Recipe for Lamb Stew/Casserole

As promised, here is my favourite recipe.

You need:

A bottle of red wine

500g lamb neck fillet

500g tomatoes (skinned, cored and chopped, but let’s face it, a tin will not hurt)

One large onion

220g (about four) carrots

220g (about three) parsnips

250g (three-ish) potatoes

Half a cabbage of your choice

Three cloves of garlic

A pint of stock (I’m showing off as I make all my own now I have a pinny)

A handful of rosemary (fresh and chopped is best, but dried is more likely)

All weights are approximate as I have no idea where my scales are. There should be enough to feed four hungry people with a little left over for lunch tomorrow.

Start with a glass of wine as it is important to familiarise yourself with the ingredients. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4. I have no idea what temperature that is as I have never owned a cooker less than ten years old. Brown the meat in a big oven-proof pot, have a swig of wine, wash, peel and roughly chop the veg. Add the onion to the pot to soften. Perhaps have a drop more wine whilst you are waiting. Finely chop the garlic and chuck it in. Stir. Sip wine. Add the potatoes for a moment to seal them. More wine, perhaps? Remove the cat from the chopping board and add the rest of the veg. Stir and add the tomatoes. Reward this stage with another delicate sip from your glass. Now stir in the rosemary and stock, cover, and pop it in the centre of the oven. Finish that second glass of wine. Remove the pot from the oven and share a half glass of the good stuff with your casserole. Replace in the oven, and then go and find something to do for a couple of hours. The weather has been nice, so maybe you could sit outside with a glass of wine. Check on the pot, and turn down the oven if it seems to be drying out before it has cooked. Serve with a knife, fork and spoon depending on your table manners. A piece of bread and a pint of water may also be a good idea if you can see more than one oven.

Please note this recipe works for my family, but then we have cast iron stomachs thanks to 18 years of my cooking. Therefore if any of my methods made you wince, I am sorry, and I take no responsibility for any illness resulting from following this recipe to the letter. Enjoy and have a good week.

©Meriel Flavell 2010

Ms Cradock the Second

I am over the moon... I have a pinny! I had looked in a snobby department store at aprons recently, and yes, I do appreciate how sad that sounds, but the only one I really liked was too small for me. Shame really, as it was pink with a silver sequin trim. I could overlook the fact it said “Mummy’s Little Helper”, but I could not fail to notice it was more than a little bit too small for me. Lee the Veggie Man had read last week’s blog and I am now the proud owner of a Riverford pinny. So what if I am a walking sandwich board for my favourite organic food company, at least I will no longer be popping to the shop for a bottle of wine with a great big splodge of tomato based sauce down my top. I feel like a real chef now, so much so that I thought I might soon share my favourite recipe with you – home made Lamb stew. Or is it a casserole? I never did grasp the difference. Regardless, it has been a winner every time, without exception. The recipe will be on next week’s blog.

I know I bark on about how Riverford are the best thing since the discovery of crop rotation, but I am a genuinely happy customer. My only real issue are those ‘easy fold’ boxes. They really are not easy at all. I spent ten quality minutes with them this week but they refused to flatten. I left them for Lee the Veggie Man today and was glad to be out when he called as I just know he would have insisted on showing me again how to fold them. Clearly origami does not come naturally to me.

I have ordered a roots and greens box because my boys are house sitting for my parents, which means they will survive for three days in their pjs, with the curtains still closed, glued to the xbox and only eating anything which takes five minutes to microwave. Therefore they will need me to cram them with veggies and other real food to build up their resources and warm up their pale skin. No doubt they will need a long bath too. Honestly I hope they go on to university after all this student lifestyle training.

Before I sign off, I have to tell you that the PSB – purple sprouting as my Granddad used to call it (said with a very thick Black Country accent) was beyond divine. It is in season now, and it is very good for you. I steamed mine, retaining the flavour and goodness. Thankfully no one noticed I had somewhat more on my plate than they did.

Join me next week when I will publish my lamb casserole recipe and put a bottle of red wine to good use.

PS. Lee the Veggie Man, if you are reading this, how I wish I had a new car...

©Meriel Flavell 2010

Officially Converted Organics Lover

Oh yes, now I really do know what I’m talking about. I can identify my kale from my Swiss chard, tell you how best to cook artichokes, and I can gratin my leftovers. I do admit to the odd mishap. I threw what I had guessed to be spinach leaves into boiling water the other day, but realised, when my house began to smell like a French brothel, that it was in fact wild garlic. I have only ever used garlic in clove form, so I had a good root (hee hee) through the Riverford Farm Cook Book which Lee the Veggie Man kindly lent me, and I plan to use the ‘wet and wild garlic risotto’ recipe. Now there is a phrase I never thought I would find in a cook book, along with Chocolate Courgette Cake, which is not something that can tempt a traditional chocoholic like me. It is a good read though; the recipes are easy to follow, but also allow for a little creative interpretation. There is some fascinating information about organic farming, a subject that is surprising quite interesting as the passion for real soil growing real veg rather than supermarket slop is apparent within the text. I keep eying up the plots on the allotments over the back of my house, but it’s still a bit too nippy for me to be out all day. My Dad and Granddad used to have a plot when I was little, and I spent many happy summers picking the gooseberries whilst they were having a beer and a smoke in the shed. I was rewarded by sitting in the wheelbarrow for the ride back home. I wish my children could be as gullible as I was.

I am so getting into cooking now that I might buy myself a pinny. I am making batches of meals and freezing them for my little dustbin, trying out different and various meal combinations for the men in my house, I made what could only be called ‘flatulence stew’ for my veggie friend, and I am even making my own vegetable stock. To my critics, I give the bird. I really am a domestic goddess in training. I couldn’t give Lee the Veggie Man my box back though because he giggled at my efforts of flat packing last week and showed me with a flick of his wrist how to do it. I have spent ten minutes with the dam thing and it just will not collapse for me. I’ll have to set some time aside for it this week.

We’re off to Stockley Farm for a day out over the Easter Holidays as I am very keen to see where most of my meals are coming from, my little girl is very into farm animals at the moment (although she thinks everything should growl like a lion), and also it would be good for my boys to experience daylight during those long two weeks they are off school. Happy Easter to all, and I’ll tell you all about my PSB next week (don’t worry, it is a veggie abbreviation, not an antisocial rash).

©Meriel Flavell 2010