At Home Easter Sunday

Our drawing room yesterday. It hasn't seen that much use since we revamped it last Autumn as we tend to 'live' in our kitchen living space which has very cosy toes under floor heating.

But yesterday some very good friends came to see us and our son Jack is with us (hurrah) for a few days during his Easter break from Uni'. We had a cracking day.

I pushed the boat out food wise and bought a whole leg of New Zealand lamb. A first for me as lamb always seems so incredibly expensive, and in truth I always think it's a bit tricky to cook well.

Before I started to cook the meat I had a look at a few of my own cookery books, then trawled the internet to see what other wise words on the subject would be of use. It struck me that there was a tremendous amount of advice on preparation which is good but also lots of different ideas on how long to cook and at what temperature. In the end I did what I always do with recipes pinch a tip or idea here and there and then mix it  all up and use my finely honed cooking instincts to come up with the best way of handling the situation. The advice on the packaging was to cook the joint for 3 hours.

I gave the meat a burst of really high heat for 15mins at 220, then it cooked for a further 1hr 25 mins at 170. Covered in a mix of olive oil spread, smoked garlic, celery salt, fennel seeds, white pepper and home grown rosemary and a large squeeze of lemon. It was top nosh, even if I do say so myself.

Instead of serving it with traditional roasted vegetables I made some chunky coleslaw with coriander leaves and creme fraiche, Greek salad with avocado, and bulgar wheat with finely chopped salad veg. Then all I had to concentrate on was cooking the meat to perfection.

Every bit of this joint was eaten, picked clean. Job done.