Spicy Lamb - Secret Recipe, Roasted Curried Potatoes and Parsnips, Coconut and Sultana Basmati Rice, and an Aubergine and Tomato side dish

Spicy Lamb, with Roasted Curried Potatoes and Parsnips, Coconut and Sultana Basmati Rice, and an Aubergine and Tomato side dish :)

Thankfully Mr.R spends a lot of time in our kitchen.
For this I am truly thankful, I love his cooking, it's my favourite food.
Mr.R being happy to do all of the cooking is good, it means I don't have to.
I can cook, but I don't enjoy cooking.
Eating, on the other hand, is something I do enjoy.
Speaking of hands, I have been known to eat with my hands. I don't call it bad manners, I prefer to think of it as eagerness to stuff my face with the delicious food Mr.R has lovingly prepared for me.
Today was a day when I felt my cutlery was not adequate enough, and I couldn't resist using my fingers too. Some food just seems to taste even nicer when eaten using my hands.

Anyway, as I have just uploaded a blog post about the cold, wet, and generally depressing weather we've experienced today, (I included lots of pretty flower photos to that blog post so it's not all gloomy), I thought I'd write about something much more enjoyable. Food!

Today Mr.R cooked us a seriously good lunch.
Actually Mr.R makes us good food every day, but, being a meat lover, our lunch today was especially tasty. Lamb!

Having been blown-about by the wind, and battered by the cold on our dog walk this morning with Barley our rescue Lurcher, I decided to go back to bed when we returned to the house.
That decision turned out to be an excellent one, as when I woke up, just before lunchtime, I came downstairs to be greeted by the tastebud tingling aroma of spices, and roast lamb.
Oh my God! It smelt so good.

After a while, when I'd woken up properly it was time for Mr.R to dish-up.
We do own a dining table, and we do eat our meals while sitting at it, but today the crappy depressing weather meant we felt like dining casually, by which I mean we sat on the sofa to eat our lunch.

Mr.R had been cooking up a storm, weather reference not intended, in the kitchen all morning. But our lunch was actually in the early stages of preparation last night, when Mr.R ground lots of spices, which he soaked in oil for a while before smothering the leg of lamb in the spicy concoction.
The lamb was left to marinate overnight.
Today Mr.R roasted the spicy lamb.
He served it with coconut and sultana basmati rice, roasted curried potatoes and parsnips, and an aubergine and tomato side dish.
Delicious!
Seriously Delicious! And the perfect meal to beat the Winter blues.

The photos definitely do not do the spicy lamb justice, my only excuse is that as soon as I saw it I wanted to eat it, not waste time faffing about photographing it.

Are you a lamb lover?

Rock Cake - Recipe

I don't know why, but yesterday evening 'Rock Cakes' came in to my mind.
I hadn't read about them, seen them on TV, or experienced any other associations, so I figured it must have been a sign. A sign telling me - I should eat rock cakes.

So, today after lunch, which I cooked (very unusual for me because I don't like being in the kitchen) I decided to make some rock cakes.
I haven't eaten a rock cake for ages, probably a couple of decades.
I refreshed my memory with a suitable recipe. But then as usual I ignored it.
Here's the basic recipe I didn't follow.

Ingredients

6oz self-raising flour
4oz butter
3oz caster sugar (I used demerara sugar, and just 1oz as I don't think they needed 3oz). 
1 splash milk (I used a couple of teaspoons of Greek yoghurt). 
1 egg
2oz raisins, or sultanas, or any fruit you fancy (I used sultanas, apricots, prunes, and cherries).
Cinnamon. This wasn't mentioned on the recipe, but I like it so I added a generous teaspoon. 

Method

Put oven on to 200c, Gas Mark 6, and grease a large baking tray (I used greaseproof paper).
Sieve flour into a bowl.
Add butter and rub with fingertips until it resembles fine bread crumbs.
Stir in the sugar, and the fruit if you're using any.
Then add 1 egg, and stir in.
Next add enough milk to make a stiff dough. A splash may be all you need.
Put 12 heaps of the mixture on to the  baking tray, and bake for approximately 15 minutes, or until the rock cakes are golden brown and cooked through.

As I said I don't like being in the kitchen, cooking is not something I particularly enjoy. But Mr.R had gone for a siesta, and my craving for rocks cakes couldn't wait. So I braved the kitchen, and surprisingly I really enjoyed myself.
Admittedly baking rock cakes is not difficult, they're one of the easiest and quickest things to cook, but usually even something so simple would feel like a chore to me.

I only took two photos of the rock cakes, before and after, and not my usual photos of every stage of the baking because I didn't want to waste time faffing about. I was eager to get them mixed and cooked, so strong was my craving.

The preparation of the rock cakes took about 15 minutes, which was the same as the cooking time.
So after half an hour, I had 12 rocks cakes baked and ready to eat.

I honestly intended to wait for Mr.R to get up from his afternoon nap before I tasted the rock cakes, but they looked so good I couldn't resist.
And they tasted even better than they looked. Perfect with a nice hot cuppa.
Delicious!

What's your favourite quick and easy sweet treat?