Timewasting ...

Yesterday, we lost our son M.

Oh, we found him again - so it was just a bit worrying there for an hour or so, but it just shows how easily it happens.

His school has a teacher training day today, so yesterday was his last day for this week.  He'd arranged (after LOADS of phone calls etc) to go for a sleepover with his best friend, J.  Because he wanted to take his bass guitar - which is a heavy old lump - we'd arranged with him that we'd meet the two of them after school (we'd bring the guitar and his sleepover stuff) and take them all to J's house.

So, we got to school at the normal time and waited.  No boys.

Steve went to the school office and no, they hadn't been kept back - the school had no idea where he was.

So he came back to where I was waiting in the car, still no sign of the boys.

So we drove to the school office and told them we'd go to J's house and wait there (thinking that the boys might have walked home).  If the boys turned up at school could they ring us, please.

So we drove to J's house, spoke to J's Mum's babysitter who said nope, no boys.  So we waited for a half an hour.  In the meantime, we rang J's Mum (who was still at work) to tell her that the boys were missing.  She rang J's Dad (they're estranged) but no, no boys there either.  (It was a long shot, but worth trying).

So we waited a bit longer, had various phone calls with various people, but nope, no boys.

Then my phone rang - and it was M.  Turns out, that it was Jazz Band practice night (which we'd forgotten, J's Mum had forgotten, his Dad had forgotten - basically, everyone had forgotten about Jazz Band night being a Thursday).  So he was still at school.  Apparently, when he'd come out of Jazz Band practice, the school secretary collared him and J and put them straight on the telephone to us.

So, as you can imagine, we'd been through all sorts of emotions and decisions - about what to do in the event of the boys turning back up again.  M had gone from being grounded and the sleepover being cancelled to being apologised to and everything continuing as arranged.  Poor soul, he was so sure he was in BIG trouble and was so relieved when we finally caught up with him and explained what had happened.

So the lessons here are a) M must take his mobile phone to school with him and switch it on when school is over, and b) us parents had better take more care over which days he's involved in after-school activities!

So the sleepover went ahead.

Well, right up until 1.30a.m. when we got a phone call from J's Mum, to say that M was being sick everywhere and could we come and get him.

I've got to say, I rather like driving at 2am - I've never got anywhere so quickly!  LOL

He's since spent the night throwing up at intervals and now appears to be on the mend, having had some toast and a cup of tea.

Of course, now Steve and I have abandoned our shopping trip and will, I suspect, spend this afternoon looking at the inside of our eyelids, while we catch up with ourselves!

That sleepover just wasn't meant to be.

Here's a photograph of Basil, saying his prayers that soon I'll have time to come back and update you all on what we've been doing.  LOL  :)

(Not that it amounts to a whole lot!).  *chuckle*

.... and Jonty helped with the washing up.  LOL

Yes, that is a clothespeg holding his ears up out of the stew pan.  *grin*  I thought it was rather resourceful of me - and stopped his ears becoming covered in gravy!

Basil, poor chap, couldn't really get his head into it.

You'll be happy to hear that I gave the stew pan a good old scour out when he'd done his best work with it.  LOL

I've been nominated for the Observer Food Monthly Award for Best Food Blog, with my Rhubarb & Ginger blog.

The Observer is a daily newspaper available in the U.K. and it is quite influential in the world of food.

To be nominated is fabulous enough, but if you'd like to vote for me, the details are available here.

If you haven't been over to Jenny Eatwell's Rhubarb & Ginger, then just click on the name and it'll take you there.

Thanks!  :)

There we all were, sitting on the bench admiring the work that hubby has done in the garden (I'll post pictures of it soon), when suddenly the dogs set up a commotion by the (open) back door to the flat.

Upon further investigation - and driving the dogs off back indoors - we found this little fella!


He stayed curled up until the commotion had died down, then out came his little button nose and zzzooooommm! off he went to the nearest clump of grass, where he played the "I can't see you, so you can't see me" game.  LOL


Once we took the light off of him, he eventually scuttled off across the garden.  Off to do some slug-catching, if we're lucky!  I had wondered why our garden was so free of slugs - now we know!

Such was my bleating and wailing.  So we did.  Yesterday, in fact.  lol

The New Forest is (for those who have no idea where or what it is) an area of southern England which includes the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in the heavily-populated south east of England.  If you imagine the U.K. on a map, go south and it is on the mainland, above the Isle of Wight.

The name also refers to the New Forest National Park  which has similar boundaries. There are many villages dotted around the area, and several small towns in the Forest and around its edges.

Like much of England, the New Forest was originally woodland, but parts were cleared for cultivation from the bronze age onwards. The poor quality of the soil in the New Forest meant that the cleared areas turned into heathland "waste" that was probably used as an inter communal heath-wood facility. However, it is likely there was still a significant amount of woodland in this part of Britain. 

So, although it retains the name "Forest", it is actually largely heathland growing scrub and heathers.  There are some small (for the area) tracts of woodland and the greater majority of these have been planted within living memory.

It is really only around 20 miles away from us and it is bad that we haven't made more use of the place.  However, yesterday we packed up our lunch and off we went for a drive around and to see the foals.

The New Forest pony is a small and hardy little thing, which has been improved lately owing to the influx of a number of quality stallions.  Standing at around 13.3hh - 14hh, it is a true pony.  They have a remakably stoic temperament and think nothing of standing in the middle of the road, whilst baby has a feed.  As happened yesterday.

The colour schemes are as varied as you can ever imagine.  I think we saw one of just about every type of colour it is possible to get a pony in, although the majority are chestnut or bay.

One of the magical things about the New Forest is that the horse, cow, deer and donkey have priority over man and machine.  Travelling is done at a maximum of 40mph, which in my mind is way too fast.  We seemed to spend the majority of the time at 25 to 30mph.  I don't think people understand just how quickly a horse/pony can react - and think nothing of racing past them, just feet away - inches, in some cases - from the road.

In fact, there have been 5 New Forest pony deaths in the last week, where people have been exceeding the speed limit and have hit ponies.  The worst thing about this is that in every case the drivers have abandoned the injured pony to die.  One of them was a foal, just a few days old, with two broken legs.  Shameful.

Anyway, hopefully these pictures will give you an idea of the place and the ponies.

One last thing - we were driving along a teensy winding country lane when up ahead there appeared this venerable old lady.  She wasn't going to get out of the way for us (and why should she? lol).  She's just so ..... donkey.  *grin*

 This blog entry can be seen in situ here

Even though I do a weekly menu plan, sometimes life just conspires against me and insists on throwing all my plans into disarray.  I’d had a big taste of that disarray last week, which meant that two recipes had been carried over to this week.  Then, not satisfied with the confusion it had already created, disarray attacked at the end of the current week, causing us to have sandwiches instead of a lovely steak & kidney pie – which got put in the fridge until the following day.

The first recipe that got carried over was a Pot Roasted Chicken (which are always gorgeous).  This one was to be accompanied by some gnocchi and tender stem broccoli, in a parmesan cream sauce.

I’ve not had a good track record with gnocchi – which is odd, considering I really like anything even remotely connected with a potato.  Gnocchi have always seemed to me to be nasty glutinous little lumps of wallpaper paste with little or no flavour.  So this was, pretty much, their last swansong before being consigned to the “don’t like it” pile.

I was using ready-made gnocchi and I do acknowledge that homemade gnocchi stand the change of being far superior – if you get them right.  However, this dish had one thing in its favour before we began, which was that it was so quick and easy.  Basically, while the tender stems & gnocchi are cooking, you cook garlic and chilli in butter, add some stock, crème fraiche and parmesan to make a sauce.  Combine everything and you’re there.

The chicken was tender and moist, the broccoli and gnocchi were fresh and delicious.

I do have to add a rider at this stage, though, which is that I feel that the gnocchi and broccoli dish would be far better with some boiled bacon or gammon, than the chicken.  So, the next time a piece of bacon hoves into view, I’ll be reaching for the gnocchi.

So.  Having had one half of a chicken, it begged the question of what to do with the remainder.

I had seen a recipe for some carrot fritters that had intrigued me.  Fried food is not something that I do very often (for all sorts of reasons) and as a consequence I’m something of a novice as regards pancakes and fritters.  However, this recipe just made my mouth water and had to be done.  I originally planned to serve it beside the cold cooked chicken, right up until a Coronation Chicken thought struck me.

The fritters contained fresh coriander and ground cumin, both of which would sit very well beside the curry spices of Coronation Chicken, so yet another sudden change of plan happened.

Once again, the fritters are a simple matter of grating carrot, adding flour, cumin, egg, some chopped onion and some crumbled feta cheese.  Spoon big spoonfuls into a non-stick frying pan and, within a minute or so, you’ve got your fritters.

Everyone thoroughly enjoyed them – and they did indeed go admirably well with Coronation Chicken served on a bed of mixed lettuce.

Our Sunday dinner was intended to be this week’s piece de resistance.  I’d bought a lovely piece of brisket of beef, along with three kidneys (except four kidneys arrived in the bag) to make a lovely steak and kidney pie.  It wasn’t going to be a traditional pie with pastry top and bottom, nor a pudding with suet crust all around.  It was going to be something of a halfway house, with a top crust being suet-based much in the same way as a Teviot pie.  I suppose, it could be classed as a Steak & Kidney Teviot pie, if you wanted to be particular about its name.

Unfortunately, time ran away with me on Sunday afternoon (so much so, that I was doing my online shopping at 10pm) and the meat for the pie went into the oven at least an hour and half later than it should do.  Being brisket, the writing was on the wall there and then.

At 6pm – dinner time – I tried the meat and found it to be crunchy.  Not tough, not bouncy, the teeth went through it okay – but it had an odd crunch to it.  Definitely not done.

So, out came a tin of tuna and we all had sandwiches.

Next day, and we’ve just eaten the Steak & Kidney Teviot – and according to my son, if zero marks where a shop-bought Steak & Kidney begins, then this is (moving his hands apart as far away as they would go) about here – and, engage thrusters – even further.  I think, no, I know that he liked it.  So did I – I doubt I will ever use a shop-bought steak & kidney anything from now on.  Worlds apart.

 

 

 

 

 

The following blog post can be seen in situ here

You may remember that last week’s blog ended on my expressing a hope that the weekend’s fare would yield better results than had the previous few days.  Well, my mojo returned and I’m pleased to say that it all went really very well.

The Oriental Beef & Butternut Squash we had on Sunday evening was, quite simply, a triumph.  What made it especially good was that it purported to be a low-calorie meal.  Well, if all low calorie meals tasted as amazing as that one, we’d all be stick thin!

 

The use of beef brisket in the dish is a sneakily wonderful idea, as brisket tends to be a fairly lean cut of meat – made even better by judicious trimming during preparation.  I cooked it for rather longer than was dictated by the recipe, as I wanted to avoid any chance of it being rubbery.   The extra-long cooking time worked a treat and the meat just fell apart.  With the star anise, the five spice, fresh ginger, orange juice and soy combining into a beautiful rich, dark, aromatic sauce, you could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps you wouldn’t bother with the butternut squash.  However, when it came to eating, the butternut squash provided that stroke of difference to the textures that kept your brain interested while your tongue went into rhapsodies over the flavours.

Next on the list of lovelies, comes the Cheesy Celeriac Slice.  It’s a fairly ordinary name for something so wonderful.  I have to blow my own trumpet here a bit (I hope you’ll forgive) and say that the recipe is my own adaptation of a standard cheese & potato pasty.  Bearing in mind hubby’s total dislike for all things potato, I set my mind to wondering what would make an admirable understudy – and I instantly hit up on the gnarly charms of the celeriac.  Celeriac will cook like potato, mash like potato and basically do everything that potato would do, in this recipe.  Plus, celery in cheese sauce is one of my all-time favourites and as the two main ingredients were to be celeriac and cheese, I was sold.  I used two cheeses – approximately 200g ordinary strong white cheddar, grated, plus another 200g of a lovely red Leicester, diced very small.  Stirred into the mashed celeriac with chopped spring onions, a little Dijon mustard and a good dash of cayenne pepper, they made a rather odd-looking filling for the puff pastry.

However, once the lot had been cooking in the oven for around 15 minutes, everyone in the house had gathered around like the Bisto kids, with their noses in the air.  I have got to say that it made an inordinate amount – we all ate it cold for lunch the next day – but it was as good cold as it had been hot and served with baked beans.  Very definitely a “do it again” job!

Wednesday brought about our next big success, which was a slow-braised pork with cider, crème fraiche and mustard recipe.  I used some of our local butcher’s pork steaks, which cooked up beautifully.  The recipe recommended the use of pork shoulder but being leery of the amount of fat involved, I opted for their somewhat leaner loin steaks.

The cider I opted for was a single variety cider that is big on flavour and stands up very well to the onions and pork flavours.  Bolstered with a little Dijon mustard (what would we do, without Dijon?) and enrichened with a little low-fat crème fraiche, it really was glorious.  It really couldn’t have been any easier to make, either.

The really big accolades, however, should go to hubby for his Asparagus & Prosciutto risotto, which he crafted with love and skill for our dinner last night.

It is really magical – I think – how the use of the right kind of rice, some vegetable stock, a bunch of asparagus and a little prosciutto ham (basically) can result in such a taste-bud pleaser.

He had used the inedible woody ends of the asparagus to enrichen the vegetable stock as well as making the stock with the water from blanching the asparagus tips.  All of which gave the asparagus pride of place in the chorus of delicious flavours.  It was fresh, light, deliciously salty and perfectly creamy.  Personally, I don’t think he’s ever made a better risotto, this one could definitely be right up there if ever he were to have to name a signature dish!

 

 

 

 

This morning has been a completely awesome morning for spotting birdies!  So far, at my feeders, I've seen :

 From The Bournemouth Daily Echo

Everything we’ve had for our evening meal this week has proven to be just not quite right.

I don’t mean that everything has been horrible, or inedible – far from it.  Some things have been really quite nice, but just not quite right.  Something has been missing from them flavour-wise, or the cooking technique has missed somewhere along the line, or the flavours haven’t been to my preference.

All of which makes me sound terribly pretentious, but I do try to cook dishes to the best of my ability.  Sometimes I’m let down by a poor recipe – one that sounded great in first read-through, but during the cooking, or at the final tasting stage, just hasn’t quite met with expectations.  Sometimes I’m let down by the ingredients – like when the potatoes for a lovely mash just turn to water in the saucepan.  Sometimes I let myself down – like when I know I should be allowing two and a half hours to cook something, then get sidetracked by the washing machine refusing to work – and land up with just an hour!

My culinary week begins on a Tuesday, when I do the shopping.  This last Tuesday, because of various commitments throughout the day that I knew would leave me with little energy by the evening, I had booked in our son’s favourite meal – pizza.  You wouldn’t think that could go wrong at all, would you?  Well, we tried a new pizza.  It was supposed to be ciabatta based, with an assortment of meat products on board, as well as the usual tomato and cheese.  However, they didn’t mention the stealthy pieces of rosemary that were sneakily sprinkled around.  Every so often, you would get a really big hit of rosemary, a flavour that just didn’t sit well with its companions – and which spoiled the pizza for me.  I certainly won’t bother having it again.

Wednesday was to be a Beef & Cauliflower Curry, using Shin of Beef – which takes a minimum of 2 hours to cook.  I refer you back to the washing machine comment above.  Not only was dinner very late, but also the beef wasn’t as buttery as it should have been and – which I can’t quite believe I did – I forgot to include the cauliflower.  Which was an integral part of the dish.  I guess it just goes to show how distracted I was – or how bad my memory is getting!

Thursday was to have been a Chicken & Chorizo Jambalaya.  However, I felt absolutely bushed by dinnertime on Thursday and just couldn’t face the cooker.  So the Jambalaya was bumped to the next day and we had fish & chips.  (Which was very nice, thank you).

 

Friday evening hove into view and the Jambalaya was made.  I’m really not sure what I did – as I weighed out the amount of rice, so it should have been fine – but the rice took FOR EVER to cook and required a good 500-600ml more water than was originally cited in the recipe.  The flavours were nice, albeit very one-dimensional (even after the addition of a few ingredients to pep up the interest), and I was quite sure that if we hadn’t have been watching t.v. as we ate, I’d have left an awful lot more than I eventually did.  This one will have to go down as a “work in progress”, I think.  Perhaps a change in type of chorizo might help, and maybe the addition of some paprika – and maybe some prawns.  Or maybe I’d just be better off finding another recipe!

Saturday was hubby’s day to cook this week and he had decided to go for sausages, red cabbage & apple, together with mashed potatoes.  All of which was fine, until we got into the supermarket and found they didn’t have any red cabbages.  Nor any pre-cooked in the freezer department – and we weren’t prepared to pay through the nose for some from the pre-packed chilled department.  However, we did have a Savoy cabbage doing nothing since its meal (Bobotie – which will now happen next week) had been bumped off the menu list completely.  So, he opted to make the good old favourite of cabbage & bacon.  Which, I am pleased to say, made a great stand-in for the red cabbage.

Looking at how this week has gone, I’m getting seriously worried for the success of the Oriental Beef & Butternut Squash with fried rice that is on the menu list for Sunday!  As for the celeriac & cheese slice that’s booked in for Monday, an awful lot is resting on its vegetarian shoulders!

To finish on a high note, however, the winner of the accolade "the best thing I’ve eaten this week" goes to the cold pot roasted brisket of beef that I ate for lunch on Tuesday, with home-made coleslaw and a home-made chilli pickled onion.  Goodness, but that was some glorious eating!

 

 

Hello everyone!

This update is entirely thanks to Lee (Bearclan member), who somehow managed to hide her telephone number in Peter's glasses case.  ~shrug~  Don't ask us how it got there, nobody (including Peter) knows.  However, he went to clean his glasses - and found it there, so rang her - and she rang me.  *beam*

Firstly, he's feeling a lot better, is a lot stronger in himself and is feeling much more cheerful.

Secondly, he's been diagnosed with Angina.  ~surprised face~  Apparently he'd been going back and forth to the doctor, who had been treating him for a chest infection - when all the time it was Angina.  The only cross-making thing, is that it took him to be admitted to hospital, before somebody noticed it.

Lastly, he thinks he'll be back home by the middle of next week.  Obviously, he needs to rest, recuperate and get some strength back (he was very, very poorly) and the doctors need to ensure the angina is stabilised, before he'll be allowed home.

He felt so disconnected from everyone and was so very glad to hear of the work we've all been doing on his behalf - and was very glad to be back in the loop again!

Now, bearing in mind he's going to be in the hospital until next week, if anyone wants to send him a get well card the address (for UK based people) is :

Peter Edwards
Terrington ward

Roast beef on a Sunday.  Apart from the rib of beef that I roasted for Christmas dinner, I honestly can’t remember the last time I had a piece of beef on an “ordinary” Sunday.

However, since I discovered my local butcher, beef has appeared on our menu-planning list as a regular event – but until this last weekend, not as a roasting joint.

It all began when I stopped roasting chickens and started pot roasting (or poaching) them instead.  I had such marvellous results that I’ve sworn never to roast a chicken again.

Since then, I’ve also done a pot roast with a gammon joint, again with a great deal of success.

I was reading through some of the food blogs that I follow, when up popped an entry regarding a pot roasted brisket.  Mmmmn, that sounded good.  However, I didn’t take it any further (other than mentally marking it, if ever a piece of brisket came my way) and life continued.  Right up until I saw, in the butcher’s window, a notice saying “Special Offer : 1kg rolled brisket : £3-something”.  Well, it didn’t exactly say “£3-something”, it’s just that I can’t exactly remember how much it was, other than the £3 bit.

Two things struck me about this.  Firstly, that the price was only around 50p more expensive than my usual target for the meat for a meal.  Secondly, that 1kg of brisket is one heck of a lot of meat, even allowing for shrinkage in the cooking.

It’s amazing how I find that I can remember a recipe, but I can’t remember the name of my next door neighbour (who shall be forever known as “Flossy next door”).  Immediately, I remembered the pot roasted brisket recipe, which sounded not only a great way to cook the beef, but about the only way of ensuring as little shrinkage as possible.

When Sunday dawned, I will admit to being a little bit nervous about cooking this gorgeous great hunk of beef, as it was just too good to ruin.

I started off by searing the outside of the beef on all sides – quite apart from the gorgeous smell it gives off, I do think that it adds flavour and colour which just pot roasting (which is little more than poaching) would provide alone.

Then, I added water and a stock cube and the following : two carrots, an onion and two sticks of celery – all quartered.  Plus two cloves of garlic, a big handful of fresh parsley and a bay leaf.

I then brought the liquid up to the boil, and put the whole lot in the oven for 2 hours, after which I turned the beef and put it back in the oven for another hour.

Not only was the beef the kind of texture that you could cut with a spoon, but also it tasted utterly divine.  I served it with roasted potatoes, parsnips and cauliflower with green beans – but the unexpected advantage is the stock.  If you try this recipe out, please please make your gravy from the stock.  You’ll probably never have had gravy like it before.  I’ve two pots of it in the freezer, just waiting for the next piece of brisket.

 

 

I have had cause to ask you all to give of your best where sending healing, praying and giving reiki - whatever you do - is concerned in the recent past.  Today I have cause to ask it of you all again.

I have just received a very worrying email from Maria the wife of Grandfather Peter Redwolf - who is the leader of the Bearclan Yahoo Group & the Bearclan Shamanic Studies Group and a very dear friend of mine, saying that Peter is in King's Lynn hospital (U.K.), where he is a very sick man indeed.  He was admitted last Wednesday, so already he's had six days on his own.  It's time to get together and make a difference for him.

If you could keep him in your thoughts, send healing, pray - anything is good - I would be most grateful.

Ruby (our rhubarb, just in case you were wondering) is growing at a quite ridiculous rate.

I suspect it's largely because, during all the ice and snow at the beginning of the year, we put a flowerpot on her head to protect her from the horribleness.  It would seem as though this has caused her to rush on ahead of schedule!

Looking at her today (see pic), I reckon we'll be eating rhubarb by next weekend!

By the way - it's called "Bourguignon" because that's the name of the series of pictures that I took off of the camera - nothing to do with our intentions!  lol

One of the first signs of Spring - a Hyacinth.

I bought this one from our local Asda in a fit of "let's have something pretty around the place".  I think it might be in response to the increased levels of testosterone that are floating around our flat!  lol  Well, Morgan is growing up fast now and there's only so many guns, lasers and spaceships a girl can take!

We've just been to Wimborne Market, where we bought Jonty a blue fuffy octopus with crinkly-noise-making legs and a honker inside its head.


I think he loves his new blue puppy.  :)

As you can see, a large version got hold of Morgan while his Dad was paying.  LOL

The original post can be viewed in situ here.

Unexpected Spices and Mmmm-oussaka!

I have been eyeing up various packets of Ras-el-Hanout spice mix for what has been a quite ridiculous length of time.  I was terribly tempted to get some and then find out what to do with it, but knowing how quickly spices lose their best, I decided to go about it the other way around.

Hence, I’ve been looking at various recipes that involve the mix and quietly learning what the possibilities are.

The end result came about rather more quickly than I anticipated as hubby returned home from a shopping jaunt proudly brandishing a packet of Ras-el-Hanout.

I’d love to tell you what’s in this pack, but unfortunately the manufacturers are keen to keep the knowledge to themselves and haven’t provided a list.  Which does make me a tad worried as to whether we’re sprinkling our chicken with desiccated camel dung, but I have put my faith in “the Authorities” and hope that they did their work properly when authorising it for sale in the U.K.

However, I can tell you that it definitely contains cinnamon, clove and cumin.  As to what all the other flavours are, well that’s up for conjecture.

My first go at using the spice mix was a casserole/tagine of sorts.  We definitely enjoyed it, as it gave me the confidence to try the second dish where the spice mix is rather more the star of the show.

It involves sprinkling a chicken breast with the spice mix and then pan-frying.  You then use the spicy oil to cook up a delicious sauce, involving onions, garlic, honey, lemon, chicken stock and coriander.  Served up with sweet potato mash and oven-baked tomatoes, it really was glorious.

 

The full recipe is available here, over on Rhubarb & Ginger.

Interestingly, I also ventured into one of our local butchers for the three chicken breasts required.  The cost came to rather more than I’d have wanted to pay, but having seen the size of the things once they were cooked and tasted the vast difference between that and frozen supermarket slop, it was definitely worth every penny.

 

My next dish of note was a Moussaka.  Now you’re probably thinking, “what’s special about that?” and I can tell you that not only was it made with minced lamb from our local butcher, but also it wasn’t made with the ubiquitous cheese sauce that slathers most “Moussaka” dishes these days.

I had looked and looked for a recipe that echoed the Moussaka I would get from the little Greek Restaurant that used to be by the side of the County Hall in Kingston Upon Thames, many many moons ago.

That version didn’t carry a cheese sauce, it had a creamy eggy mixture that sat so well with the aubergines and lamb and was far nicer than coating everything in a claggy cheese sauce.

After a quite exhaustive search, I settled upon a recipe from Lotte Duncan, my version of which can be found here.  Although I can’t help but think that the onions she is used to getting wherever she lives, have got to be way smaller than the onions I’m used to getting – as no way was I putting five of the things into this recipe!

The minced lamb came from our local butcher (Spring Fields Catering Butchers) and was minced to order.  When I put it into the hot pan to brown, the overpowering smell of sheep quite knocked me backwards.  However, that was soon replaced by a more rounded lamby smell that had my mouth watering.  It was really quite remarkable, the difference between that lamb mince and the sort that comes from the Supermarket.  Yes, it was slightly more expensive by about 80p or so, but the quality was far superior.

This Moussaka recipe not only didn’t include the cheese sauce, but also left out the potato that seems to have infested most Moussaka recipes.  The aubergine slices I cooked in the oven, drizzled with oil, so as not to use the degree of oil that would be required to pan-fry them.  With a layer of aubergine, then the lamb mince mixture (which had been cooked in red wine and herbs), then more aubergine, a layer of sliced tomatoes and a lamb stock/tomato puree mix poured over, it made the kitchen smell extremely interesting.  After 30 minutes of oven baking, you add the final flourish of an egg/cream mixture and return it to the oven to finish baking.

If I was to tell you that the three of us ate very well from it for dinner last night, and the remainder disappeared while I was at work today and son was at school, you’ll get some idea of how well received it was.  It truly is a rare thing for hubby to tuck into leftovers – and to clear the plate, is unheard of.

That’s the ultimate objective – to provide good healthy food and have it enjoyed.