roasted lamb with potatoes, anchovies & garlic

Sunday nights have become roast nights in my household; it's probably the one day in the week when everyone's home and we all sit down at the dinner table to eat (and yes we all sit down till we finish all our food unlike weeknights when someone is finishing late or I'm off to the gym and standing over the kitchen bench scoffing down my food - bad I know!). And well, the cooking of the roast has been a bit of a collective effort, we all take turns and it works out to be a rather good arrangement - everyone gets a go and the roast always tastes spectacular in very different ways.

It was my turn this particular week and I used the 'Slow-roasted lamb shoulder with potatoes, anchovies and garlic' recipe found in 'The Thrifty Kitchen'. It's very simple! Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Rub 1.5kg lamb with freshly ground salt and pepper. Heat a heavy based roasting tin over medium heat, then add the lamb and brown all over. Take the lamb off the heat and set aside on a plate. Spread 1kg thinly sliced desiree potatoes and 2 thinly sliced red onions in alternate layers in the roasting tin, and nestle 3 heads of garlic (halved) in amongst the slices. Top with 4 anchovy fillets, 1 tbsp olive oil and 30g butter and season well with salt and pepper. Lay the browned lamb on top, sprinkle with 1 sprig rosemary and 1 1/2 tbsp white wine vinegar, and pour over 2 cups water.

Cover the tin with foil and bake for 1 1/2 hours. Reduce the oven temperature to 160 degrees and remove the foil, then continue to cook for another 30 minutes. 

Allow to rest for 5 minutes and then carve. Serve the lamb with the vegetables and a head of roasted garlic per person.

Next time I'd probably reduce the cooking time about 15 minutes to have the lamb slightly rarer. Surprisingly the original recipe recommends a cooking time of 3 hours which both mum and I thought was a little excessive so took the lamb out as soon as it looked done (and we were right!) This one leg of lamb more than comfortably serves four and we even had some leftovers to make a sandwich the next day (have I ever mentioned how tasty roast sandwiches are? they are the best!)

yummy lane @ rowe st., eastwood

There was a time when this restaurant didn't have a front or back door. It was just a resturant in an alleyway and no matter how adventurous I was, I couldn't get a soul to go with me to try it out. Actually I had no idea where the food was coming out from, you could only see a counter at the front, tables and chairs down the alleyway and staff that would triapse up and down the corridor to take your order and at night, everything would get packed up and the restaurant would cease to exist. It's probably been a good 6 months and now Yummy Lane has both a front and back door and decor to suggest that it's more of a permanent fix, or one would think at least.

Quite an extensive menu on offer but in the end, just simple, homestyle Chinese food and I was actually quite impressed with how it all tasted. Here's the braised beancurd with mushroom and veg. A staple dish to order when counterbalancing the meat heavy dishes you would usually order when you eat Chinese food.

You can see how narrow the restaurant is in this photo. The boy is getting a little sick of me taking photos of him :(

HK Style Iced Lemon Tea - not too sweet but reminds me I really need to get my hands on a good recipe; would love to learn how to make it at home.

Beef & Vermicelli with Sacha Sauce. Not too heavy nor gluggy with the Sacha sauce and the vermicelli noodles is enough to fill you up without needing to have it with rice.

Handmade noodle with homemade sauce (otherwise known as Jia Jiang Mien). We were probably a little too adventurous and ordered a bit too much food. Ended up having enough takeaway to fill two plastic boxes.

With a 10% discount on the meal, I was suitably impressed with how it all turned out. Very quick service, decent portion sizes and surprisingly Chinese food that didn't leave me too thirsty after the meal. I'd say two dishes with a little rice is enough to feed two, order 3 dishes and you should have enough takeaway to last you both for lunch the next day. They're reasonably tech savvy with our waiter taking the order on his iPhone and they seem reasonably busy without being frantic so good to know you can turn up and just get a table. Though really, gone are the days when I would wait outside for ages to get a table, I'd much rather be seated and eating!

hershey's kisses peanut butter blossoms

It was a trip to Costco last week that I remembered that I had this recipe to post. There's actually no real correlation between Costco to the recipe except for the fact that Costco sells these massive bags of Hershey's Kisses (which features in the recipe) and which I'm tempted to buy everytime I see one. If its not the Hershey's Kisses that I'm seeing at Costco, its those Peanut Butter Cups; even more tasty and probably not so good for you if you eat too many if one go.

This recipe comes from the back of my packet of Christmas themed Hershey's Kisses (Hershey's in green, red and silver foil wrapping - yes I am a sucker for packaging). Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Remove wrappers from 48 Hershey's Kisses chocolates. Beat 125g melted shortening and 3/4 cup smooth peanut butter in a large bowl. Add 1/3 cup caster sugar and 1/3 cup light brown sugar. Add 1 egg, 2tbsp milk and 1 tsp vanilla extract. Stir in 1 1/2 cups plain flour, 1 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp salt. Mix to combine.

Shape the dough into 2cm balls. Roll in caster sugar.

Press a chocolate into the centre of each cookie. 

Bake for 8 - 10 minutes.

Remove cookies to a wire rack and let cool completely.

Come to think of it, these cookies are almost peanut butter cups in cookie format! The original recipe actually asks you to press the chocolates in after the cookies have baked and the cookie is still soft but the dyslexic side of me read it as press them in before you bake. Well I can't tell you if the original recipe works but my way worked just fine - the chocolates actually don't melt in the oven but keep their shape. I find peanut butter loves sticking to the roof of my mouth and eating these was no exception. Ended up being a great Christmas treat to share with the extended family.

cute blog award

Thanks to the lovely Mashi for awarding me with the Cute Blog Award. You've become a close friend and confidante and well, it all started with this blog!

What is your go to make up product?
Moisturiser


What was your favourite trend of 2011?
Macarons! Please let there be more Macarons in 2012.

What is your favourite dessert?
Any form of tarte tartin.

Favourite colour?
Blue

What is your middle name?
MW

What was the last song you listened to?
Lucky - Colbie Callait

Cats or dogs?
Dogs

Tell us something about yourself that you haven't told us on your blog.
I've lost count of the number of cookbooks I have (clearly I have too many!)


Here are the rules:

1. Link back to the person who awarded you
2. Answer award questions
3. Tell us something about yourself you haven't told us in your blog yet
4. Award as many blogs as you think are worthy of this award
5. Make sure you let those you award that they have received the Cute Blog Award

I'm awarding the following blogs:
Sweets by Vicky
Spoon, Forks & Chopsticks
Foodie Pop 
Char post 
Tea Thymes 
Geebambino


Thanks for always popping by my blog and leaving such lovely messages. I love your blogs (even if I'm a little quiet when it comes to leaving messages in return).

mt. fuji sushi @ falcon st., crows nest

So life has been treating me well, albeit keeping me a little busy. I've also started the year with a resolution to cook more and eat out less and so far, I can't say that I've had much progress but I'm trying. I mean well though which I think counts for something. If anything, have cut back on the elaborate meals and finding some cheaper local haunts which are well worth their weight in gold.

Google had Mount Fuji Sushi in Crows Nest with a 4 out of 5 star rating; the boy and I figured we couldn't go wrong if the eating population of Sydney had given it such a good rating. Snapped up one of the tables in the back (there's only half a dozen or so of them) and ordered a selection of items across the menu.

Agedashi tofu arrived promptly at the table - tasty and a good sized serving to whet the appetite.

Fried dumplings - crispy on the outer and very tasty on the inner.

Large Sushi Plate. The sushi pieces are a tad small so treat this one more as an entree rather than main.

Chicken Terayaki - dainty trips of chicken with a good sized portion of rice accompanying. Some places really pile on the rice and you end up getting full on just the rice alone.

The boy is always full of expression and makes me laugh. 

Pork Tonkatsu with the restaurant's special sauce - very crispy and succulent.

It seemed like a lot when we were ordering but being a late dinner for us this particular Friday night, we demolished all the dishes quite comfortably. The place appears quite popular with people popping in and out to dine in and takeaway. They only have 3 staff running the entire restaurant and I'm suitably impressed by how efficient and on the ball they are. Extremely friendly, prompt service and great tasting food. Prices are ever so reasonable also!