belatedly discovered that my slow cooker is the hostess's friend, as you can get on with doing a myriad of other tasks while dinner looks after itself in the slow cooker.

To take advantage of my slow cooker, I decided to make Lamb Shanks with Cannellini Beans in the slow cooker.  I accompanied them with a pumpkin, cranberry and quinoa salad, for which you can find the recipe here, broccolini poached in chicken stock with garlic, the recipe for which can be found online here.

The recipe for the Lamb Shanks with Cannellini Beans came form one of my newer recipe books, Slow Cooking by Catherine Atkinson (p118).  The sauce is white wine based rather than being based on red wine or tomatoes, but is equally delicious in a different way.  My guests enjoyed lamb shanks cooked this way, and what is even better, once the initial prep is done, you can leave these shanks to cook away while you get on with other things for your guests.

To make these shanks, as well as a slow cooker, you will need:

1 x 400g can cannellini beans, drained (Catherine used dried beans)
4 lamb shanks
2 tablespoons plain flour
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 chopped brown onion
2 sliced cloves garlic
1 sl;iced celery stick
1 sliced carrot
leaves from 2 sprigs rosemary (I used a shake of dried rosemary)
2 bay leaves
175ml white wine
2 tablespoons tomato puree
600ml hot water
salt and pepper

Season the lamb shanks with salt and pepper then coat them in the flour.  Heat the oil in a large fry pan and brown the shanks in the pan until browned on all sides.  Transfer the shanks to your slow cooker.

Add the onion to the pan and cook until golden, then stir in the garlic, celery, carrot, rosemary and bay leaves.

Pour in the wine and allow it to bubble and reduce, then add the tomato paste diluted in the hot water. Bring the micture to the boil, season with salt and pepper, then pour it over the lamb shanks in the slow cooker.

Cook the shanks on high for 4-5 hours, stirring occasionally.  Taste for seasoning before serving.

FFWD - Lamb and Dried Apricot Tagine - Cook's Choice for Food Revolution Day

Today is Cook's Choice for Food Revolution Day for our French Fridays with Dorie group.  Our assignment:  choose a recipe from Around My French Table that you loved (or would love to try, if it’s a recipe we haven’t made yet!) and Cook it. Share it. With family, friends, colleagues.

What is Food Revolution Day?  To quote the website:

Food Revolution Day is a global day of action for people to make a stand for good food and essential cooking skills. It's a chance for people to come together within their homes, schools, workplaces and communities to cook and share their kitchen skills, food knowledge and resources. Food Revolution Day aims to raise awareness about the importance of good food and better food education for everyone by focusing on three simple actions – cook it, share it, live it.


I chose to make Lamb and Dried Apricot Tagine from p284 of Around My French Table.  You can find the recipe to make it in the book, or online here.  The photos below take you step by step through that recipe.

First, you put some dried apricots in chicken stock to plump up:

In the meantime, you brown some cubed lamb shoulder in a little oil on the stovetop:

Next, after removing the lamb from the pan, you cook some chopped onions and garlic in a little more oil:

and add a tin of tomatoes:

After reducing the tomatoes for 10 minutes, you add the chicken stock (sans dried apricots), dried chilli, coriander, saffron, ginger, cumin, cinnamon and two teaspoons of fresh coriander  (if you have it):

Put the meat and dried apricots on top:

cover the pot with alfoil, pop the lid on your pot, and cook the tagine in the oven for an hour.  Add a handful of toasted almonds and cook for another 15 minutes.

Serve and enjoy:

This tagine has a lovely zing to it - if you don't like zing, you can adjust the spices to your taste.  However, the overall flavour is just devine in my view - sweet and savoury and spicy, with soft, melty meat.  I served mine with steamed veges and leftover risotto.

You can find out what the other Dorie cooks made for Food Revolution Day by visiting the LYL section of the FFWD website.

WWDH - Indian Lamb Curry

For Wednesday with Donna Hay this week, I chose Indian Lamb Curry from p100 of Modern Classics I.

The recipe as Donna wrote it did not contain any vegetables, and lots of meat.  I halved the meat and added 500g frozen veges to my curry so that it became a one pot dish.  I served it over boiled rice to suck up all the juices.

When making this, I made the mistake of adding ground spices to the pan, not realising that Donna intended to use non-ground spices, make them pop in the pan and then grind them.  As a result, a burned my spices a bit.  However, I was still really happy with the  finished curry and I would make this again.  Note that it is a fairly mild curry, so if you like it hot, bump up the amount of chilli powder that you add. 

To see what my fellow Donna devotees, Kayte, Margaret and Chaya, thought of this dish, visit their websites on Wednesday US time.

FFwD - Braised Cardamom-Curry Lamb

This week's French Friday with Dorie recipe is Braised Cardamom-Curry Lamb.  As the name suggests, it is lamb cooked with curry powder and ground cardamom, with potatoes, raisins and figs thrown into the mix.

It doesn't look pretty: 

but it was tasty.  I like fruit with my meat - it's the sweet and salty thing.

To see what the other FFwD participants thought, visit the LYL section of the FFwD website. 

Slow Roasted Lamb & Chicken and Borlotti Bean Stew

Happy Friday everyone! It's a good one for me because for the first weekend in ages, I don't have anywhere that I have to be or anything that I have to do. I am looking forward to spending my time tracking down some TWD ingredients which are exotic for Brisbane and to going to a Craft Fair to hopefully pick up some craft bargains (for all that craft that I do in my non-existent spare time, he, he).

To mix things up a bit, I am going to share a couple of main meals that I made recently - my true love is baked goods, but I enjoy cooking a good meal as well.

At the top of this post, I have featured in its uncooked state a leg of lamb that has been marinaded in accordance with Clotilde's recipe for Slow Roasted Shoulder of Lamb rubbed with Rosemary, Anchovy and Lemon Zest. Lamb shoulder is not within the province of my supermarket, so I made do with a leg of lamb. The little seeds you can see are mustard seeds, which I had a hard time buying - I went to three supermarkets before I found some.

I made this lamb when I had some friends over for dinner a little while ago. I have to tell you, this lamb tastes magnificent!!! My lamb marinated for a couple of days, and the flavour in the finished product (which I neglected to photograph) was devine. I served it with beans and jewelled couscous, and it was a hit. I don't like my lamb pink inside (it's an Australian thing), so I pumped up the heat for the last hour or so to ensure that the meat was lightly browned all the way through. Some of you may shudder at this, but I can assure you that it did not take away from the flavour in any way, and my guests seemed appreciative.



The next meal that I will share with you is Chicken and Borlotti Bean Stew. The recipe came under a slightly different name from p140 of the November edition of Australian Good Food. Now I know that you don't want me to bang on about calories, fat etc, as this is after all primarily a baking blog, but this meal is low in both, but still tastes good. The only change that I would have made is to season it with salt and pepper (the recipe is trying to be uber-healthy and doesn't talk about seasoning), but it is both hearty and delicious - a keeper for me.

To make this stew, you will need:

1 tablespoon olive oil
600g halved chicken thigh fillets
1 chopped onion
2 garlic cloves
2 cups (500ml) chicken stock
400g can borlotti beans, drained and rinsed
400g can crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon sage
2 sprigs thyme (I used rosemary 'cause that's what I had)
400g halved baby potatoes

Heat the oil in a wok or deep fry pan, then brown the chicken in batches and set aside.

Cook the onion in the same pan until soft and translucent, then add the garlic and cook until it too is soft. Add the stock, beans, tomatoes, tomato paste, sage and thyme, and bring the stwe to the boil. Add the chicken and potatoes to the pan, reduce te heat, and simmer for 30 minutes or until the potatoes are soft. Serve with salad greens.

Have a great weekend!

Bastille Day - Macarons with White Chocolate and Raspberry Ganache & Hearty Lamb Stew

Ah, France! Doesn't it conjure up images of beautiful, picturesque countryside, the elegance of Paris, the musical language, and of course, wonderful food?

Today is Bastille Day in France, so to mark the occasion, I have made two French-style recipes.

Pictured at the top of this post are macarons with white chocolate and raspberry ganache. I have wanted to make macarons for a very long time, but I have read about how difficult they are to get right (for example, see Duncan's article on Melbourne's "finest"). (For a list of desirable macaron qualities, see this article on Serious Eats.)

I decided to bite the bullet and aim just to make them, rather than for perfection. After all, I have never made them before! And for the record, I think I did OK - it's not Laduree, but it's not bad either. My macarons tasted very good (IMHO), and - best of all - they had feet!! (To read about feet on macarons, which puzzled some of my friends no end, see Helen's terrific article on demystifying macarons in Desserts Magazine.)

I used the recipe for Macarons with White Chocolate and Raspberry Ganache on page 40 of the July 2009 edition of Australian Gourmet Traveller. Interestingly, the recipe said that I would end up with 40 macarons (presumably counting each half as one) - I ended up with 19, so I halved the ganache recipe.

If you would like to take up the macaron challenge, the recipe that I used is as follows:

130g pure icing sugar
110g almond meal (I made my own from blanched almonds)
105g (~2) egg whites left at room temperature overnight*
65g caster sugar (I used granulated sugar - probably made my macarons coarser, but it worked)
4-5 drops pink food colouring (or perhaps more - note that mine are a pale egg shell colour)

(To see why, read Helen's article referenced above. She mentions that you can age them quickly by microwaving them on medium heat for ~10 seconds - but be careful, because I ended up cooking half of my first batch of egg whites.)

Ganache

50ml heavy cream
100g white chocolate
45g raspberries, coarsely chopped

Line baking trays with baking paper.

Put the almond meal and icing sugar in a food processor and pulse until finely ground, then sift into a separate bowl and set aside.

Whisk 90g of egg whites with the whisk attachment of a stand mixer to the soft peak stage (or if you are me, you forget and whisk all of them!) to the soft peak stage. Add the caster sugar in tablespoon batches while continuing to whisk the egg whites, until the mixture is thick and glossy, then beat in the food colouring (if using).

Remove the bowl from the stand mixer, and fold in the almond meal/icing sugar mixture in batches until well combined and the mixture slides down the sides of the bowl. Add the remaining egg white to loosen the mixture (if you remembered to save some!), then spoon the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm plain tip. Pipe 3cm diameter circles onto the paper lined baking trays, leaving 3cm between each one, and tap the trays on the counter to remove air bubbles. Leave the raw macarons to stand for 4-5 hours or until a crust begins to form. (This crust will seal in the heat and cause the "feet" to form at the base of the macaron.)

Preheat your oven to 140 degrees Celsius and bake the macarons in it for 10-12 minutes until they are firm but not coloured. Remove them from the oven and allow them to cool completely on the trays. Use a small flat egg lifter to carefully remove the baked macarons from the trays once cool (or follow Helen's tips for loosening them).

To make the ganache, bring the cream to the boil in a saucepan. Remove the pan from the heat and add the chocolate. Leave the pan to stand for 5 minutes to give the chocolate time to melt, then stir the mixture until it becomes smooth. Refrigerate for about 45 minutes, then stir again until smooth.

Stir the chopped raspberries through the ganache, then spoon one teaspoon of ganache onto one half of the macarons, and spread it out to the edges. Place another macaron on top of each half, then refrigerate the macarons until set. (They keep in the fridge for 1-2 days.)



My other Bastille Day recipe was a Hearty Lamb Stew (Civet d'Agneau). This recipe is from page 314 of On Rue Tatin by Susan Loomis, a delightful autobiography peppered with recipes. The recipe is from Susan's butcher in Louviers, M. Jean-Louis Richard. It is a truly wonderful stew - it is rich and full-flavoured, and smells devine. Susan states that this stew is "an uncommonly delicious treatment for lamb". If that doesn't tempt you, I don't know what will!

My only tip is - be prepared to wait. The meat marinades for 48 hours before cooking (I only had 24 hours up my sleeve), and it rests for an hour outside of the fridge before you begin to cook. You also need to cook the prepared stew for 1 1/4 hours, so this dish is best made over a leisurely weekend.

I altered the recipe by using less meat, correspondingly less wine and garnishing with baby spinach rather than parsley. However, the original recipe is as follows:

1.5kg lamb, diced
750ml red wine
2 dried bay leaves
20 sprigs fresh thyme
20 black peppercorns
3 tablespoons butter
2 carrots, peeled and cut into thin slices
1 onion, cut into thin slices
3 tablespoons plain flour
salt and pepper
1/2 cup parsley for garnishing

Put the lamb in a shallow, non-corrosive casserole dish, and pour over the wine. Add the herbs and peppercorns, mix to combine, then place on the regrigerator to marinade for 48 hours, stirring every now and again.

On cooking day, remove the lamb from the fridge an hour before cooking.

Preheat your oven to 220 degrees Celsius. Remove the lamb from the marinade (which you should reserve) and pat it dry. Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed frypan, and lightly brown the lamb. Remove the lamb from the pan.

In the same pan, cook the carrots and the onions until golden and soft, then remove from the pan.

Still using the same pan, add the flour and cook, stirring, until it becomes golden. Pour the marinade into the pan with the flour, and cook until it thickens into a sauce.

Put the lamb and vegetables back into the casserole dish used for the marinating process. Season with salt and pepper, and pour over the thickened marinade. Cover the casserole dish, then place into the oven to cook for 1-1 1/4 hours.

Remove the cooked stew from the oven and allow it to stand for 5 minutes before sprinkling over the chopped parsley and serving.

I served my stew with mashed potatoes, but you could try a traditional French potato dish in its stead.

I loved this stew - it was thick and rich and delicious, and except for the time factor, I would make it often.

Happy National Celebration to those who are French. Vive la France!

Lamb curry

Christmas is nearly here - I can't believe how quickly the year has flown! I am in the midst of a Christmas baking frenzy, as I am still working on my Christmas boxes, which have to be finished by next weekend. In the meantime, I am juggling that with the usual round of Christmas functions and doing the things that I enjoy doing - oh yeah, and going to work. I have two weeks off very soon, when I will join my family for Christmas - can't wait!

I have posted a lot of sweet things lately, and there will be more (I went through around 2kg of sugar today). However, just to mix things up a bit, I thought I'd post about one of the savoury dishes that I have made recently, which has slightly more nutritional value and is a little healthier than my cakes. This dish is a lamb curry, based on the Sri Lankan pork curry recipe in the November 2008 edition of BBC Australian Good Food magazine. The recipes in this magazine are good because they tell you how evil (or not!) they are at the end of the recipe, and this one is relatively low in fat and calories - I don't think the substitution of lamb would have changed this much. As always, I changed the recipe to match the ingredients that I had rather than going out and buying more.

Regular readers will know that I like a good curry, and I am always keen to try new ones. This one is simple but lovely, being packed with tomatoes and zucchini. I served it with boiled rice. To make it, you need:

2 tablespoons cooking oil
1.5kg pork shoulder, cubed (I used 1kg lamb instead)
1 finely chopped onion
2 crushed cloves garlic
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
3 diced tomatoes
3 zucchini, quartered lenghtways and sliced
1 bunch chopped coriander
salt and pepper
cooked rice to serve

Heat the oil in a frypan, then brown the meat in batchesand set aside. Cook the onion in the frypan for 5 minutes until soft, then add back the meat with the garlic and curry powder. Cook for around a minute, then stir in the stock and the tomatoes. Cover the frypan, reuce the heat and simmer for 1 1/2 hours.

Add the zucchini, and cook the curry for a further ten minutes. Stir through the chooped coriander and season the curry with salt and pepper to taste. Serve on a bed of rice.

Cider and honey roast lamb

Doesn't the picture at the top of this post look good? Yes, indeedy - it sure tasted good. This was cider and honey roast lamb, complete with veges, and is a recipe from none other than Gordon Ramsay in this month's BBC Australian Good Food magazine.

This dish is simple to make, but tastes oh so good. To make it, you will need:

1 leg of lamb, with the fat trimmed and skin scored
cooking oil
3/4 garlic cloves, skin on
fresh thyme
juice of 1/2 lemon
4 apples
500ml apple cider
2 tablespoons honey
300ml chicken stock

Preheat your oven to 220 degrees Celsius. Calculate the cooking time for the lamb (to get it medium like mine, you will need to roast it for 15 minutes per 450g).

Score the fat of the lamb with a knife in a diamond pattern, and spray with oil, and rub with salt and pepper. Spray your roasting pan with oil, and pop in the lamb, then put the garlic and thyme in and around the lamb. Pour the lemon juice over the lamb, then place it in the oven and roast it for 20 minutes.

In the meantime, peel, core and quarter the apples. Take the lamb out of the oven and place the apple pieces around the lamb. Reduce the oven temperature to 180 degrees Celsius and pour the cider over the lamb. Turn the lamb over and drizzle half of the honey over it. Replace the lamb in the oven and roast for a further 30 minutes.

Turn the lamb again, baste it in the pan juices, drizzle over the remaining honey, and roast until the lamb has finished cooking.

Remove the cooked lamb from the oven and cover it with foil to rest. To make gravy for the lamb, press the apples and garlic from the pan with a fork to release their juices, then pour the pan juices into a sieve over a saucepan, and continue to press down on the pan contents so that all jucies are released. After discarding the "flotsom" seived out of the pan juices, bring the pan juices to the boil on the stovetop, then add the stock. Bring the mixture to the boil, and then allow it to simmer until it thickens to the desired consistency. Season the gravy and pour into a jug to serve with the carved lamb.

I cooked roast potatoes, roast pumpkin and peas to accompany my lamb, but you may have whatever you fancy.

One-pot lamb curry & cupcake decorating

Taste.com is an Australian web site which sends out a regular email with affordable, easy recipes, taken from a number of Australian food magazines. One of their recent emails contained this recipe for a one-pot lamb curry. I was particularly attracted to it because it contained mostly ingredients that I had to hand, including risoni pasta. The end result is pictured at the top of this post.

While this was a pleasant enough dish, it wasn't outstanding, and didn't pack the punch that I would have liked. However, if you have some leftover lamb that you would like to use up, this dish is a good way to do so, as it contains pantry cupboard staples like pasta, canned tomatoes, stock and curry powder. It is also simple and fuss-free to prepare, as it simply involves adding ingredients to a baking dish at three separate intervals over a one hour cooking period, then leaving it to do its own thing.

On a totally different subject, this weekend, I attended a cupcake decorating class at the William Angliss Institute of TAFE. Over 2 days, each member in our class of 11 each decorated 24 cupcakes, starting with basic techniques and working up to more difficult designs featuring piped dahlias and roses. Our teacher, Greg Williams, showed the class how to work with fondant, fudge icing, buttercream, ganache and royal icing. The class also made fudge icing from scratch, and learned certain points of cake baking theory. Our base cakes were made for us, and comprised of pre-mix sponge, traditional sponge, orange madeira and chocolate madeira cakes.

Here are the fruits of my day 1 labours:

And here are the results of day 2:

It was really a fun class. Some things worked better for me than others, and not everything that we did was to my personal taste. However, I learned some great techniques to build on the cake decorating classes that I did earlier in the year. Because some of the techniques were repeated in the cupcake class, I had the opportunity to improve on them and "clicked" on a couple of piping techniques that I didn't quite get earlier. I also was able to use my parchment piping bag skills learned in the cake decorating class to my advantage, as quite a few people had as much trouble as I did in initially learning how to make one - and we needed to make many bags for this class.

Hopefully, I will get a chance to practise and build on these techniques for future cake projects.

Roast lamb with almonds; lamb giouvetsi

I recently had my friends Charet and Marco over for Sunday lunch. For dessert, I served my Daring Bakers Opera Cake. However, for the main meal, I served roast lamb - but not just any old roast lamb. I marinated my lamb using a recipe by Karen Martini from Where the Heart Is.

The marinade gave the lamb an interesting flavour which made it a little more special than if I had just roasted it in the oven seasoned with salt and pepper. Although I personally would have cooked the lamb for longer than recommended by Karen (as I found it too rare for my taste), I enjoyed this dish, and my guests said they did too.

To make this lamb dish, you will need:

2kg boned leg of lamb
fresh basil
fresh oregano
2 bay leaves
8 cloves peeled garlic
1/2 cup vegetable oil
zest and juice of 2 lemons
1/2 cup almond meal
salt and pepper

Put the basil, oregano, bay leaves and garlic in a food processor and blitz until chopped up finely. Add half the oil, the zest and salt and pepper to taste, and blitz until well combined. Finally, add the almond meal and blitz, then place the mixture into a bowl. Stir through the other half of the oil and the lemon juice.

Score the fat on the lamb with a knife, then rub the marinade all over the lamb. Place in a plastic bag and allow to marinate overnight in the refrigerator.

The next day, preheat your oven to 230 degrees Celsius, and bake the lamb in the oven for 25 minutes. Turn down the heat to 180 degrees Celsius, and continue to bake the lamb for at least another half an hour (or if you like your lamb cooked more than medium rare, bakeit for longer).

Once the lamb is cooked, remove it from the oven and allow it to rest for about 20 minutes before carving. I served it with baked potatoes, pumpkin, parsnips and carrots seasoned with salt, pepper and oil, and twice cooked beans in tomato sauce.

One of the problems that you have with a large piece of meat and only three people is that you have a lot of meat left over. For a couple of nights, I was content to continue to eat roast lamb. However, I soon became quite sick of the same thing every night. That is when Peter of Kalofagas came to the rescue with his recipe for lamb giouvetsi. Hooray!

If you would like to make your own lamb giouvetsi, you can find the recipe here on Peter's site.




I had all of the ingredients except for the pasta, which I picked up at the grocery store. Unfortunately, my grocery store does not sell Greek pasta (orzo), but I figured that risoni would be very similar, so this is what I used. It also does not sell Greek cheese, so I used grated cheddar. My final variation was to use vegetable stock instead of lamb stock, because I had a huge carton of it in the cupboard that I bought in a fit of false enthusiasm for a risotto that never was.

Finally, I wanted to show off my wedding gift for Charet and Marco that I completed when I wasn't cooking, blogging or off on some other project. It is the largest single piece of cross stitch that I have completed to date. As you can see from the date on this piece, Charet and Marco were married about a month ago, and I bought them a bottle of French bubbly to enjoy on the big day. However, I only finished sewing this last night after about 2 months of on and off work. It took much longer than I anticipated - when I finished the cross stitch, I hadn't counted on how much back stitch there was, and how long it would take me to complete it.

There are a few mistakes in this piece where I wandered from the pattern, but you can't tell from looking at it (relief!). However, it was not a good idea to go off on a tangent, simply because it made everything harder as I could no longer follow the pattern exactly. As a result, I had to take a fair bit of artistic licence by following the picture on the packaging to complete the piece. I have now mounted and framed this piece, and intend to give it to the happy couple when I next see them. I hope that they like it!

A fragrant dish - lamb tagine

Once again, I am posting about a savoury dish that I found on another blog. This time, I made a delicious looking lamb tagine from Antonia at Food, Glorious Food, who in turn obtained it from her friend Joni. When Antonia mentioned that she hates Moroccan food (primarily because she is repulsed by fruit and meat together), but that she loved this tagine so much that not only did she eat it, but she made it for herself, I was sold! And I wasn't disappointed when I tried it myself.

You will find the recipe for this tagine here. It contains lamb, dried apricots, canned tomatoes, garlic, onion and a blend of spices similar to Ras el Hanout (which is what I actually used instead), and is garnished with coriander. I served mine with boiled rice, and like Antonia, I really enjoyed it. I would definitely make this tagine again (unlike the fairly lacklustre lamb tagine I had made the week before from a Moroccan cookbook).

Thanks to Antonia (and Joni!) for this recipe.

Braised lamb

Braised lamb II
Originally uploaded by Cakelaw

I love the September 2007 edition of Cuisine, which is full of delicious citrus recipes. A savoury dish which caught my eye is Braised Lamb with Preserved Lemon and Lemon Coriander Jam on page 70.

I didn't have preserved lemons, and wasn't going to make the lemon coriander jam. However, the braised lamb itself was delicious, like a thick, rich stew made on the stove top.

The dish comprises lamb, onion, celery, carrot, garlic, ginger, lemon peel, potatoes and spinach leaves, flavoured with turmeric, coriander and beef stock. I substituted diced lamb shoulder for lamb stir fry, preserved lemon peel with fresh lemon zest, coriander seeds with fresh coriander, and spinach leaves with baby spinach leaves. Despite these substitutions, made on the pragmatic basis of what I had in the cupboard, I was very happy with the result.

This dish was served with boiled rice, and made a very satisfying winter meal.