The Perfect Hamburger

Well I was going to do a vegetarian tapas thing this week. Honestly, I promise I was. But I have to work part of the Bank Holiday weekend so we have decided to treat ourselves to tapas out on Sunday night to make up for it. And although I seem to be craving a holiday in Spain (I've never been) tapas two nights running seemed excessive. So another day I will do a veggie extravaganza and make my own tortilla and buy manchego and make a couple of lovely salads etc.

I decided to go to the other extreme and make burgers. This wasn't supposed to be a fancy dinner, just a Friday night tea, so you might find it all a bit less hard work than usual. 

NB. There seems to be an unintentional American theme in these last two posts, I'm not sure why.

Burgers:

I have an enduring memory of reading “The Perfect Hamburger” by Alexander McCall Smith with my mum when I was wee. I loved it, and I asked my mum if we could make the perfect hamburger. My mum's a primary school teacher, and it turns out when she read this book to her class, they'd all made burgers afterwards. She had the mince ready, that night we made our own burgers for tea. Anyway, enough reminiscing, in all seriousness my burger recipe today will not differ wildly from the one I made with my mum when I was about seven. Two things I have decided to add are: some very finely chopped streaky bacon to give it an extra layer of fat and salt (healthy) and some finely chopped fried onion to add a bit of sweetness.

First, shove on your oven to preheat for your wedges. They'll take half an hour, so they want to be in the oven before you put your burgers on.

Finely chop and fry on a low heat in a little butter to soften. Let it cool a bit. Take a load of mince (I had about 400g for three big meaty burgers... too much really) add the onion, some very finely chopped unsmoked streaky bacon (I had three rashers) and an egg. Mix it up with plenty pepper. If it's a bit wet add some breadcrumbs. (Take the end bit of your normal loaf that never gets eaten, blitz in food processor, you've got nice fresh breadcrumbs) I've read recipes that say absolutely no to the egg, but it helps it stick together. And my mum always added egg. It doesn't taste of egg, so I have no problem with it. Anyway, mix it all together with your hands, or if you don't like touching raw meat a spoon, but it makes life much more difficult.

Heat up your griddle pan to a medium-high heat. Shape them into really fat burger shapes, as you want them to be quite thick so they don't dry out. Rub some oil on the outside of them, and salt the outside. And griddle. Put them on then turn down immediately to a medium heat, and don't touch them for at least five minutes. Turn them as little as possible, and cook for about 7-10 minutes on each side, depending on the size of your burger. You want a nice crust on the outside (that's where the flavour is). If you want to put cheese on, put it on when you've just flipped them. You might need to stick it under the grill to melt it properly for the last thirty seconds. 

Put it aside to rest for a few minutes while you shove your rolls on the griddle to soak up any remaining juices and get a bit crispy.

Potato Wedges:

You see this is almost a healthy meal, as we're not having chips. It feels a bit ridiculous putting a recipe up for potato wedges. (Cut potatoes into wedges, add stuff you like, shove in oven) Here goes anyway.

Cut potatoes into wedges. Toss in sunflower/vegetable oil (don't bother with nice fancy olive oil, there's not much point. Season really generously, and shake over some paprika and chilli flakes. Shove in oven at 180 degrees for about half an hour, or until cooked. It depends how fat your wedges are.

If you want to speed this process up, you can parboil the wedges, then add the oil and seasoning and whatnot, then shove in the oven for 15 – 20 minutes, or as long as it takes to cook a frozen pizza. (ahem.) 

Serve the whole thing with salad, and top with anything you like, I like mustard and ketchup. Joe hates mustard. Add gherkins if you're a fan of things that are pickled, etc. The home made coleslaw from last week's post would, of course, have been brilliant with this. (see here: http://tinyurl.com/ck2mahj) but I'd done that. Plus we struggled to eat an entire cabbage worth of the stuff this week, so I've gone and bought coleslaw from the shop.

It's not fancy, but it is lovely. In all the meals I've cooked and blogged, Joe seemed the most delighted with this one. Seriously.

A picture so good I put it in twice (didn't take many pictures)

In other news: I have just read an article which says that British asparagus season is delayed. I'm gutted. The shops are still full of Peruvian stuff. I'm hoping this will change soon as I love asparagus. Click on the link to the right for some of last year's asparagus season cooking. Maybe when I'm doing my veggie tapas feast I'll do something with asparagus too...

Sort of ribs, slaw, stuffed skins and corn.

Hello. It’s been a long time since I last updated it, and I’ve genuinely missed my blog. I’m sorry for my absence (in case any of you missed it!) But it has been an absolutely insane few months. 

To summarise I have:

• Got a new job
• Left the old job
• Gone on holiday to Berlin, eaten lots of pork and drank a lot of beer
• Lived in someone else’s house in London for three weeks (thanks Lisette!)
• Started a new job
• Moved back to Leeds
• Found a house, packed up a house and moved to Manchester all in the space of a week

You know, amongst other things. So my culinary inspiration has been low. I have managed to make normal food and real meals more often than not, but it hasn’t been new or interesting or novel, it’s been something that I’ve made before and is probably on this blog already. (or it has been a stir fry. I've had a lot of them)

So I had to ask for help for this one. When asked what kind of meat I should buy for this weekend, my other half said “It’s a while since we’ve had a chicken” and that wasn’t what I was looking for. I wanted to cook something different and that I don’t cook all the time. I asked a friend for inspiration for what to do with beef, as I hardly ever cook beef and she suggested Beef Short Ribs. (suggested reading, her blog http://megabekatron.com/) Finally I was getting inspired. I started to think about home-made coleslaw with chilli and coriander. And corn on the cob, with butter. And salads. And potato wedges? Or stuffed skins? Oh, the list is endless. Brilliant. 

You've got to have time for this, although there isn't that much to do and it's not difficult it just takes absolutely ages. Lazy rainy Saturday afternoon ought to do it. 

Beef Ribs, with stuffed potato skins, corn and coleslaw.

Cue lots of confused conversations with my butcher (have found a new butcher now I've moved). Lots. Short ribs is an American name for the cut, and we talked at cross purposes for much of the week, and I'm still pretty sure I don't have short ribs, but you know what? There's meat, there's bone and sod it I might as well just give it a good go. 

Some recipes advocate boiling them first to help keep them tender. I thought this seemed like a good idea as surely the by-product is basically stock? I could always use stock, and lovely beef stock would make an amazing soup. 

So I put the big hunks of rib into a pot with two chopped onions, some celery and a few cloves of peeled garlic as well as some bay leaves, peppercorns and salt. I then just covered with water and simmered for about an hour, occasionally skimming scum off the top. 

I didn't take any photos of this, because it has scum. That's not very photogenic. 

In the mean time shove some potatoes in the oven to bake. And you can probably make your coleslaw at this point too... the recipes are below.

For the marinade: 

Rub the cooled ribs with some cumin, coriander, paprika, salt and pepper. Cover and put in the oven for an hour at about 160 degrees. 

Big hunks of meat rubbed with spices

I mixed two tablespoons of tomato puree, one tablespoon of soy sauce (ours is really good dark stuff from the Chinese supermarket, use more if it's not), two tablespoons honey, and three tablespoons of bourbon. Mix thoroughly with a good pinch of salt, some chilli flakes and salt and pepper. And a splodge of ketchup. Thoroughly coat the ribs in that, then put them back in the oven covered for another hour. 

Uncover them for the last half hour, then whack up the heat to 200 for the last 15 minutes. Add a bit of water to the pan if they look like they're getting dry.

Potato skins

Once your potatoes are baked take them out of the oven and let them cool for a bit. Then cut them in half, scoop out the insides and mix with spring onion and cheese, and salt and pepper.

Put the mix back in the potato skins and put in the oven for half an hour. You could pile more cheese on top, and this is hardly a healthy meal, but I decided enough was enough. Serve with a big dollop of sour cream.

 NB. if you weren't having such a ridiculously meaty meal you could fry/grill some bacon and add to these.

Coleslaw

Mix two big teaspoonfuls of good quality mayo with some lemon juice. You could make your own mayonnaise, but I had enough to be getting on with. I have done it in the past though, look! 

Slice some white cabbage, a carrot and a red onion as finely as you can. (I ended up grating the carrot) A mandolin would be good for this, but I don't own one. It's on the list of things I covet for my kitchen, but the other half thinks I'm being ridiculous. 

Mix it all together with the mayo, a handful of finely chopped coriander, and some finely chopped chilli. Season. 

Boil your corn in plenty of salted water, then toss it in some butter. And you're there.

This is not a healthy meal. And it's not really the meal I was intending to make, and it was the wrong cut of beef, but my word it was tasty and tender. As usual I made far too much, but I'm going to shred the rest of the meat and have it in sandwiches with leftover coleslaw with some leaves.

Whilst making this I was mostly listening to: Giles Peterson on 6music. Good stuff.

This week's soup: will be something involving beef stock. Suggestions welcome.

Soup recipes

One of my work colleagues is very pregnant (actually a couple of them are), and wants to start filling her freezer with soup for when the baby comes along. I said I'd cobble together some recipes for her and here's the result! I thought I might as well put them up as a bonus post - enjoy! Sorry for the lack of pictures.

All of these can be changed depending on how you like them! Just keep tasting them and season with salt and pepper. All should freezable. All use chicken or veg stock – and the amount stated is just a rough guide. Add a bit more or less if you think it needs to be thicker/thinner. If you don't have a hand blender I'd suggest getting a cheap one from the supermarket, they're a godsend! And if you get one with a little bowl attachment you'll never have to chop ginger and chilli again.

Leek and potato

• peel and slice about five decent sized potatoes
• chop and rinse about 3 or 4 leeks (depends on the size of them)
• fry leeks on a low heat with a chopped onion in some butter and a touch of normal cooking oil
• put in the potatoes and stir around for a couple of minutes
• add a pint and a half of stock (chicken or veg)
• add a splash of milk
• season with salt and pepper
• when the potatoes are soft, add a splash of cream and blitz with a hand blender until smooth

Curried carrot and lentil

• chop an onion and two cloves of garlic and three or four good sized carrots
• fry over a low heat in a little oil
• add half a teaspoon of curry powder and a quarter of a teaspoon of ground cumin. (if you don't have any cumin use a little bit more curry powder instead)
• rinse two handfuls of red lentils and add to the pan with one and a half pints of stock.
• Season it, then when the carrots are cooked and the lentils soft use the hand blender to blitz it

Spicy butternut squash

• you'll need a big sharp knife for this. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees, quarter the squash and scoop out the seeds. Drizzle a little oil over and season them. Shove in the oven for about half an hour or until it's soft.
• Meanwhile fry on a low heat an onion, two cloves of garlic and a chilli (all roughly chopped). You could also use a bit of peeled, grated ginger if you can be bothered. Add a pint of stock.
• Let the butternut squash cool a bit once it's cooked, then take all the flesh out and add to the onion and stock etc. (if there's still a few bits of skin it doesn't really matter, you'll blitz it anyway and it won't do you any harm.
• Add a tin of coconut milk. Blitz. You could add a squeeze of lime juice and some chopped coriander at the end if you wanted to.
• FOR A NON SPICY VERSION: don't use chilli and ginger, don't add coconut milk but use more stock and a touch of cream.

Mushroom

• chop an onion and a clove of garlic and fry over a low heat in a little butter.
• Slice a packet and a half of mushrooms. The normal size from the supermarket. Add to the pan and fry for a few minutes
• add a pint of stock and a touch of milk
• after it's bubbled away for about half an hour the mushrooms should be done
• add a touch of cream and blitz

Turkish lentil

Had this in Istanbul and loved it, so came home and worked out the recipe. It sounds weird but it's really nice.

• fry a finely chopped onion over a low heat in some butter. Add a pinch of chilli flakes and three quarters of a teaspoon of paprika. (chilli flakes optional)
• rinse four or five handfuls of red lentils and add them to the pan along with two handfuls of bulgur wheat and a good squidge of tomato puree
• stir around for a minute or two, then add a pint and a half of stock. Season
• give it a good stir to make sure its not stuck to them bottom then cover and simmer on a low heat until the lentils are cooked.
• Add the juice of half a lemon and a good teaspoonful of dried mint.

Minestrone-ish

Minestrone can be anything with some veggies in it. I tend to make it to use up any old veg I have lying around. You can add anything you like to it. The only problem is because you don't blitz it takes a bit more time to chop it finely! Here's one version:

• Fry some bacon pieces, lardons or chopped bits of bacon
• Add a finely chopped onion, a clove of garlic or two and a couple of sticks of celery over a low heat.
• Add some finely chopped carrots and a tin of rinsed borlotti beans. (could also add some chopped mushrooms?)
• add a pint and a half of stock, season
• bubble away till all the vegetable are nearly cooked, then add some frozen peas and about three handfuls of fresh spinach. After a couple of minutes it should be done – you don't want the spinach and peas to be on for too long.

For a different version – add a tin of tomatoes too. You can add pasta bits but it won't freeze too well. Could add chopped parsley and basil at the end too.

Tomato and basil

• fry a chopped onion, chopped celery and garlic.
• Add two tins of tomatoes
• add a pint of stock, bubble away for twenty minutes
• add a touch of cream
• season, then blitz
• add some finely chopped basil

If you happen to have the rind bit of some parmesan kicking around put that in when you add the stock and let it bubble away for twenty minutes then fish it out. Sounds weird, but adds a nice savouriness to it.

Chicken and vegetable (add any other veg you want – spinach or peas are good to add at the end) – Make it with less stock and it'll be like a stew

• finely chop an onion, some celery, a couple of cloves of garlic and fry on a low heat
• add two decent sized potatoes and a carrot, peeled and diced. (when these cook and break down they'll thicken the soup a bit)
• add a pint and a half of stock. Season
• add a tin of sweetcorn (drained)
• put two whole raw chicken breasts in. Cover, turn the heat right down and let it simmer for about twenty minutes
• after this time the chicken should be cooked, so take it out and let it cool slightly before shredding/chopping and adding back to the soup.

Comfort food on a snowy Sunday

Winter has finally arrived. It's at least a month late. But no matter, I kind of love snow! It makes everything pretty. We went for a walk and were beaten about by the snow on Saturday for a few hours and it was great. We then went into town at night, ate Persian food for the first time (amazing), and sat in window seats in pubs sipping ale and looking out at it. Brilliant.

It's comfort food time. Today's tasty comfort food is: slow cooked duck legs with celeriac gratin and heaps of veg.

I've never cooked duck legs before, they were on offer a while ago and I bought them and shoved them in the freezer. As usual I looked up loads of recipes then ignored them.

In fact, I've never cooked celeriac gratin before, but I decided we've had a hell of a lot of mash recently and wanted something different.

We even had a vegetable I'd never cooked before, cavolo nero, which I just steamed like it was kale, then added some butter and pepper. (Actually too much pepper, as our pepper mill broke and it ended up covered in whole peppercorns. I managed to pick most of them off.)

Duck legs braised in red wine:

For the duck legs heat up a pan nice and hot, if possible use one that can go straight in the oven. Season the duck legs then shove them in the pan skin side down for a few minutes. You want a good colour on them. Brown them on the other side too, then remove from the pan.

Pour away a lot of the fat from the pan – duck is a fatty meat – then fry off a chopped onion and a couple of chopped cloves of garlic. Add some thyme, then pour in half a bottle of red wine. I then added a grating of nutmeg and a couple of bay leaves. I also chucked in a handful of mixed berries from the freezer. This might sound odd, but lots of recipes I read called for redcurrant jelly or similar and we don't have any of that in because the other half doesn't like it.

Shove the duck legs back in the pan, season then put a lid on and shove it in the oven at about 170 degrees. It'll be in there for about two hours, uncover it after the first hour.

Celeriac Gratin:

Peel and slice a celeriac as finely as you can. Do the same with a couple of potatoes and an onion, then layer it all up in a dish with salt and pepper. Take a small tub of cream, and top it up with some milk to make it up to about half a pint. Pour it over the vegetables and dot some butter on the top. 

Shove it in the oven for a good hour. I think I would normally do it on a higher heat for slightly less time, but the oven was already set at 170 for the duck! 

 The gravy:

When the duck is ready it will have gone all sticky and lovely. Take the duck legs out and put the sauce back on the heat, then add some chicken stock and let it reduce for a little while. Without this step it would be incredibly tasty but SO rich, and you wouldn't have as much gravy. Strain the sauce through a sieve, then put back on the heat and put the duck legs back in to warm through. 

This was seriously good. There are a few things I would maybe do differently; I think the celeriac gratin would have been nice with some garlic through it, and if you were having it with meat that's not so rich I'd put some parmesan on top. I wouldn't throw a load of whole peppercorns over my cavolo nero, as that was annoying. But in general this was really good in a “pick up bones and gnaw on them” kind of way. And I have a good wedge of celeriac gratin for my tea at work tonight, which is much better than a ready meal.

This week's soup: Spicy butternut squash. It's a good 'un. I'm currently compiling a big list of soup recipes for someone from work, so I'll put them up as a bonus blog post one of these days. 

 

I love haggis.

Let's be honest, Burns Night is the first excuse for excessive eating and drinking after Christmas. You've spent all of January skint, trying to lose weight and breaking resolutions, and by the time it gets to the 25^th you're sick of all that and it's time to just sack it off and gorge again. With this in mind, I decided to invite some friends round for a Burns Supper. Despite the fact I'm Scottish, I couldn't promise tartan, pipers or poems, but I made sure there was plenty of food and drink available. Rabbie would've been proud.

There were oats in every course, and whisky in two of them.

In a traditional-ish menu we had:

• Smoked mackerel pate with oatcakes (I decided cock-a-leekie soup was too boring)
• Haggis, neeps and tatties with a whisky cream sauce. (Except I added other root veg to the neeps)
• Sort of Cranachan

I prepared the starter and pud in the morning, then went out for the afternoon.

Smoked Mackerel Pate.

The pate is ridiculously easy. It would be even easier if I had a full sized blender, but as it is I had to do each mackerel fillet individually. I figured as I was serving them in individual ramekins, there's no harm done. For each fillet, add a teaspoonful of crème fraiche, a teaspoonful of cream cheese, the juice of a quarter of a lemon, and some pepper. Then blitz. Done. I served it with some token salad and some oatcakes. I didn't make those myself, life's too short.

Haggis, neeps and tatties.

Cook the haggis according to the instructions on the packet. We got MacSweens. It was ace. I'm debating going and eating the leftovers of it right now to see if it'll cure my hangover.

Peel your spuds and boil in plenty of salted water. Peel and cube a turnip. If you're English you will probably call it a swede. Once the turnip has boiled for five minutes, add carrots and parsnips. You don't have to, but I find neeps a bit boring on their own, but love mixed root veg mash.

Drain your spuds and let them steam off in the collander for five minutes before mashing/ricing with plenty of butter, milk and a touch of cream.

Mash your veg with plenty of butter. And serve. It's not the prettiest dish, but it is nice. 

Not a great picture - it's not pretty food!

For the sauce I made some lamb stock. You absolutely don't have to bother with this, just use some chicken or lamb stock cubes but I happened to have some lamb bones kicking around in the freezer. Add to this some whisky, some cream and salt and pepper and reduce down. When it's done, add some chopped chives. 

Cranachan.

 

Traditionally this is a blend of cream, oats, whisky, honey and raspberries. However, it's not raspberry season, so they're really expensive. I opted for buying one small pack of raspberries, and buying some frozen berries too to turn into a coulis. I did this first thing, by boiling up half a bag of frozen berries, a couple of tablespoons of whisky, and a few of honey. Add a drop of water, then pass it through a sieve to get rid of the seeds. 

Amazing colour!

Toast your oats in a frying pan over a lowish heat. Do this really slowly, because if they burn even a little bit they're ruined and they cranachan will taste rubbish. If they do burn just start again. Oats are cheap it's fine.

Now whip up some cream until it's in soft peaks, stir through three tablespoons of honey, three of whisky, your raspberries and toasted oats.

Then layer it up in some glasses. I don't have the right sized glasses for this, so it looks a little odd but still good. 

Now you've made all that, eat it with friends, drink loads of whisky and talk rubbish for hours.

Wake up with a terrible hangover, and a kitchen that still looks like this even after half an hours cleaning effort:

Whilst eating this we mostly listened to: our entire vinyl collection and discussed it drunkenly at great length.

Using my Christmas presents: Slow cooked beef shin and mash.

Happy New Year! Hope you've all had a lovely one. I was in the Highlands. Can't lose really!

I don't really believe in New Year's resolutions. It's January, it's cold, and therefore it is not the time for diets. To be honest, I've never been on a diet in my life, I love food too much. I eat pretty healthily and don't have a sweet tooth (the recipes on here are the ones I make as a treat at the weekend). I admit, I could try and sort out my crisp and wine intake a bit more... but ah well. Life's too short. And now is the time of year for comfort food.

As well as this, I got some cracking Christmas presents which mean I absolutely have to make lovely stodgy food! We now own a Le Creuset casserole dish and I'm very excited! Plus I got a potato ricer, and they're supposed to make the best mash ever.

However, we are on a January budget... so it's time for cheap cuts of meat. I went to the butcher and bought a pound and a half of beef shin for a fiver. Brilliant. It does mean it has to cook for ages, but that's all the better as it left me with a lovely lazy Sunday afternoon.

Preheat your oven to 150 degrees.

First, get your butcher to cut your beef into casserole sized pieces (or do so yourself) and toss it in a little bit of seasoned flour. Get some oil nice and hot in your pan (either a big casserole dish that can go on your hob or a large saucepan) and fry the meat off a couple of pieces at a time. Don't do it all at once as it'll steam, you want lovely brown sticky bits at the bottom of the pan. 

You want it WELL browned. (Although not burned, obviously)

Put the meat to one side, then fry off a couple of sliced onions and some sliced celery. I also fried off a load of halved mushrooms, to make the cheap meat stretch even further, but this is optional. You could add root veg if you want? But I didn't want the sweetness of carrots or anything, I want this to be really rich and savoury. While it's frying use your wooden spoon to scrape up the brown stuff from the bottom of the pan – that's pure flavour.

Once everything has fried down nicely and picked up some of the colour from the bottom of the pan put the meat back in and stir in a couple of tablespoons of tomato puree. Whack up the heat and pour in as much red wine as you're willing to spare, about half a bottle for us! Then top up with some water or beef stock. You want the meat to be just about covered. Shove in a few bay leaves and some thyme, then season well. Put a lid on (or decant it into an oven proof dish, then put a lid on) then put in the oven for ages. I reckon about three hours should do the trick. Check it regularly to make sure it's not drying out, and add more water if you think it's getting low. You could also put some tin foil directly on top of the casserole underneath the lid to help contain the liquid if you're really worried about it drying out.

Mash: Peel your spuds and chop into fairly big chunks. (if they're too small they soak up more water; no one wants watery mash) Boil in salted water.

My latest trick with mashed potato (whether you have a ricer or standard masher) is to leave the potatoes sitting in the collander for five minutes after they're cooked. It stops them from being too watery as they drain more thoroughly, but more importantly give off loads of steam and dry out a bit. This isn't groundbreaking stuff, I probably saw it on the telly, but it really does make a difference.

While they're doing that, heat your butter and a little drop of milk over a low heat, and season it. Then either tip your spuds back in and get mashing, or send them through the ricer straight into the pan.

Serve with bloody great piles of veg. Delicious. The rest of this is going in a pie.

This weeks soup: Sort of potato and bacon. It's an interpretation of a Simon Hopkinson recipe which made me realise all my chives have died in the winter. It's cheap as chips and surprisingly tasty (even without the chives):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/potato_soup_with_soured_27576

Whilst making this I was mostly listening to: Lots of stuff. After all it was in the oven for three hours. But it included Laura Marling and Bon Iver.

Having the folks round for dinner – the full three courses.

I admit, to me, having people round for dinner is just an excuse to spend the day in the kitchen listening to music and cooking. So when we had my mum and dad round last night that's exactly what I did. The great thing about this meal was that loads of it could be prepared in advance, and then it was just a case of shoving in the oven for a while and forgetting about it.

The menu:

- Piedmontese peppers with home made bread

- Slow roasted shoulder of lamb with mash, gravy, roasted vegetables and something green

- Chocolate mousse (Make this first!)

The starter:

Obviously if you're making this you don't have to have home made bread, I just fancied making some on Friday. See here for bread making:

http://idontjustmakesoup.blogspot.com/2011/07/rosemary-and-olive-bread.html

For the peppers just cut a load of peppers in half, take out the seeds and put some finely chopped garlic in. Season, then put in a load of peeled tomatoes. Shove in as many as you can fit in.

(to peel tomatoes put them in a bowl and cover with just boiled water for a minute. Refresh in cold water and the skin should come away easily.)

Halve some anchovies and cross them over the top. Pour in a generous tablespoon of olive oil. These take 45 minutes to an hour in the oven, or just until the look like they're collapsing a bit. When they're done stick some basil leaves in. I made these early in the day and just covered them and kept them in the fridge. Shove them in the oven an hour before you're ready to serve.

Peppers before they go in the oven to get juicy and lovely

The main:

This is the easiest roast ever. Heat your oven up to it's highest heat. Rub a shoulder of lamb (or a bit of one) with olive oil and season it. Chuck in loads of garlic, rosemary, thyme and whatever else you fancy then cover tightly with tin foil. Shove in the oven, then turn it straight down to about 150 – 160 degrees. Forget about it for four hours. Your house will smell fantastic. It will just fall apart. So tasty. It's not an expensive cut either - less than a tenner to feed four hungry people. 

It'll start out like this...

...It'll end up like this!

For the roasted veg, cut carrots and parsnips into big chunks and toss them in some honey, olive oil, grain mustard and salt and pepper. Your oven will be on quite low, so they'll take a while (45 minutes?) but will be sticky and lovely. Then just make mash and steam something green (we had broccoli and green beans)

When it's gravy making time, take out the meat and put it on a plate. Cover it and leave it to rest, it'll stay warm for quite a while. Pour away most of the fat and take out any big bits of rosemary and thyme, but leave the garlic in. Put the roasting tray on the hob. Stir in a teaspoon of flour and start the all important process of scraping up all the sticky bits. Add a glass of wine and stir and scrape as that comes up to the boil. I used white wine for this, as I was making so much food I didn't want it to be too rich, but you could easily use red for a much richer sauce. Add a pint of stock, again I used vegetable so it wasn't too heavy, but you could use lamb for it to be much richer. Then just reduce down to half the volume. Make sure there's nothing sticking to the bottom, and all the lovely roast garlic is squished out of the skin, then just sieve it. Sorted.

I wasn't too good at taking photos for this one, as I was busy chatting to my ma and pa. But here's the meat after you've pulled the bone out: 

You can't carve this... just serve up big hunks of meat

The pudding:

Make this early in the day as it takes a while in the fridge. I'm not big on desserts, as I don't have much of a sweet tooth, but this is very tasty and nicely rounds off the meal. I won't type it out, here's the recipe:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/330616/really-easy-chocolate-mousse

We don't have four matching ramekins... or four matching wine glasses for that matter

 I grated a bit of dark chocolate over the top.

There you go! Lovely and very very easy meal, with no stress. Serve with bucketloads of red wine.

This week's soup: Curried carrot and parsnip. I'm making this up because I've got loads of carrots and parsnips left. It's the Lidl effect, you end up with big bags of veg and massive boxes of fruit because they've cost about 10p.