Sunday Mornings!

There's nothing that'll make you feel better after a bruising weekend behind the stick than a massive piece of meat (well, besides those fairer services of course).

The sight of an entire lamb shoulder not only healed my bruised heels, but helped ward off a degree of sleep deprivation as well!

For this evening's slow roasted fair I imbued the lamb with an entire knob of butter (oooohhhh yeah), sea salt, cumin, cinnamon and ground fennel. A loose Moroccan arrangement if you will. Into a high oven, turned down to a hundred and left for....6 hours!! Bloody ripper - enough time to eat some Sultana Bran, talk some jive with the housemate, go shopping for some sides, clean the crib, write this post and do some work. Is slow cooking not the most relaxing and enjoyable way to go or what!?

I'm thinking some cous cous (an insidious device which I still don't fully understand nor wholly trust) with poached sultanas and lemon zest, shredded carrot salad and some grilled flat breads with greens. Probably some harissa spiced yoghurt for heat and delicious drinks by someone else!

I might be knackered, but Sunday could be worse! I hope ya'll have a good one too...

Winter Warmers

Now that we've got that bloody pesky summer out of the way, it's time to get back in the kitchen for some warming fare.

Cooking on the fly is plenty of fun, albeit fraught with the danger of failure (a danger in who's face I laugh, incidently). Thus loitering handily in our fridge this evening was a spare housemate chook that wasn't looking too likely to fulfil its sandwich-esque destiny, so in the finest vultural (yeah I just made up a word - what of it?) traditions I picked that sucker dry.

A generous knob of butter helped me sautee a white mirepoix of leeks, onion and celery all finely chopped, with some fresh thyme in late into which I turfed (Aussie for throw for you international folk) some corn off the cobs, chicken stock and our flaked up chicken. Beauty.

It came to the boil very helpfully, and with a healthy pounding of seasoning (that's my term, by the way) I let my flavours simmer and marry into delicious oblivion. Crusty toast with - you guessed it, more butter, and a spoon of double cream stirred through the soup had me and the lady sittin' tight and cosy as the winter bite chewed at the plate glass.

Apple and raspberry crumble for dessert with Grand Marnier cream. Bangin'!

Spanish Grind-out

Alright kids, and flavour seekers alike - tonight I'm getting my Spanish on. It's not enough for me to be a commentator on other people's creativity, so I'm keen more often than not to put my money where my stove is and get involved.

It's big Joe's last night on our fair shores and we're getting together to say au revoir in style with some (hopefully) tasty food from my motherland. On the menu tonight therefore is a line-up of oil clad Spanish hits to satisfy the hardiest of hungers. The ever-green classic croquettas done all the way with rich sauce imbued with Jamon, mushrooms and stock were bangin shallow fried (no one give me any jip about them supposed to being deep fried - I know!) and coupled with some char-grilled peppers peeled, sliced and steeped with garlic, thyme and rosemary. I'm feelin' grilled bread rubbed with garlic and tomato combo, but then again - I'm always feelin' that!

For mains I'm having a crack at Catalan Noodles which is really just an excuse to throw various types of pork together in with some noodles - it's a pretty straight forward lid-on brief braising affair but has an interesting looking stir through addition at the end of pacada, which is a paste made of garlic (no surprises) parsley, hazelnuts and breadcrumbs. It should liven up the proceedings a bit, and hopefully bring balance to the force of all that pork fat - bring it. Patatas a lo pobre on the side, the famous poor man's potato which is straght up oil, onion, pepper and salt and which the heads should be all over it like a granny on a jumble sale.

Cutting through all the tasty kit'll be some crackin' tempranillo finished off with some moscato for the sweeter toothed folk afterwards. Phew. Can't wait! Inevitably I'll F%$& something up so stay tuned for a wrap up and maybe a tale of kitchen rage or two.

If I can work this techno hoo ha out maybe I'll even work out how to get a pic up! See you round Joe boy, we'll miss you. Cheese 4 life.