Strong Verbs Are Just Better

Adapted from In the Kitchen by Campion and Curtis

( Dietary and accessibility notes )

You need:

A portion of lamb leg suitable for roasting. 1kg to 1.5kg, say?
About 12 cloves of garlic
2-4 tablespoons of pesto
Possibly salt and pepper to season?

What you should do:

- peel the garlic cloves
- cut vertical slashes all over the lamb, and tuck the garlic in
- slather the entire thing in pesto.

For best results, leave this all to marinade for a few hours. You might want to season with salt and pepper, but I didn't bother. Then roast! I recommend 180 degrees celcius, about 20 minutes per 500 grams of lamb. You're aiming for medium-rare. Test by sticking a butter knife into the lamb. If it comes out cold, cook another 5 minutes or so. You want the knife surface to be tepid/skin temperature warm - about the same temperature as you'd heat baby's milk to, if that helps.

I slow-cooked a chicken in cider with apples!

It fell apart as soon as I touched it. Now I have a pile of chicken, with scattered bones and apple mush. And the odd scrap of now-flavourless bacon. And a pot of liquid which I may or may not strain down for stock.

It is tasty. But not elegant. I'm guessing this is a sign that we should have trussed the chicken, despite the lack of instructions saying "truss chicken here"

( Instructions, anyone? )

Adapted from The Ellen Sinclair Cookbook (which is really hard to find these days, why yes, I am smug to have got hold of a copy).

( Dietary and accessibility notes )

Measurements are in Australian standards

( Ingredients and method )

NOM.

My housemate describes these as "like rich tea biscuits on steroids". This is an accurate description.

I might consider adding nutmeg and cinnamon next time.

All due credit to trojie for the original recipe. I changed the cut of chicken, the vegetables, and the method of cooking.

( Accessibility, dietary notes, preparation, and storage )

( Ingredients and method )

This recipe began as the Honey and Five Spice Lamb from the Women's Weekly Modern Asian cookbook. Personally I've liked it better with beef, and chicken was delicious; and in fact it wouldn't require meat at all (perhaps halve the sauce/marinade if going vego, unless Tofu is involved).

( Accessibility/dietary notes )

( Recipe this way )

Feeds 4, or thereabouts, depending on how much stuff you put in it. Vegetables can be swapped for... other vegetables.

Note: measurements are in Australian measures; tablespoons are 20ml but I don't imagine it makes all that much difference in this dish.

With due thanks to agenttrojie for describing her chicken soup, and kayloulee's ham and split pea soup for weight ratios.

( Chicken and stuff soup for slow cooker )

This recipe comes from the original Australian Women's Weekly cookbook. It's supposed to be a pikelet recipe, but IMHO the batter is too thin and it works better if you make big thin pancakes out of it.

( Dieterary and accessibility notes, alternative recipe )

( Ingredients and method )

Crossposted to crock_o_dial

Adapted for the slow cooker, based on a recipe in Clarissa Dickson-Wright's Potty.

( Accessibility and dietary notes )

( Recipe under here )

Under the influence of my current mania for all things cookbook-related, I decided it was high time I made further inroads into my 'Stir Fries: Best Ever Wok and Pan' book.¹ Now, I've had this book since I was nineteen, and I've certainly had my money's worth out of it, but that money has been recouped through exactly one recipe. I had others tagged to cook, but for some reason have never made them. On investigation, this is because I tagged the most boring recipes in the entire book and never reconsidered. All my nineteen-year-old tags have been ripped out and replaced with ones more suited to a Highly who likes interesting food.

Along with a tasty new foods, I also discovered that I've grown as a person as a cook in the last couple of years: I can now look at a set of ingredients, think "hmm, that needs something" and successfully mod the recipe without ending up with mandarin stir-fry. Which is not to say that I don't still do horrifying things, just, y'know, less often.

ANYWAY. I present to you: Sesame pepper chicken.

( Accessibility notes / common dietary notes )

( Ingredients )

( What you do with them )

~

1. This one here, by Bay Books: no author or editor cited. Apparently it's available as a free ebook these days? Possibly pirated, but I couldn't find a legit copy online anywhere.
Ed: A lot of it is up on googlebooks, too.

( Considerably more than five flavour noodles )

In other news, omigod, SOMEN NOODLES. Where have you been all my life? Ok, fine, on the shelf, where I refused to try you. I AM SORRY. I REGRET MY ANTI-NOODLE PREJUDICES. CAN YOU FORGIVE ME? NEVER LEAVE ME AGAIN.