Roast leg of lamb with garlic and rosemary

My lovely butcher took out the socket and bone and tied up the meat with string. But whether boned or not the method is roughly the same.



Leg of lamb
Garlic
Olive Oil
Rosemary
Sea salt
Lemons

Squeeze two lemons and reserve juice.
In a pestle and mortar pound together a small handful of fresh rosemary, 3 garlic cloves, sea salt, lemon juice and a tablespoon of olive oil.
Take a sharp knife and make quite deep slices all over the lamb.

Tomatoe and basil salad

Ingredients

Tomatoes - mixed
Basil
Garlic
Olive Oil

I got a selection of tomatoes - red cherry, yellow cherry and red plum - to give a bit of variety.

Slice the tomatoes up thinly and spread out on a plate. Chop up the basil and add to a spoonful of olice oil. Some folks like to leave the dressing like that - I like to add a crushed clove of garlic. Pound in pestle and mortar for a minute or so. Drizzle over the tomatoes, cover, and let it stand for 30 mins before serving so that the flavours develop. Season with salt and pepper if you like. And soak up any lovely juices left over with bread.

Easter Sunday Dinner (2)

The menu is as follows:

Starter



Matzo
Tomatoe and basil salad
Boiled egg slices
Houmous



Main
Roast leg of lamb with garlic and rosemary
Roast potatoes
Roast veggies (carrot, parsnip, shallots)
Broccoli
Gravy

Pudding
Strawberries in balsamic vinegar

You can link to the recipes!!!

Easter Sunday Dinner (1)

Today I kicked off not by stuffing my face full of chocolate but by having a wee morning bike ride - so that when the chocolate eating commences I can feel I have earned it!

This years Easter Sunday Dinner I am trying out roasting a leg of lamb. I am also fusing passover and Easter Sunday traditions by having a starter that uses matzo alongside a tomatoe basil salad and houmous and, if I get the time, boiled egg slices. Not quite a scorched egg but it will do. For pudding I am doing strawberries in balsamic vinegar served with cream fraiche and, because you can't have too much chocolate, a chocolate cake (Granny McCall's recipe) decorated with chocolate buttons.

The chocolate buttons themselves are pretty special as they are chocolate copies of vintage buttons produced by Hotel Chocolat a company that makes gourmet chocolate.




Anyway - I will post up the recipes separately else this will turn into a very long post.

A Day of Healthy Eating

I have been indulging a lot on the food front recently - what with work being so busy and visits to my sister food has been something of a 'reward' mechanism! So with a couple of days off I decided to get myself sorted with some balanced fuel and get back on the straight and narrow food-wise. So today I had a yoghurt for breakfast, crudites and dip and a pear for lunch, and a large baked potatoe with my special tuna recipe. I also had a banana after going to the gym! So I feel extra chuffed with myself. And, apart from that mid-afternoon wobble I always get, when chocolate seems to be crucial to my survival, I haven't felt hungry or craved. I reckon if I can manage to do this over the next few days I will be able to manage my cake and chocolate cravings better next week at work. I like to treat myself on weekends but lately that has crept into the working week - not good! And as it affects my health - and I don't want sore joints and muscles and wierded out skin for spring - I have a powerful incentive! I love my food and baking and cooking make me really happy - but balance is a good thing too.

The Kitchen Table and the First Lady's biceps

The Kitchen Table isn't a blog about food exactly - food for thought yes though - it is a blog run by two feminist profs in the USA and they talk about racial and feminist issues by writing letters to each other through the blog.

I found the site through a really cool blog called First Guns where the writer(s)blog as Michelle Obama's biceps, Thunder and Lightening - it is a fantastic satirical take on the whole 'scandal' that the First Lady has arms that sometimes are on show (which is obviously the most shocking thing ever - flashing upper arm flesh - whatever next!).

Morph Lives!

Except apparently he is living on!

Morph

I don't know why but today I was thinking about the programmes I liked as a kid and my favourite was Tony Hart in anything he did - then I remembered he died recently and there will be no more him or Morph! I loved Morph - here is a pic -

A blokie who does craft

And here is a guy who does crafty things - not so sure about the cross-stitch tattoos though....

Crafty bits

Browsing the Guardian website I found an article about a woman who inherited a button collection and, after wondering what to do with them, embellished t-shirts with them - which I thought looked great. In reading the comments and doing a bit of surfing I found the following...

A table-top made out of buttons -


A scarf embellished with buttons -


A cool website called spinstersemporium that sells vintage fabrics and buttons and has ideas for crafty type stuff.

And the website of the woman who wrote the original article 'make and do with perri'.

R.I.P Blue Bowl

A while ago I blogged about those special kitchen items that are more than just objects to be used and instead develop a special place in a cooks heart. I have a wee jug that is just perfect for measuring rice, a wooden spoon that is the right size for making one bowl of porridge in a small pot with and I have a battered old tablespoon that I use over my fancy shiny set of measuring spoons for baking.

One item that was very special to me was my lovely wee blue pottery bowl. Well, it is no more. The husband broke it (and he looked a bit scared when he told me) when I was away in Warwick visiting my sister. My blue bowl was great for my cereal or porridge in the morning, for serving my homemade arbroath smokie pate and for a wee bowl of crisps when watching a film.



I have lots of lovely dishes and some a lot more costly than I imagine the wee blue bowl was, but it was very much a favourite. I am sure psychologists would have a field day with how attached I can get to random objects but when I open the cupboard door and see that blue bowl shaped space - well, I guess I will just have to seek out another wee pottery bowl to take its place.