God bless Nigel!

We are not very religious people but we do worship somethings/people. For example we both worship Jonny Wilkinson, especially his right foot. I regularly give thanks for the existence of Le Creuset. Todays post is about someone that is also high revered, Nigel Slater. I love the way he writes about food. I am currently enjoying his Eating for England book. This Saturday we went to the Farmers Market and bought some lamb loin chops, with a recipe of Nigel's in mind. This recipe is from his Kitchen Diaries book. The orginial recipe contains aubergine but Nigel doesn't like people to follow his recipes to the letter. So we adapted it to the veg we had from our box.

• 1 onion, sliced thickly
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled and left whole
• 6 tomatoes, halved
• 6 small potatoes, halved lengthwise
• 1 turnip, chopped into large chunks
• 1 courgette, chopped into large sticks
• 4 lamb double loin chops
• Olive oil

Into a large roasting tin put the onion, turnip, garlic cloves , tomatoes and potatoes. Add about a tablespoon or so of olive oil, toss the veg so they are covered and season. If we had some thyme or rosemary I would have put this in too. Put this into a oven gas mark 6 for 30 mins.

After 30 mins, add the courgette and then top with the lamb chops. Turn the oven up gas mark 7 and cook for another 30 mins.

We love this recipe, its a roast dinner without all the washing up. Thank you Nigel!

If you can't beat them, join them!

After reading the weekly curry posts from Jules and this post from stonehead at the weekend. We decided to have Rogan Josh for dinner on Sunday. I really love curry and the fact it is so loved in Britain. Whenever we have a new person in the lab I'm always directing them to my favourite Indian restaurant as well as my favourite Scottish restaurants. As you can see from the photo this was washed down with a pint of Black Sheep. Some people seem to have the perception that curry is a difficult thing to make but its dead easy!

Rogan Josh (Serves 4-6)

• 1 Kg beef or lamb, we use stewing beef
• 2 onions (chopped)
• 125g plain yogurt
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 1 tbsp ground coriander
• 2 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp ground cardamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp tumeric
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp grated ginger
• 400g can of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tsp garam marsala
• Almonds
• Fresh coriander

1. Fry onions in some vegetable oil until soft.
2. Stir in yoghurt, garlic, ginger and spices.
3. Add tomatoes, season and simmer for a few minutes.
4. Add meat.
5. Cover and cook for 1-1 and a 1/2 hr.
6. Take the lid off and reduce sauce.
7. Toast almonds.
8. When the sauce is thick enough, add the garam marsala and coriander.
9. Serve and top with almonds.