I think you'd need a forklift to get it in/out of the oven. :eek:

oooo - I had the first tomato of the summer today.

heaven!

tonight was farfalle (bowtie) pasta, mixed with kielbasa fried in a pan and a couple cans of tomatos with garlic/olive oil added, quartered artichoke hearts, red pepper flakes, and a few fresh chopped garlic cloves in there for an extra kick.

Chinese take out tonight.

It's late, it's the weekend, and I'll be eating turkey burgers.

Fried green maters, okra and pork chops

Tonight I had beans on toast.

But what I really wanted to report back about was the meal we had last week.
I admit I'm submitting this late AND there are no photos. Sorry.

Mum and Dad order wine by the case. It's not all that fancy, just a cheaper way of doing things. It's drinking wine, not storing wine. And if they leave it a couple of months, the wine club tempts them back with great offers; sometimes discounts and sometimes extras. Dad has perfected the art of playing off a couple of different companies against eachother :)

One of the extras was an Italian food package. And one of the Italian foods enclosed was Stinco Arrosto. We had no idea what it was. My Italian is already restricted to hello, goodbye and ordering from a menu and I'd never come across this item before. It came in a box and in a vacuum selaed pack, with instructions to boil for eight minutes, then brown for another ten in the oven (optional). From this we knew it had to be cured meat, but nothing more. The box gave a description of how delicious it was, but no real explanation of what lay within!

Turns out Stinco means shin. It was cured pork (nothing like ham) on the bone. It was so soft it literally fell off the bone as I tried to carve it. I thought of y'all - I ended up pulling it off with a fork.

It was bloody gorgeous.
We all went back for more, Maureen included and she eats so little compared to us.
If it wasn't so cor-blimey expensive (the one we had sells for £5.40 without P&P) I'd ask for it every week. Given that a raw chicken can be bought for under £3 and gives leftovers it's not a cheap option. But I'm thinking of surprising Mum with one for her birthday - yes, still thinking about that menu. After all, I can keep it under my bed!

The sweet potato souffles that went with it were a success too!

I had a very scrumptious dinner last night that included marinated top round roast cooked in the oven, potatoes kind of cooked in the oven (some were underdone) and Garlic Parmesan orzo.

I don't know what to do with the potatoes. I am thinking of throwing them in the skillet with ham and using that as breakfast. Tried that today without cooking them, but the potatoes are just not cooked enough.

The orzo is going to be hard not to sit with the whole bowl and eat it all! It was SOO good!

yeah, bbro, hash brown them taters.

Tonight is a recipe I've never tried before but is relatively simple, a sort of moroccan or north african lamb and bean stew.

I don't have the full recipe in front of me, but it involves 2.5 lbs chopped up leg of lamb, potatos, onions, and beans (fava in the original recipe, but I'm substituting canellini because I can't seem to find any fava beans for some reason. I think it'll work fine), along with harissa (a spicy red sauce), garlic, rosemary, anchovy, lemon juice, worchestershire sauce, and olive oil. probably a couple other things too, but that's the bulk of it. I can post the recipe if anybody really wants it.

Meat will be browned and onions softened in dutch oven on the range, then potatos added and the whole mess shoved in the oven to slow cook for 2 hours or so.

It should be pretty good, I think. It'll have a unique flavor for sure.

That was also my first time hacking up a leg of lamb like that, which was interesting. The meat texture was really markedly different from beef. I suppose I always knew that, and I know they taste different, but really handling and carving a large-ish slab of it made the point absolutely clear. Too used to seeing meat pre-cut into tiny pieces and not really handling it, I suppose, just chucking it in a pot or pan. Good learning experience, and not nearly as traumatic as it could've been. Admittedly it was also already boned by the butcher, but that was more for a lack of skill on my part than an avoidance thing.

Steak and mushrooms with roast potatoes, gravy and broccoli :yum:

Chicken dressing, with cranberry sauce

Ham, green beans, and sweet potato french fries.

Hot dogs from a gas station, chips, tea, and Ben & Jerry's Cinnamon Buns ice cream

mmm..

going to a friend's for BBQ, taking potato salad.

mayo, vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar
parsely
chives
green onion
onion
celery
green beans
bacon
potatoes

and frilly bits :D

:yum: