Anna's Lamb Rack with Ratatouille

Honestly I have cooked so many recipes of Anna Gare. 

They are amazing simple recipes packed full of flavour and fresh ingredients, her cookbook homemade is a must.

This recipe for Lamb Rack with Ratatouille was no exception.

The fresh eggplant, capsicum, tomato, onion, whole garlic, herbs.....whatever you like really.....are cubed up, seasoned and tossed in olive oil, then baked.

I baked mine for about an hour as I love them getting all soft and caramelised. 

The lamb rack is trimmed and rubbed with a paste of garlic, rosemary, thyme, lemon zest, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Then simple, just pop it in the oven with the veges and bake for about half an hour.

Be sure to let the lamb rest. 

What a beautiful meal of roasted vegetables and beautifully moist succulent lamb.

The 'muppy' house could not have been happier!

Whole Snapper stuffed with Olives and Anchovies served with duck fat potatoes

I scored in my work 'secret santa' this year with a cook book!!! Gordon Ramsay's World Kitchen - sounds like my sort of recipes hey :)

Well my daughter has chosen the first recipe that we should cook, Stuffed Red Mullet. It looked delicious but Red Mullet is a Mediterranean fish and so we used snapper. 

Olives, anchovies, sundried tomatoes and garlic are pureed. 

The potatoes I parcooked before tossing in warm duck fat and baking with rosemary, whole garlic cloves and lemon wedges.

The snapper was seasoned and stuffed with the delicious puree.

Then baked for 20 minutes.

Served with the crisp and incredibly tasty potatoes.

The soft moist fish was perfect with the rich olive puree.

After eating this meal I was looking at Australia's Sustainable Seafood guide. Did you know that snapper is not a better choice when it comes to seafood? 

In the muppy household we try to make sensible ethical and environmental choices.

So from now on I am going to check before buying my seafood that I am making an appropriate choice by looking up this guide and chatting to my local fish monger.

Slow baked Bloody Mary Lamb

Hope you all have had a great start to the New Year, lets hope its a good one.

I spent my New Years Eve wandering the aisles of a bottle shop with many others, but unlike everyone else I was only interested in buying vodka to cook my lamb.

And to make raspberry, rose and vodka jelly I must add (it was delicious!).

Most of you would know I am a huge fan of Anna Gare's recipes, many of them favourites in my home.

I finally have her book 'homemade' now, it is almost shocking how many recipes I have cooked (and loved!).

This Bloody Mary Lamb recipe, named of course after the drink, is a slow cooked lamb dish served with rigatoni.

The lamb is slow cooked with leeks, carrots and celery, topped with a sauce made up from passata, chicken stock and vodka. The recipe I linked to is slightly different to the one in her book.

Considering this was a rather wintery dish, it really was quite light to eat. 

The flavours were refreshing but did not offer as much depth and guts as I usually find in Anna's recipes. We did really enjoy eating it but I probably wont cook it again, not sure it was worth that much vodka!