Herby Rainbow Coleslaw

I love summer. The long warm days, light nights and the feeling that there is time to achieve anything. I know this summer hadn't been perfect but, in London at least, we've had enough decent weather to make my mood more buoyant.

This is a quick salad I made on a lovely summers evening. I had some leftover fresh beetroot and decide to make a take on coleslaw.

I shredded beetroot, carrot and cabbage (you could also add onion but I'm not a fan of raw onion) and then added a tarted up mayonnaise.

My friend who is pregnant was eating with us so I used bought mayonnaise to avoid raw egg and enhanced it with a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, seasoning, lemon juice and finely chopped parsley and mint and then mixed it with the vegetables to form a fabulously colourful salad.

This is great with a BBQ or a cooked chicken and salad.


The herbs came from my garden

Simple herb and lemon risotto

This is such a simple risotto; creamy, comforting and restorative. It's amazing how so few ingredients can come together to make such a wonderful dish.

Feel free to experiment, add chicken or use red wine instead of white, the beauty of a risotto is that you can adapt it to whatever you have in the kitchen.

On this occasion though it was Friday night and I was eating on my own so I wanted something simple, plus I hadn't been shopping for a while so there were a limited choice of ingredients to choose from.

It's a great dish to make after a stressful week at work. I find the gradual adding of liquid and repetitive stirring somehow therapeutic. Add some gentle music and feel the tension melt out of your bones.

Ingredients

Serves one but can easily be doubled

1 small onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
Olive oil
A couple of handful's of risotto rice. I used arborio.
A small glass of white wine
Good quality chicken stock, heated up. I always make some after each roast chicken and keep it in the freezer
1/2 lemon, zest and juice. I always try to buy waitrose's as you seem to get some much more juice for your money from them
A large bunch of soft herbs such as parsley, mint, chives and basil, finely chopped
Plenty of Parmesan
Seasoning

In a heavy based pan sweat the onion off in a little olive oil. You're aiming to just soften them without adding colour. After a few minutes add the garlic, lemon zest and the risotto rice. Again keep the heat low. You're aiming to get no colour. Once the rice starts to turn translucent add the white wine and stir until it has absorbed. Add a ladle of hot chicken stock and stir until it has absorbed. Keep repeating this until the rice is softened but still al dente. This will take 30-40 mins. You don't need to stir all of the time but make sure you stir frequently. Patience is the name of the game. The slowly the stock is absorbed the creamier the end result is. If you want to cheat you can add an egg yolk and a spoonful of cream or creme fraiche but I prefer to leave this out.

Once cooked finish by stirring through herbs, lemon juice, a handful of parmesan and seasoning. Serve and top with a few extra herbs and extra Parmesan if desired.

Here are the herbs I used.





And this is the finished dish




I am going to submit this recipe as part of the New June Herbs on Saturday blog challenge.



I love herbs and a you can see from previous posts I cook with then a lot. Since I've moved I have a small garden and am now the proud owner of a little herb garden. It's not much and I've focused on pretty standard herbs, but it's mine and I've been caring for it and watching it flourish and I'm proud of it (I have tried growing some Thai basil but as I type the little seedlings are curling up and giving up).

Slow cooked shoulder of lamb

If I do say so myself this recipe is a stunner. It's one of those dishes which is far greater than a sum of its parts. It takes a very long time
to cook but the preparation is quick and easy and as I was hosting a little dinner party for friends directly after working a long day this was just the dish.

It's an adaptation of a James Martin recipe I found years ago on the BBC website. Over the years it's changed a little bit from the original.

You will need:
A shoulder of lamb
4 cloves of garlic
Half a tin of anchovies
4 sprigs of rosemary
A handful of thyme
2 bay leaves
300ml red wine (replace this with water to make it 'cleaner')
300ml water
2 tins tomatoes
2 tins butter beans (leave these out to make it Paleo)
3 tbsp tomato purée
One beef stock cube
Seasoning

Serves 4-6

I start by taking a shoulder of lamb and making deep incisions all over the joint. In each incision I put a piece of anchovy, a few of rosemary leaves and a slice of garlic. For a whole shoulder I'd use about 8 anchovy fillets, two large garlic cloves and a couple of sprigs of rosemary.

I then heat up some oil in a large my oven proof pan which also had a lid and sear the meat on both sides. Once browned remove from the heat and in the juices gently fry 2 chopped onions and 2 cloves of sliced garlic. Add a bunch of thyme, a couple of sprigs of rosemary and a couple of bay leaves (preferably fresh. I get mine from my friends garden).

Once the onion is translucent and golden, place the shoulder of lamb back in the pan and add about 300ml red wine, two tins of chopped tomatoes, two tins of butter beans, about 3 tablespoons of tomato purée, a beef stock cube (I use Kallo as it doesn't contain MSG) a small amount of salt (as the anchovies and stock are both salty), plenty of black pepper and about 300ml water.

Give it a good stir, put the lid on and place in an oven pre-heated to 140C. Cook for 8-12 hours checking occasionally to stir the mixture and add more water if it starts I get more dry. When you remove from the oven spoon off any excess fat. By this point it is so soft and unctuous that I serve it in the pan it was cooked in and simply use a couple of forks to pull apart the meat.

The original recipe serves it with mash but as it has the beans in the sauce I just serve with mixed green veg. In this case I blanched some green beans, sugar snap peas and asparagus and then drained them and dressed them with lemon juice, rapeseed oil and chopped mint.

The beautiful lamb...




I am going to submit this recipe as part of the New June Herbs on Saturday blog challenge.





I love herbs and a you can see from previous posts I cook with then a lot. Since I've moved I have a small garden and am now the proud owner of a little herb garden. It's not much and I've focused on pretty standard herbs, but it's mine and I've been caring for it and watching it flourish and I'm proud of it (I have tried growing some Thai basil but as I type the little seedlings are curling up and giving up).