Lamb and Lentil Ragu

A delicious stew of lamb, lentils, and root vegetables cooked with tomatoes, red wine and herbs.

This goes well over pasta or polenta, and cooks fast enough in the pressure cooker to be doable on a week-night evening after work. 

If you don't have a pressure cooker, you can just dump all the ingredients in a slow cooker and let it cook for 8 hours.

Since this recipe makes enough for about 4-6 servings, I generally serve one third on the day, and divide the rest between tubs to freeze and eat later.

Quick Chicken Liver Pate

Every fortnight I receive a pack of organic chicken carcasses with my vegbox order. These are what is left over after a chicken has had breasts, thighs, drumsticks and wings cut off - namely the main body, neck and giblets (internal organs). The pack generally contains the remains of two butchered chickens.

I separate out the livers from the giblets, and throw everything else into a roasting tin, cover with foil and pop in the oven to roast, and then into the pressure cooker to make Chicken Stock.

The livers, I make into pate.

Some Gluten-Free Pastas for Laura

My friend Laura has asked me to keep an eye out for gluten-free recipes for her.

So, here are a couple of gluten-free pasta recipes from The Pasta Machine Cookbook.

Homemade Fresh Pasta with the Pastamatic

Meet my Pastamatic. A lucky find on Ebay a few years ago, it has a strong motor capable of kneading pasta dough, and an extruder to form the dough into noodles.


Tonight, I am reheating a tub of pasta sauce I made a while ago and froze down. Since I thus don't have much to do to prepare the sauce, I have the time to make the pasta instead.

Garlic, Lemon and Rosemary Chicken

I catered for a family get-together this weekend. This marinade on roast chicken drumsticks worked well on the buffet. The rosemary was a last-minute flash of inspiration.

Spicy Carrot and Coriander Salad

I invented this particular salad a few years ago, inspired by the flavours in the vegetable recipes in my copy of the old edition of North African Cookery.

It has proved very popular. The strong flavours are a great accompaniment to barbecues and grilled chicken.