....... and one for later! I was busy cooking this morning, starting with asparagus and fennel soup. The other ingredients - onions, chicken stock and pepper (there is enough salt in the stock)
as always when I make soup, I started by sweating the onions in a little glug of oil
I sliced the fennel using the mandolin - making sure I used the guard, having cut myself in the past! I added the fennel and asparagus to the pot, and sweated them with the onions a little longer
then I added the stock and the pepper, along with some boiling water, and left the soup to simmer until the veggies were tender
I love my stick blender - so much easier than getting out the food processor to whizz the soup (I don't like soup with bits in it)
a delicious lunch, with the addition of a little bit of Cambozola cheese
the rest of the soup, which is now in the freezer for another day
I had taken these lamb shanks out of the freezer yesterday to defrost, ready to cook today
I got out my Davina book
to (more or less) use this recipe
I used mushrooms instead of aubergines, and cooked them gently with onions and garlic in some olive oil
I measured out the spices, a half teaspoon of each, except for the cinnamon, which was a quarter teaspoon
using a tip from Madhur Jaffrey (from way back in the 80s, when she had a cookery programme on tv), I added some water to the spices to make a paste, which makes it easier to stir them into the veggies. I then let them cook gently for a couple of minutes, which cooks off the raw taste of the spices
the next ingredient was tomatoes - although I don't like raw tomatoes, I am quite happy to eat cooked ones
having stirred in the tomatoes and some water, I transferred the sauce to the slow cooker
then having added a little bit more oil to the saucepan, I browned the shanks
and added them to the slow cooker. Then I left them to cook for several hours (while I tackled the ironing!)
we had one each for dinner, with some couscous. The other two have gone in the freezer, ready to have on a busy day