The making of good food

Yes, I have that bee in my bonnet again. I'm cooking anything and everything I can think of. My family absolutely love me for it! In the last week or so I cooked an amazing lamb and chickpea stew served on cous cous and roast veg, made a lovely chicken carrot and parsley soup and made my famous patchy Sheperd's pie.

I'll quickly run you through the recipes, and they are really simple, since I do not believe that anyone should work too hard to make good food.

Lamb and Chickpea stew with Cous Cous and Roast Veg.

What you'll need:
4 lamb shanks
250ml red wine
fresh rosemary
2 cloves of garlic
Zest of 1 lemon
2 cans of chickpeas, drained
4 Potatoes - chunked
Salt and pepper to taste
Instant oxtail or beef soup

Combine the wine, rosemary, lemon garlic, salt and pepper and marinate the lambshanks overnight.
Place the lamb and the marinade in a slowcooker the next morning, and set it to cook on a low heat for most of the day.
Add the potatoes and chickpeas 3 hours before you want to dish up.
Keep an eye on the fluid levels and top up with water if needed.
An hour before you want to dish up, mix the instant soup with 250 ml of water and add to the stew. Stir and cook till the soup has thickened.

For the Cous Cous and roast veg you will need:
Cous Cous
Mixed vegetables
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
Butter

Sprinkle the veg with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast in a 180 degree oven for 25 minutes.
Cook the cous cous according to the instructions on the packet, adding ample amounts of butter when it is done.
Combine the cous cous and the roast veg and serve with the lamb stew.

My wine of choice to enjoy with this: Nederburg Cabernet Sauvignon


Chicken, Carrot and Parsley soup


You will need:
200g chicken, skinless and deboned but not chopped
12 Carrots, peeled and cubed
1 onion, diced
2 handfulls of fresh parsley
Celery, chopped
1 potato, cubed
1 block of instant chicken or vegetable stock dissolved in 300ml boiling water
1 packet of white onion soup
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cups of milk

Combine the chicken, carrots, onion, celery, potatoes, salt, pepper and stock in a pressure cooker and cook for about 20 minutes.
In a blender, blitz the parsley and the onion soup with 150ml of milk.
When the veg and chicken is done, add all of the chicken and 3/4 of the veg to the blender and blend till smooth.
Add the purée back into the stock along with the rest of the milk.
Cook for another 10 minutes.
Serve and enjoy.
Great with a loaf of rye bread, or Portuguese rolls.

Patchy Shepherds Pie


You will need:
1 kg of lean mince
1 onion chopped
3 tomatoes peeled and chopped
1 greenpepper cubed
250 ml red wine
4-6 tablespoons of sugar
1 tsp mixed herbs
1 tablespoon of cornflour, dissolved in 25 ml of water.
200 g mixed veg
6 large potatoes, peeled and cubed
10 olives, stoned and finely chopped.
milk
butter
Salt and pepper to taste
1 roll of readymade puff pastry

Fry the tomatoes, onions, greenpepper in a bit of olive oil till the tomato starts to lose consistency. Add the mince and fry till the mince starts to brown. add the red wine, sugar, mixed herbs, mixed veg, salt and pepper and boil on a medium heat.

Meanwhile add the potatoes to a separate pot of boiling water and season to taste. Boil till the potatoes are cooked through. Drain and mash. Do not at this point be tempted to blitz the mash in a food processor - that's cheating. Use elbow grease and get the job done manually. Add about 2 tablespoons of butter and enough milk to change the consistence to that of a medium thick porridge. Finally, Add the chopped olives to the mash.

Thicken the mince with the cornflour.

Spoon the mash into a greased ovenproof dish, and top it with the mince. Cut the puff pasty into chunks and strips and layer it over the mince. Bake at 200 degrees for 40 minutes till the pastry is cooked through and starts to brown.

Serve and enjoy.

Well' that was a blogpost and a half. Hope you enjoyed it! Let me know if you tried any of these recipes and tell me what you think!