Butterflied Lamb with Pesto Mayo & Roasted Tomato Salad

Yes, I'm alive!  Sorry for the silence people - no excuses, but have just been a bit busy.  So, last weekend (the one before the one just gone) I made an absolutely delicious Sunday night dinner, if I say so myself. 

I had a lovely butterflied leg of lamb from Drover's Choice (beautiful meat), which I marinated in red wine, garlic, rosemary, parsley, bit of olive oil, cumin & chilli flakes.




This looked clearer on the camera

 While the lamb was marinating, I decided to roast the cherry tomatoes produced in my garden - yay!  Mainly because I'm not a big lover of cherry tomatoes.  Some might ask why I grew them ... because I wanted to see if I could, ok?  However, I am a big fan of semi-dried tomatoes, so I thought if I roasted them in the oven then let them cool down, they'd be lovely in a salad.  So I halved them & put them on an oven tray, drizzled with olive oil, sprinkle of salt & pepper & some thyme sprigs (also from the garden). 

Then into a hot oven.  They came out like this.

So, while all this was going on I realised I didn't have anything to serve on the side with the lamb ... some kind of sauce.  Of course not strictly necessary, but I still prefer something.  Normally when I do lamb like this I make up a tzatziki kind of thing, but I did not have any yohgurt.  Hmmm, what to do.  We did have mayonnaise though - proper whole egg mayo.  So, while I was pondering this, Jamie Oliver was on TV in the background & he started talking about making pesto.  This gave me a sudden flash of inspiration - Pesto Mayo it is!  I failed to take any photos of this, but rest assured we were both super-impressed with how well this went with the lamb.



Salad of mixed baby leaves, spanish onion, parmesan shavings & my oven-roasted cherry tomatoes

 So, I'm not going to tell you how long to cook the lamb on the BBQ as it totally depends on how big the piece of lamb is, your personal taste & your BBQ.  And also I can't remember now how long I cooked it for.  However, I did sear it for a few minutes on each side, then turned the heat right down (and turned the burners off directly underneath the meat) and closed the lid.  This creates a nice combination BBQ grill plate/oven effect.



Lot of juice-pooling going on while it rested!

 

Serve with a lovely bottle of red.  This was one of the wines from our wedding.  No, there's none left over (although we do still have some champagne!) - I saw it in the bottle shop & bought it to have with this lamb.

Mmmm, I just love lamb.  What's your favourite way of cooking lamb?

Aloha!

Yay - we have booked our next holiday!!  To Hawaii.  We have been before - in fact, it was our first proper holiday together - and we love it.  Specifically, we love Maui.  The picture above is one of squillions I took of the beautiful Maui sunsets we enjoyed on the last trip in early 2008.  Yep, it is really like that every day.

So anyway, with the AUD so strong we thought we'd take advantage of it - bit of a spur of the moment decision & I'm so excited!  We're going on 30th July, for 2 whole weeks.  First 3 nights will be spent on the Big Island.  We're keen to see the active volcano and the lava flow, etc.  There are cool hikes you can do through the craters of some of inactive ones too.  So we're staying in this gorgeous treehouse place in Volcano village.  Looks soooo nice.  And then we're off to Maui for 9 fabulous nights.  Ahhh ... Maui.  I can't bloody wait!  Still sorting out accomm  for that, but it will definitely be oceanfront in Kihei for more fun in the sun & enjoyment of those sunsets.  Then it's off to Honolulu for the last 2 nights.  We have been there before & so all we really want to do there is shop - hello Ala Moana, I'm a comin' !!

Woo hoo!!  Just because I'm excited, here are some more pics from that previous trip.


Another sunset from right outside our accomm



In the crater of the extinct volcano on Maui

From the helicopter



Waikiki Beach



Make it Stop!

So, as we all know Prince William will marry Kate Middleton tomorrow.  Yay - a royal wedding.  I will watch it & I'll enjoy it, because it is a rare event.  But, holy mother of pearl I am SICK TO DEATH of the media vultures.  This week I have seen such gems posing as news as:

• Baby girl predicted within the year (so clearly this is just completely made-up)
• Kate's dress still a secret - yep, that was a headline
• And today, "waify Katie" and how she is so unhealthy because she's lost some weight before her wedding ... the one where 2 billion people will watch her walk down the most massive aisle you've ever seen.

Leave the poor girl the fuck alone!!!  She must be absolutely packing it right now.  They seem like a nice young couple who just want to get married.  Why must it become a circus?  These bottom-feeders in the media won't be happy until they've hounded her to the same fate as Diana, will they?

That is all.

Thoughts?

Sowing to Reap (let's hope!)

Ok, the slackest blogger ever is still alive - sorry folks!  Now for the long-promised post about creating our veggie patch.

Credit must go to Mr Nat for the manual labour.  He wouldn't even let me help with the hard digging/turning of soil - in fairness, this was right after I suffered the terrible back pain too.  But given then veggie patch is all my idea and he really had no enthusiasm for it, it was very kind of him to put in such an effort.

Now, let me take you on a photographic journey from patch of lawn & weeds, to bountiful kitchen garden!

Before - our backyard & in particular, the section where the veggie garden will go. 
Note the track Lucy has worn just at the bottom left of the picture.



The mister, doing his digging thing.



Lucy - helping.



Getting there ...



The growing pile of dirt & weeds.



Compost & top-soil added, ready to plant!
This was the point at which he declared it is now my responsibility.



Upper bed



Lower bed

So that was the initial planting done.  The following weekend I put down mulch.  Then 2 weeks after that (which was last weekend) I did some weeding and some more planting, as well as adding the final touch - signage. 


For those of you who've seen our wedding photos, you may recognise these blackboard signs from our reception tables.  So now we get to re-use them!  Unfortunately I didn't quite have enough, so had to be selective.  I'd love to find some more - couldn't find them again on ebay, which is where I bought them in the first place.  If anyone knows where to get some, please let me know!

By this stage (3 weeks after initial planting) the lettuce & rocket were going great guns, so I harvested quite a lot of leaves & planted some new seedlings in & around them so there would be ongoing supply.  I took these shots after harvesting the leaves so you can't see how big they'd become.



This is the bag of leaves I picked - bigger than it looks here.  They were yummy too!

Sorry for soooo many photos people, but anyway - there it is.  Let's hope my garden grows well.

Nothing in Particular

Well, once again I've been slack - but that's because I've been very busy trying to settle into the new job, as well as get back into the gym.  I have unfortunately put on so much weight since my wedding and I'm putting a stop to it right now before I have to resort to my old, larger clothes that I had put away in bags but not gotten rid of yet.

The new job is going well.  It's very interesting, and I'm actually engaged and enjoying learning something new - yay!  I had been so unmotivated and uninterested in work for quite some time.  Also, I'm back in Pyrmont again, which is great.  I liked working in Pyrmont before (the job before the last one) and absolutely HATED trekking to North Sydney more recently.  So I'm back on the car and the tram, and off the train (thank flock for that!) - watch out people.

My mister has been away the last 2 days in Fiji for work - I know, nice for some.  Bula!  But he is back now & Lucy & I so happy to have him home.  He goes away semi regularly and I do miss him, but I am fine here & I actually think it is good for our relationship.  It keeps up my independence, makes us miss each other & also gives me a chance to catch up on things I find I don't usually have time to do.  I eat more healthily when he is away, and find I have more time to go to the gym and do things like face masks etc.  And he usually brings me presents!

This post has been a bit of a random combination of chit-chat ... but next time, photos of the veggie garden we have built!  It's been in for 2 weeks now, but I just have one more photo I want to take before I take my dear readers on our veggie patch journey (I know, I should be a writer for Masterchef or Biggest Loser).

Beautiful, REAL Women

Hi Readers ... well, I survived my first week on the new job & it's pretty good so far.  Very busy already, which is unusual in a first week.  Normally you're twiddling your thumbs for at least a week until someone has time to even talk to you properly.  But in this case, they were so eagerly anticipating my arrival, everyone's eyes have lit up when I've been introduced & clearly they've had a backlog of work waiting for me!  This is good, as I'm usually bored in jobs (no matter how much everyone around me complains of being soooo busy) ... and there are some interesting, sexy projects to work on.  I may be finally getting a bit of mojo back re: work.

Anyhoo, that's just a quick update - have more news later.  But this blog post is not about me.  It's about my friend Tara.  I went to school with Tara (yes, a million years ago) & she is truly what you'd describe as a good egg.  She has entered a competition all about women representing their body shape.  I love this concept, and she is a great person so I'd really love to see her win.  And she looks smokin' hot!  So please, my dear readers, vote for Tara.  And tell your friends - spread the word, help Tara win $3000!!!

http://theartofshaping.com.au/competition/profile/tara-doyle

Beef & Guinness Stew

I have had the last week off, before I start my new job on Monday.  It got away from me too quickly, mainly because I had to do so much paperwork to get a special licence for my new job.  So unfortunately, not as relaxing as I would've liked.

However, by Thursday afternoon it was a little less hectic so I decided to make Beef & Guinness stew for dinner, in honour of St Patrick's Day.  I have made this a few times before, but tweaked it a bit this time & decided to cook it slowly in the oven instead of on the stovetop.  My husband had seconds and said, "That was BEE-YOO-tiful", so I consider that a success!  I have frozen the rest for another night.  Here is my recipe:

Beef & Guinness Stew

Ingredients

2 tablespoons plain flour seasoned with salt & pepper

800-900g cheaper cut of beef, trimmed, cut into 3cm pieces

olive oil

2 sticks celery, chopped

1 brown onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced or finely chopped

1 carrot, peeled, chopped

10 small mushrooms, sliced

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 cup Guinness (Extra Stout, not Draught - more info below)

2 cups beef stock

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

2 bay leaves

couple of sprigs of thyme

1/2 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves, finely chopped

Method
Season the flour with salt & pepper & lightly coat the beef chunks.  I do this by putting it all in a large zip-lock bag, zipping it & shaking around until meat is coated.  But you can do it however you like.

Do all your chopping, slicing, mincing etc.

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed casserole dish.  I used my le chasseur pot, which I am in LOVE with.  Brown the meat in batches - you don't want to overcrowd the pot.  It took me about 4 batches.  Put meat aside on a plate.
 

Add a little more oil to the pot, if needed & cook the onion, celery & carrot for a few minutes, over medium heat.  Try to scrape off the crusty bits left by browning the meat - this is called "fond" in chef-land.  See, don't say I never teach you anything!  Add the garlic & continue to cook the veggies until softened.  Add the mushrooms - they don't really need to be pre-softened like onions, etc - so add them whenever you like. 

Add tomato paste & cook this off for a couple of minutes.  This avoids that tinny, metallic taste tomato paste can have.

Slowly pour in Guinness.  This is the correct Guinness to use - I can only really find it in longneck version.  It's much better than the draught stuff in cans, which makes the stew a bit bland and froths up too much.  And, because it's a longneck, after using a cup in the stew, there is a pint leftover to drink!  (husband had this - I prefer wine)



Add stock, thyme & worcestershire sauce.  Bring it all to the boil.

Add meat & any juices back to the pot, stir it all through.  Lid on & then in the oven at a low temp (about 140C) for 2 hours.

You can just leave it to do its thing, or check on it halfway through & give it a stir, skim off some fat etc.
When you think it's ready, remove from oven, skim excess fat, remove the bay leaves and add chopped parsley & a bit of salt & pepper.



Without flash


Serve with mashed potatoes & peas.  Yummo!  (I forgot to take any photos of it all served up - ooops)




With flash



Wedding Weekend #2

Well, off we went again!  Up way too early for a Saturday morning, to the airport and off to Melbourne.  Then straight into a hire car and off we headed to Avoca for the wedding of the lovely Maree & Mark.  After a brief mishap trying to get on the right highway, we were on the road.

A brief toilet & coffee stop in Ballarat was colder than I expected anywhere to be at this time of year (and this is from a girl who grew up in Canberra), and before we knew it we were in Avoca.  We had lunch at the lovely Avoca Hotel - very swish for a local pub in such a small country town.  Then off to find our accommodation at Summerfield Winery.  We arrived at exactly the same time as my old friend Dave, who was sharing the room with us.  We literally drove in right behind him.  Unfortunately the room was not ready & we really needed to stress that we had a wedding to get ready for.  But eventually we were in the room & getting ready, and then back into town ready to party.  Well, we were - Dave was driving as he was taking lots of photos & video.

The ceremony site was lovely, and it was a glorious day.  It was quite hot by this time! 

Me looking smooth-as, with my sunnies & overgrown fringe. (and yes, having put on way too much weight since my wedding - back to the gym ASAP!)

Here is the beautiful bride Maree arriving.

I first met Maree over 12 years ago (wow, I'm so old), when we were both living in Edinburgh.  I was working with a fellow Aussie by the name of Dave (yes, the afore-mentioned Dave, our roomie & chauffeur for the night), with an absolutely wicked dry sense of humour.  He's a fair bit older than me, but he befriended me & we went for drinks a couple of times, then he invited me to his place for dinner.  Maree was his flatmate - they had previously worked together in Melbourne & were at this point sharing a flat in Edinburgh.  As I later found out, Maree had been suffering for the lack of a girlie friend there & had instructed Dave to bring her home a girl.  And he did ... ME!  Well, needless to say we hit it off enormously well & all had some great times together there.  Maree went back to Australia, I moved to Wales ... but when I came back to Australia we always stayed in touch & visited each other.  Dave stayed over there for several more years, but has been back in Melbourne for a couple of years now.  I feel so fortunate to have made such wonderful friends in my time there, and thinking back to that time when Maree & I were young & sort of fancy-free ... and have been through ups & downs together over the years, and now to be sharing each other's weddings less than 6 months apart.  It's just wonderful where life takes you ...

To add a lovely personal touch, the celebrant was a very old & close friend of the bride's ... and one of the few people there I actually knew.  There were over 200 people there (big weddings seem to be the theme so far for 2011 - we only had 60 at ours!), and I knew about 5.  Rima the celebrant has been a friend of Maree's for many years, and has always been so welcoming & fantastic to me.  She is an absolute hoot!  And now she's qualified as a celebrant & was able to marry one of her best friends ... only her third wedding too!

Mark the groom has only been in Maree's life for just over a year - it has been a whirlwind romance. 

The first time I ever met him was at our own wedding, but we recently stayed with them when we were down there & I think he is wonderful & they are perfect together.  Just look how happy they were when they were declared husband & wife!

Ahh, it was lovely.  The reception was definitely unusual - at times it felt more like a big disco where everyone knew each other, than a wedding.  It was a bit fluid with some of the details such as run sheet, catering, flow of the night, etc.  But that was ok - it was a lovely occasion & the bride & groom had the perfect day for them.  And that's what it's all about!  We were thrilled to be there & to see Maree & Mark so happy.


The famous Dave



Bit exhausted from the interstate parties & weddings now and definitely need a break.  I'm glad I don't have any more weddings on the agenda for the time being, but I have enjoyed them & hope to maybe have some next year or even later in the year!  (nobody else is engaged yet, but you just never know)

More boring domestic news next time.