Redcurrant and mint lamb steaks served with honey roasted sweet potato and parsnips and green beans

This was a Sunday dinner meal for me and my family. We usually have the traditional British meal of meat, potatoes and vegetables on a Sunday evening however I'm not that traditional so I did change it up slightly (but not that much, as I do love the homely meals!) I made a sauce for the lamb which was taken from a Nigella Lawson cookbook called Kitchen, which I've mentioned before. I have to say that the sauce was absolutely delicious, it made the meat so succulent and the taste of the redcurrant made it very sweet but rich at the same time with the other ingredients. I served it with honey roasted sweet potato and parsnip wedges and then green beans with sesame seeds, crunchy sea salt and black pepper.


Serves 3 people

Ingredients

For the sauce (Nigella Lawson - Kitchen):

1 tablespoon garlic oil
Juice of 1 clementine/satsuma
1 tablespoon redcurrant jelly
dash Worcestershire sauce
dash red wine vinegar/sherry vinegar
Salt and Pepper
Small bunch of fresh mint, finely chopped. (Or dried mint, which I used ... cos I'm lazy...)

4 lamb steaks

2 large sweet potatoes, sliced into wedges
1 parsnip, sliced into wedges

1 red onion, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon of squeezy honey

Half a pack of green beans (enough for 3)
A good sprinkling of sesame seeds
Crunchy sea salt
Black Pepper

Preheat the oven to 200C.

First, start off with the vegetables as they will take the longest. Chop the parsnips and sweet potato into wedge type shapes, add the chopped red onion, drizzle with olive oil and pop in the oven for around 40 minutes.


Then prepare the sauce for the lamb. In a plastic jug, add the clementine/satsuma juice, redcurrant jelly, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, salt and pepper and whisk well.


Around 20 minutes before the vegetables are done, start on the lamb. I used a griddled pan to fry the lamb steaks, not healthy at all! However, I do find that doing it that way doesn't make the lamb shrink, like it does in the oven, and I just prefer this method of cooking it. So I get the pan hot and put a little bit of oil in there, place the steaks in and stick the lid on. I find that the heat contained inside the pan with the lid on helps the lamb to get juicier and to cook quickly (at least that's my reasoning!)


Keep checking the lamb at intervals and once one side looks cooked, turn over. These should take around 10-15 minutes to cook. Once they are cooked to your preference, take out and put on a warm plate and cover tightly with foil. The meat needs some time to rest!

At this point, around 5-10 minutes before the veggies are completely done, pull them out of the oven and drizzle with honey. Then pop back in for the remaining time.

Then in the same pan you cooked the lamb in, use it to make the sauce. Keep all of the fat, oil and the crispy bits from when you cooked the lamb in the pan, get the heat going again and pour the sauce mixture into it. Turn it down to a simmer, and let it cook until slightly thicker.


Whilst the sauce is sizzling away and the veggies are almost done, cook the green beans. When cooked, drain and add the sesame seeds, crunchy sea salt and black pepper.


Now to finish up. For about 2 minutes, add the lamb steaks to the pan where the sauce is cooking. It gets the steaks all juicy and infused with the sauce flavours and warms them up. Then serve them up onto a warm plate, add the veggies and green beans. Then drizzle the rest of the sauce over the steaks.

Honey mustard chicken, lime and mint cous cous, chilli roasted vegetables and halloumi

A Mediterranean feast! This is a dish I've made many times, adding and taking away different components of it every time I make it, to try something new and get a different taste from the dish! I would recommend that all the ingredients that need to be chopped are done right at the start so they are to hand when you need them!

For 4 people

Ingredients

For the chicken (these are roughly the measurements I used, although I sort of just use what I think, so feel free to change or add different ingredients!)

8 chicken thighs (2 per person)

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper

1 teaspoon of dried thyme

2-3 bay leaves (chopped, not including the stalk in the middle of the leaf!)

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons wholegrain mustard

2 tablespoons honey

For the cous cous -

250g cous cous (or follow the directions given on the packet)

500ml boiling water with vegetable stock (Around 1 tablespoon/2 cubes)

Lime juice (and zest of 1 lime if possible)

Handful of fresh mint, chopped

For the roasted vegetables -

1 large sweet potato, peeled and roughly chopped

1-2 red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped

1 large red onion, roughly chopped

1 red pepper, deseeded and roughly chopped

1 courgette, thickly sliced

10 broccoli florets

1 block of halloumi, sliced

Large handful of flaked almonds (to garnish)

You will notice that this recipe is a lot about timing, it's a pretty simple recipe as long as everything is prepared before starting, then it's all about just shoving everything in the oven at the right time and preparing the cous cous pretty much right before serving!

Preheat the oven to 200C

First start off by chopping up all the vegetables, then put to one side.

Then marinate the chicken with all of the ingredients (except for the honey!) and arrange on a baking tray and pop into the oven for 40-45 minutes.

Arrange the chopped sweet potato and chilli on a baking tray and drizzle with oil, pop into the oven.

After about 10 minutes, take the sweet potato tray out of the oven and add the rest of the vegetables and mix around in the chilli oil. Pop back into the oven for a further 30 minutes.

Around 20 minutes later, take the chicken tray out of the oven and drizzle around 2 tablespoons of honey over the thighs, this will make them lovely and sweet and the skin crispy. Pop back into the oven for 10 more minutes.

Whilst the chicken and vegetables are on their last 10 minutes, get a non stick frying pan on a hot heat with a tiny drizzle of (garlic) oil. Then add the sliced halloumi and gently fry until lovely and brown. I usually just shake the frying pan rather than move the halloumi around with a wooden spoon, then quickly turn them over when each side is done. Once cooked, turn the heat off the pan.

Boil the kettle and pour around 500ml of water into a plastic jug, and add 1 tablespoon of vegetable stock. Pour over the cous cous and leave for a couple of minutes to soak up the water.

In the meantime, take the vegetables and chicken out of the oven and plate these both up.

Then mix the cous cous with a fork, until fluffy. Drizzle over the lime juice and scatter on the chopped mint leaves, mix and then plate up with the chicken and veg. Add a few pieces of halloumi on the side then scatter over a garnish of flaked almonds.