Holly Frindle

After a complete soaking at Whipsnade Zoo followed by a rather miserable picnic in the canteen (against the rules but luckily they bent them as the weather so bad) the sun came out and stayed out, enabling us to stand outside drinking Prosecco whilst we cooked our BBQ.

A smorgasbord of food (re photo, it was a big bbq btw!!) served with Tabbouleh and a lettuce, watercress & sprout salad... Followed by rhubarb Eton mess. Mmmmmm....

Oh, and even though it rained my chorizo, goats cheese & watercress sandwich was a fine combination!

A comforting Sunday lunch

After a freezing cold bike ride what more do you want than a restoring roast dinner? 

The old reliable when it comes to roasts in my mind is Nigel Slater... so today, as directed by him, I finely chopped up the leaves of three large rosemary stems, mixed them with olive oil and a pinch of Maldon salt and rubbed it all over a leg of lamb on the bone. This was then laid on a bed of the remaining rosemary twigs and a whole garlic bulb sliced in half. 

I only had a (very) small piece of lamb, and was worried that my enthusiasm with the rosemary and garlic would be too over-empowering, but it was just fine. Whilst you could taste the rosemary and garlic, the taste of the sweet lamb meat was also prevalent. 

I also managed to get the lamb right - lightly pink.

Served with roasted potatoes and a turnip (I'm Scottish - you may know it better as swede) & carrot mash made with lashings of butter and ground pepper. Mashing carrots it quite hard - not fully possible - if anyone knows the secret, please let me know.

All topped off by probably one of the most delicious apple crumbles I think I've ever had. I got the bramley apples from work - ordered by mistake for eating apples (we provide a fruit in the afternoon to help with the afternoon slump) - weeks ago. Maybe old apples are sweeter?!

Time for a snooze...............

24.02.12