Hearty Healthy Lamb Casserole

In England we're now firmly settling into Autumn. The trees have reached a gourgeous yellow/red/orange colour and everything looks quite pretty. Unless it's raining. Which sadly it now does at least every other day. I guess we can start dreaming about summer again .... Anyway, Autumn does have some advantages. There's nothing nicer than to snuggle up on a cold November evening with a steaming hot meal in front of you. One that you don't have to feel will add on those winter pounds is always a bonus as well. 

Ingredients (serves 4):

2lb diced lamb.

1 carrot

1 onion

2 cloves garlic

2 teaspoons fresh ginger

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

750ml chicken stock

2 teaspoons fresh rosemary

Extra virgin olive oil

Ground black pepper

Sea salt

Dried chili flakes

1.) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. 

2.) Finely chop the onion and garlic. Chop the carrot.

3.) Heat a tablespoon of oil in a pan. Cook the onion, garlic and carrot for roughly five minutes on a medium heat. Take care not to burn as it can alter the taste of the entire casserole (from experience, burnt onion is noticeable in pretty much every dish!). 

4.) Whilst this is cooking, put another tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan or wok. Brown the chunks of lamb.

5.) Grate the ginger and add to the cooking vegetables. Add the chili flakes. Cook for one minute. Put the vegetables in a casserole dish. 

6.) Add the lamb to the casserole dish.

7.) Put the rosemary (taken off the sticks) into the pan which the lamb was cooked in. Add the stock. Heat until the stock is bubbling. 

8.) Add the stock to the casserole. Stir and put in the oven for 1 hour.

9.) Add the Worcestershire sauce, ground black pepper and sea salt. Put back in the oven for another hour.

10.) Et voila, you have a gourgeous casserole for the whole family, or, if you're just cooking for yourself it's suitable for freezing (great for long days where you don't want to cook!).

Love and Light

Steph

Any comments/questions are always welcome!

**DISCLAIMER**

All photos are property of Sophie Hartley

Delicious Shoulder of Lamb

Now as part of my clean diet I generally don't eat red meat, instead sticking to chicken and turkey when I do have meat. However, a little treat is in order now and again, so I made this for me and the boyfriend last week. I always think that if you have treats like this, which aren't actually bad for you because they're done in moderation, it keeps you off the processed foods. or at least me. When I do have something like this I also usually eat incredibly well during the rest of the day so that it won't affect my diet.

Ingredients (serves 3-4):

Lamb shoulder

Dried Rosemary

Dried Thyme

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Garlic 

Sea Salt

Ground Black Pepper

1.) I think it's best to prepare the lamb a number of hours before you intend to start cooking it. So I did the first part of this before going to uni for the day, and cooked it when I got home. This sounds like a lot of hassle, but it really isn't. I spent about ten minutes prepping it in the morning, so it didn't mean I was up in the early hours of the morning like some kind of nineteenth century housemaid. Thankfully. I started by finely chopping two large garlic cloves. 

2.) Next I made the rub to go onto it. I put about four tablespoons of olive oil (adjust to the size of the lamb), a sprinkle of sea salt, half a teaspoon of black pepper, a teaspoon of dried rosemary and a pinch of dried thyme in a bowl. Sorry about the uber-long list. Give it a quick stir and add the garlic. 

3.) Rub onto the lamb. I also made little incisions into the meat in which I placed some garlic and rosemary. I feel that this always enhances the flavour a bit.

4.) Wrap in a couple of layers of clingfilm and place back in the fridge for a number of hours.

5.) Now it's time to actually get down to cooking. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees, or gas mark 2. Place foil over the lamb to retain moisture and cook for 3-4 hours. Every hour or so it's a good idea to baste the lamb again with the original mixture. This way none of the flavour gets lost with the cooking. 

I always thought that cooking lamb was something super hard that only my nan's level of expertise allowed you to do, but hey, if I can do it, so can you! 

Any comments/questions are always welcome

Steph :)