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

Review of The Body Shop's Smoky 2 in 1 Gel Liner for Eyes and Brows

As you can see from the title for this piece, The Body Shop's smoky liner is designed for both eyes and brows. However, a black brow liner is far too dark for my eyebrows and looks more than slightly ridiculous, so I'll just be reviewing it's purposes as an eyeliner. Previously I've used Maybelline's gel liner, and it got me hooked on gel eyeliner (goodbye Barry M kohl pencils!), so as it was running out I thought it was a great opportunity to try something new. 

If you've read some of my previous posts you'll know that I'm pretty much in love with a lot of The Body Shop's products. You can see how much I rate some of their skincare products here. Having said that, this fell a bit flat. I've bought a fair amount of makeup from here before and on the whole it's pretty fab. But this wasn't the best for it's price tag, which is similar to Maybelline's gel liner. The brush is awesome, incredibly soft on your lids even after a few weeks of not cleaning it (whoops). The liner itself is very hard to get on without it looking streaky. At first I thought it was the brush, but sadly nope. Anyhow, now I think I've got the knack of making it streak-free, even if it takes a while. 

To move away from the negatives, I hope everyone has had a great Halloween. And anyway, as long as you can create a number of different styles with an eyeliner - I didn't accidentally have one flick and one wing on different eyes in the picture - you can step out of the door with confidence.

Love and Light

Steph

Spooky Vegan Stuffed Peppers

These are potentially my favourite thing I've made in a while. Last night's dinner was gloriously themed (though my idea to have the rice falling out like maggots was rejected, whoops). There's actually two versions here: one with rice and one without. They're really simple to make and are a great way to celebrate this festive season. Halloween lasts all week right?! Also, sorry I haven't been blogging as much recently, this week's been hectic with a plethora of Halloween events going on, plus some lingering flu that's getting quite annoying now. 

Ingredients (makes 4 servings):

4 peppers - preferably orange/red/yellow

1 clove garlic

1 small onion

200g chopped tomatoes

1/6 courgette

25g brown rice (leave this out if you want to reduce carb intake)

Ground sea salt and black pepper

Dried basil

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Paprika

1.) Start cooking the brown rice. It usually takes about 25 minutes. I like to sprinkle a little bit of black pepper and paprika in as it cooks to add a little more flavour.

2.) Whilst this is cooking, peel and finely chop the onion and garlic. Chop up the courgette.

3.) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

4.) Heat about a teaspoon of oil in a saucepan. Once heated, add the courgette, onion and garlic. Cook until the onion is transparent. 

5.) Add the chopped tomatoes, basil, sea salt and black pepper. About 1/2 teaspoon of basil should be sufficient. Cook for 12 minutes.

6.) Combine the rice and vegetable mixture. Take off the heat.

7.) Now for the fun part! Carve whatever face you want into your pepper. It's best to go small as that way there's less chance for major leakage. Once you've done this, chop the very top of your pepper off and cut out the seeds. This will be your lid.

8.) Carefully fill the peppers with the vegetable filling. Place the lids on top and put (or rather balance!) on a tray in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

9.) Serve and enjoy. 

Love and Light

Steph 

All photos are property of Sophie Hartley