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Curried Bakers Oven Lamb

Here’s a traditional English dish given an ‘Ome Made twist, to be fair it was Kits’ idea. I was just going to do the plain English dish of lamb shoulder baked on top of layers of potato and onion, which in it’s own right is delicious. Add some spice, herbs and a curry sauce though and it takes the dish to a completely different level… This really was scrumptious! This is a fantastic dish to prepare the day before so that you can bang it in the oven the next day, forget about it and get on with all those things you need to catch up on, take the kids out or… go to the pub!

  It really is simple. You will need a full or 1/2 shoulder of lamb. Some White potatoes, onions and garlic. I also used some dried mint, fresh coriander and some red chillies.

 

 

First of all slice some potatoes (skin on) thinly and some onions. These need to be layered in a deep buttered baking dish. I did about four layers adding seasoning as I went along. On the middle layer I put a heap of chopped fresh coriander, a couple of chopped red chillies and some dried mint. On the top layer I sprinkled some more mint and some black cumin seeds.

 

 

I then fried some mild curry masala in a little oil and added some chicken stock and let this cook for twenty minutes or so. Next prepare the lamb. With a sharp knife make a few slits in the meat and push in some pieces of garlic. Now rub the lamb all over with some Kashmiri Chilli powder and some ground cumin. Sit the lamb on top of the layered potatoes and onions and give it a good grind of black pepper and a good sprinkling of salt. Pour your curry sauce into the corners of the baking dish. You want enough so that it comes about 1/2 way up your potato and onion layer.

 

 

Now cover the whole baking dish with a double layer of foil, creating a tight seal.

 

 

When your ready to cook pre heat your oven to 200°c. Put the lamb in the oven and then turn the temperature down to 165°c Which means the lamb will be ready after about four hours (but should be fine up to six). If you want to cook it for longer (or your having a really long session in the pub!) then you can cook the lamb on 145°c. The lamb will then be ready after six hours but be even better after around eight hours. To finish the dish off, remove the baking dish from the oven. Carefully remove the lamb to a warmed plate or dish. The meat should be falling off the bone. The layered potatoes then need to go back in a hot oven to brown and start to crisp up. If the liquid is above the potatoes just spoon some off ’till you can see the top layer. Put the baking dish back in the oven for about twenty minutes.

 

 

To serve, pull apart the lamb, spoon out some potato into a dish and place the lamb on top, spoon a bit more of the curry sauce over. A nice dollop of natural yoghurt goes nicely with the dish but that’s all it really needs.

 

 

A tasty, warming and comforting dish for a lovely lazy Sunday. Give it a go!

 

Don’t forget you can buy ‘Ome Made Curry Masalas at www.omemade.co.uk

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Burger It!

veal burger

We love a good burger in our house.

We don’t have them very often so when we do it’s a real treat.

Our children have never been to a McDonalds, Burger King or any other junk food purveyor.

I can imagine that when they do (although I’d like to think they never will…) it will be a real eye opener for them. I can just see them going back to the counter with the sad little burger in hand… “What’s this? You call this a burger?”

 

I don’t know why more people don’t make their own? You can buy a kilo of mince meat for a lot less than it costs for a kilo of burgers. All you need to do is add a bit of seasoning, mix and form into a rough Pattie and throw on a grill, BBQ or frying pan.

Veal burger mix

However you can let your imagination run wild and flavour your meat with a vast array of ingredients.

And then you have your toppings, now this is where the fun starts!

You have to have cheese of some sort. I love a slice of Monterey Jack on a beef burger, but a medium cheddar is just as nice. If you want to ‘Posh’ it up I would go with some crumbly Stilton. One of my favourite burgers is a Mediterranean influenced lamb burger topped with a piece of grilled Halloumi and some ‘Ome made Tzatziki.

 veal & chorizo burger

I like a nice mustardy mayonnaise on my beef burgers along with a little salad leaf, slice of tomato and I’m sorry but gherkins are good too. I also think a beef burger needs a good squirt of tomato ketchup.

 

Lately we have been making veal burgers. I know that some people are a little put off by veal but the place that we get it from uses the male animals from the place that they get their milk supplies from. If the animals are not sold for meat then they would be slaughtered at birth anyway. So personally I haven’t got a problem with eating veal that’s a by-product of the dairy industry, and from some where that has high standards for animal welfare.

Mince veal has quite a delicate flavour and it makes a really nice burger that compliments other ‘add ons’.

Heres a recipe you might want to try but feel free to add your own ‘add ons’ as everyone has different tastes. The burgers could be made with any sort of meat though.

 

Ingredients

1.2Kg veal mince (or beef or lamb), Waitrose often have a deal on veal mince, hence the amount which would cost £10

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

A really good grind of black pepper

A couple teaspoons of mustard. Dijon or wholegrain works best

 

And that’s it, although you could add other things if you fancy. Get your hands in the bowl and give it a really good ‘squish’ to thoroughly mix the ingredients into the meat.

I then line a tray with greaseproof paper, form the meat into burgers, place on the tray and chill which lets the burgers firm up a little. If you’re finding you have more meat on your hands than tray a tip is to shape the burgers using slightly wet hands. You may notice on the photos that we made some little meat balls from the same mixture, these were used in the Kids’ pack-up for their school lunch (I never got pack-up as good as theirs!), they would be equally as good in a tomato sauce with some pasta for a quick lunch or supper.

Veal burgers and balls

 And that’s it your burgers are ready to go and be cooked using your preferred method.

Burgers & Chips cooking blog

So we had these little beauties topped with Chorizo, Monterey Jack cheese, an ‘Ome made tomato and habenero chilli salsa and some rocket and baby spinach leaves all sandwiched in a mini Ciabatta bun with a squirt of American style mustard spread on for good measure.veal chorizo & Monerey Jack burger

The salsa is really easy too if you want to have a go. Just dice some tomatoes, onions and chillies (which can be left out if you don’t want the heat). Add enough sugar to lightly coat the mixture, a little splash of vinegar and a good squirt or squeeze of lime juice. It now needs a good pinch of salt (I personally like a nice salty salsa)and a good grind of pepper. Again a salsa can easily be customized to your own liking. tomato salsa

We had these with some nice chunky baked chips and a little more salad leaf on the side.

Be prepared for juice dribbling down chins and arms, but then that’s all part of the enjoyment!

And don’t forget to tell you’re kids how much nicer and healthier Home-made burgers are compared to the high street, mass produced crap of fast food vendors!

MissT Veal Burger Blog

 

 

 

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Sweet Potato & Red Chili Soup

 

Sweet Potato and Chilli Banner

Soup… We absolutely love it in our house. Not the tinned variety of course. It has to be ‘Ome-made! And it’s so easy to make. You take your favourite ingredients sweat them off in some butter add some stock, cook for a bit and then blitz. Not leek and potato soup though, that can’t be blitzed. That’s completely breaking the rules, that has to be… ‘lumpy’.

 

If you make your own stock it’s even better. Even if it’s chucking the bones from the leftover roast chicken in a pot and boiling for an hour, you will be left with a nicechicken stock blog base for a soup. Of course if your one of those non-meat eating types you can make a stock from those manky left over carrots at the back of the fridge any veg trimmings and some onion. If you roast the veg for 20 minutes or so you’ll get more flavour and a deeper colour to your stock too.

 

So heres a recipe for a soup I made the other day along with a recipe for some cumin, ginger and garlic croutons. If you don’t have the croutons with this soup I suggest putting the spices used to flavour them in the soup. Although this recipe has chillies and spices in it it is no way spicy. If you prefer it spicier just up the amount of red chili in the recipe.

  croutons blogcoriander and chilli blog

Sesoning Blog

 

 

 

Sweet Potato & Red Chili Soup

 

Ingredients 

 

50g butter                                                       Diced Potatoes Blog

1 medium onion roughly sliced

2 cloves of garlic roughly chopped

200g (a large baker) potato cubed

700g sweet potatoes (4 small or 3 medium)cubed

1 large carrot diced

1 teaspoon ground white pepper (or extra black if you haven’t)

1 teaspoon salt

1 heaped teaspoon mild curry massala (or curry powder)Diced Carrots Blog

1 teaspoon ground allspice

1 teaspoon dried thyme

2 litre of stock

2 medium sized red chillies deseeded and finely chopped

1 tablespoon chopped coriander

Ground black pepper and salt to taste

 

Method

 

Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed pan. Gently fry the onion and garlic for about 10 minutes.

Sweet Potato Sweating Blog

Add both types of potato and carrot to the pan along with the white pepper, salt, curry massala, allspice and thyme. Gently sweat all the veg off for a further 10 minutes stirring so the spices don’t stick and burn.

Add your stock which should just cover the vegetables. Bring to a simmer and cook for approximately forty minutes or until all the veg is cooked through and soft. Take off the heat and carefully blitz with a hand blender, blender or food processor.

Put back on the heat and add the remaining ingredients. The soup will be ready after 20 minutes.

 Sweet Potato Soup Blog

 

Cumin Ginger & Garlic Croutons

 

8 slices white bread

Olive oil

2 teaspoon crushed garlic

2 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon ground ginger

Salt and black pepper

 

Method

 

Cut the bread into cubes and put in a shallow roasting/baking tin.

Drizzle with oil and sprinkle with the garlic, cumin and ginger. Give the croutons a good toss and then sprinkle a little more olive oil on them and toss them again.

croutons cooking blog

Put in an oven preheated to 165°C on fan setting (185°C for conventional)the croutons will take 30 – 40 minutes but you need to regularly check on them and give them a shake or turn every 10 minutes or so.

Once the croutons are cooked they can be used straight away. Once the croutons are completely cool they can be put in a sealed container where they should be good for up to five days.

Sweet Potato Soup Banner

Happy soup making!

 

 

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Crispy Cornflake Tart… For An Old Fart!

Most people I know seem to remember this from their schooldays… I don’t! What a deprived childhood I must have had!

It’s one of Kits favourites. I remember her telling me about it and I was just looking at her with a vacant “what are you on about?” look on my face.

Then Kit turns up with a slice from a little buttie shop up the road “see! Cornflake Tart!”.

OK, I have to admit, looks like I was missing out.

Kits’ workplace has a thing about colleagues bringing something in on their Birthday so when Kits came round I suggested a Cornflake Tart… (Hence the title of the Blog… not that I’m saying Kits old, or a tart… can someone pass me a shovel please!)

This really is the easiest thing in the world to make. If you have Kids they’ll love it! However I don’t see why kids should have all the fun! Everybody loves a bit of retro these days, and when it tastes this good!

Recipe

Shortcrust Pastry

225g plain flour

100g cold diced butter

Pinch of salt

1 tbsp icing sugar

Mix the dry ingredients and then rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add 2 – 3 tbsp iced cold water to bring the mixture together. Leave to rest in a cool (not a fridge) place for 30 minutes.

Roll the pastry out to about 3mm thickness and use to line a greased flan/quiche tin or shallow baking dish. Prick (snigger!) the base all over with a fork.

Place some baking paper in the tin followed by some tin foil and then fill with some baking beans. Bake in a preheated oven at 200°C for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes take out of the oven and remove the baking beans, foil and paper. Put back in the oven for 5 minutes or so until the pastry is cooked and beginning to colour then take out of the oven.

Warm 150g – 200g of jam (Strawberry is traditional but I used raspberry for that nice hint of tartness against the sweetness of the topping) once the jam has loosened up pour into the pastry case and carefully spread out to cover the bottom evenly.

Cornflake Topping

120g golden syrup

75g butter

30g caster sugar

120g cornflakes

Melt the butter, golden syrup and sugar together in a pan. Once melted and bubbling take off the heat and add the cornflakes. Gently but thoroughly mix so all the cornflakes are coated then spoon onto the jam filled tart case. Gently spread the topping out so it is even then pop back into the oven for 5 minutes or so to set and firm up. Remove from the oven.

The tart is best eaten warm with a good dollop of custard but is equally as nice cold on it’s own. Just don’t try and sneak some when nobody’s looking as you may find yourself in detention!

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Crackers!


Well, the weather has turned chilly, there seems to be a pot of ‘Ome Made mulled wine permanently on the stove top & our Kids behaviour has gone mental which can only mean one thing. We’re on the last leg of the countdown to the second biggest celebration of the year. Yes the big day where we hear ‘Happy Birthday’ to Jesus sang at full belt by our Kids at 6.30am….

Christmas Cake Blog

We finally came up with ideas on what to make for presents, so we’ve made……..now that would be telling! The Christmas cakes are done & mulling in lashings of brandy. The Christmas pudding (YEY! we don’t have to buy one this year!) is improving, snug in layers of greaseproof paper & tin foil. The mince-meat is jarred & ready to be used for umptious mince pies & because the Kids have been good, the Christmas faeries came & sprinkled their seasonal faerie dust & decorated our home.

MissT Antlers Blog

We even came to an agreement on what to have for our festive dinner. Ok, so we were stood in the farm shop for around 1 hour umming & aahing whilst Mick the butcher fed us freshly cooked sausages, shouted ideas at us & served quite a few other customers. I bet Mick can’t wait for the day that we walk into his shop & know exactly what we want!

Christmas Dinner Blog

So rib of beef (I think….) is what we came to an agreement on. Piglets in blankets, Carpaccio, Christmas sausage & cranberry roll & Christmas glazed ham will all be gracing the table as well over the festive season. I’ve left the decision on vegetables to ‘Ome. No doubt there’ll be parsnips at some point…..I HATE PARSNIPS! & that is why ‘Ome will have got them & unfortunately our Kids love them so i’m outnumbered on this vegetable.

CurlyE Christmas Blog

The fridge will be full of a variety of cheeses too. MissT loves Wenslydale & cranberry. Dj adores Camembert. CurlyE goes mad for any blue cheese (FREAK!) & Lil’mrM will try a bit of everything & decide which he likes best & then probably demand that we use it for ‘Macerwoni cheese!’.

I just hope we don’t end up with the yearly ‘Crackers-Cock-Up’. When ‘Ome is checking if there’s anything else I can think of we need I always say ‘don’t forget crackers’. Unfortunately, neither of us clarifies what we mean by crackers. So for the last few years we have nearly ended up pulling a Jacobs at the table or eating our cheeses with a BANG!

Wishing you all a

Merry Christmas & a Peaceful New Year

Kit x

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Hands, Knees & Bumpsy-Daisies….

Reyt Good All Purpose Seasoning by Ome Made

After a week of banged heads, broken teeth, teeth going through lips, split chins, bumps and grazes I’ve decided never to take our Kids out of the house again!

 

Trying to get 4 children (one badly injured) with 4 scooters on a bus with only a £20 note to pay the bus fare with so that we can get home, get in the car and get to the dentist to fix Lil’MrM’s tooth was, I have to say, a bit of a trial. Why do these things always happen when ‘Ome’s not there??!!! I’m good at these kind of situations when it’s someone elses kids but I panic & crumble when it’s my own. But to give the Kids their dues, they were fantastic whilst Mummy had a total breakdown. Oh the joys of being a parent!

 

I then retreat into my veg patch, large glass of wine well within reach and thank the last of the garlic, the sorrel, beans and courgettes that need picking, the beetroot and swede that have survived their late start and flowering pumpkin plants for not causing me any grief, stress or tears.

 

I have to admit I did feel a bit tearful when I decided I’d have to chop down the borage plant. It almost signals the end of summer.

borage blog

It was so easy to grow it was astonishing. From 1 plant hundreds of flowers have been picked since May and added to salads, frozen in ice cubes and ice lollies, added to drinks (Pimms for us!) and generally used as Pick-Your-Own snack for the kids. Happy memories of summer.

 

It’s not all sadness though because when cut down, chopped up a bit and dug into the veg patch it will serve a further purpose by enriching the soil in readiness for more plants to grow as strong as the borage was.

 

Come next spring I can guarantee borage will be the first on my list to be sown in time for warmer weather, water fights and ‘Ome Made Pimms on the lawn!

 

 

Kit x