Braised lamb shank with sweet peppers and feta on a bed of sweet potato mash ... in the Thermomix

Since we've moved to wine country, we have some lovely neighbours. Not new neighbours, since we've known Gay and Warren for 10+ years from when my parents owned the house we're in now, till when we bought the house but never lived in it cos we had it rented out and now.

It has become a bit of a thing where we have Gay and Warren over to dinner (and you know how much I love cooking for company) perhaps once every 3 or 4 weeks. Since we've been up here for 5 months, I think they've been over to dinner as many times. I love the challenge of coming up with something new each time and hopefully not repeat myself too much.

This time when Gay and Warren came over for dinner, I decided on something slow cooked. Slow cooked because the meat was going to be very melt in your mouth tender and because I thought it would be better for Gay's 95 year old dad who was coming over to dinner too - you know, on account of he may not be able to chew something tough!

I picked out two recipes to try and decided to go with the lamb shanks as I had not cooked lamb in a while. The recipe came from The New Slow Cooker by Brigit Binns.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 4 - 6 lamb shanks, about 1lb (500g) each, trimmed of fat
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1 large carrot, finely chopped
• 1 stalk of celery, finely chopped
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 cup beef stock
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 1 yellow bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons continental parsley, coarsely chopped
• 1 cup crumbled feta

Instructions:

• Season the lamb shanks generously all over with salt and pepper. In a large pan over medium high heat, warm 2 tablespoons of olive oil. When oil is hot, working in batches if necessary to avoid crowding, add the shanks and sear, turning as needed, until golden brown on all sides, about 8 minutes total. Transfer to plate.
• Pour off most of the fat from the pan and return it to medium high heat. Add onion, carrot, celery, bay leaves, oregano and cumin, saute until vegetables are golden, 6 - 8 minutes. Pour in stock and wine and stir to dislodge any browned bits on the pan bottom. Transfer the contents of the pan to a slow cooker and stir in 1/2 teaspoon salt and several grinds of pepper. Place the lamb shanks on top. Cover and cook on low setting for 7 hours, basting once or twice with the braising liquid if possible. The meat should be very tender.
• Carefully transfer the shanks to a platter. Cover to keep warm. Strain the braising liquid into a small saucepan, let stand for a few minutes, then skim away the fat with a large spoon. Bring to boil over high heat and boil until reduced by about half, about 5 minutes.
• In a frying pan, over medium high heat, warm the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add the bell peppers and saute until just beginning to soften, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute more. Remove from heat, stir in parsley and season with salt and pepper.
• Divide the lamb shanks among warm individual plates and drizzle with the reduced braising liquid. Top each shank with a spoonful of the sauteed peppers. Sprinkle the feta over the top and serve immediately.

The recipe worked a complete treat.

One of the things that I have learned over the years of slow cooking is that the recipes never tell you to put in enough liquid. This one was no different. It asked for only a total of 3/4 cup of liquid. If something is going into the oven and cooking for 7 hours (the way I slow cook, with a dutch oven casserole pot in the oven at 120°C) the liquid is going to evaporate. I'd even hazard a guess and say that if you were using a crock pot, you'd still get a fair amount of evaporation after that long. I ended up adding 1 cup of white wine and 3 cups of beef stock into the pot. By the time we were done, the liquid had mostly evaporated but there was still enough left for sauce.

For the sweet potato mash, I used this recipe for mashed potatoes in the Thermomix, but substituted regular potatoes with sweet potatoes. It turned out beautifully.

If you want a non-Thermomix way to make mashed potatoes, here is a recipe that also makes absolutely delicious mash. Again, just substitute regular potatoes for sweet potatoes.

To serve, I spooned a serve of sweet potato mash onto the centre of my dinner plate, then placed the lamb shank on top of the mash. Then I placed some of the sweet peppers onto top of and around the lamb shank. After that, I scooped a spoon of the gravy along with the cooked down bits of carrot, celery and onion (I didn't strain it as the recipe said and it didn't need reducing since it had already reduced by about 75% over the 7 hour cooking process) on top of the lamb shank. To finish, I crumbled some feta cheese around the lamb shank.

As a side, I served some steamed broccolini with the dish so that we would have some greens to go with the meal.

This dish was full of flavor and the lamb shanks were incredibly tender. There was flavor bursting in our mouths with every bite.

If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram - be sure to tag me with @langshipley or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny's Fortunes Pty Ltd

Find me around SOCIAL MEDIA:
Cooking blog: http://dazinthekitchen.blogspot.com.au/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dazinthekitchen
Twitter: @langshipley https://twitter.com/langshipley
Instagram: @langshipley http://instagram.com/langshipley
Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/langshipley/
Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/langshipley
Makeup and beauty blog: http://langshipley-deannasworld.blogspot.com.au/

Tangy tagliatelle with prawns, tomato, spinach and garlic

Since we've moved, we have been shopping at Aldi rather than our usual Coles because it is much more budget friendly and we can get about 90% of what we are looking for, for our cooking and grocery needs. Plus The Boy has retired now and we need to just watch our spending.

The thing I like about Aldi is that each week they have some kind of themed special and this week it was "gourmet" week. It was great fun as they had some lovely Italian finishing balsamic vinegars, whole truffles in jars, seasoned sea salt, and some great handmade Italian egg pasta noodles.

I picked up some rather fancy tomato and chili tagliatelle and decided to come up with a tasty dish of my own. I had this idea that I didn't want a "sauce" for the pasta per se, but rather, I wanted to dress it in some olive oil, garlic and lemon.

This is what I came up with:

Ingredients:

• 250g tagliatelle pasta
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 250g grape tomatoes, halved
• 60g baby spinach (half of a 120g bag)
• 30 prawns (medium sized)
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt

Instructions:

• Put water to boil for pasta, add some olive oil and salt into the water. While the water is coming to a boil, prep all your ingredients. When water is boiling put in tagliatelle, cook for 6 - 7 minutes, until pasta is al dente.
• While pasta is cooking, in a large wok or frying pan, put in some olive oil and the prawns. When the prawns are lightly cooked, add in the garlic and cook for about 1 minute (you do not want to brown the garlic, just cook it a little bit). This should be about 3 to 4 minutes into the pasta cooking at this point.
• Then add in the tomatoes and cook for a minute or two. Add more olive oil, you need enough olive oil to coat all the pasta.
• After tomatoes have cooked for a while, (the pasta should be ready now) add in spinach and stir around to cook the spinach. 
• Add lemon juice and continue cooking.
• Drain the pasta and put the cooked pasta into the frying pan. Stir the pasta around so that it is coated in all the olive oil and lemon juice and the flavor of the sauce. Taste and add salt, if necessary.
• Serve and eat immediately.
• Enjoy!

This recipe turned out super tasty. The lemon in the dressing just added a special tanginess to the flavor of the pasta that was sensational.

I even went so far to say that this dish is definitely fit for company and I will definitely make it again and even do it when we have company.

Now, I know I said that I used a tomato and chili (hence the redness of the pasta in the picture!) tagliatelle, but really, any tagliatelle will do, and if you prefer, even try it with linguine or fettuccine. I think both of those will be lovely with this dish as well.

If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram - be sure to tag me with @langshipley or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny's Fortunes Pty Ltd

Find me around SOCIAL MEDIA:
Cooking blog: http://dazinthekitchen.blogspot.com.au/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dazinthekitchen
Twitter: @langshipley https://twitter.com/langshipley
Instagram: @langshipley http://instagram.com/langshipley
Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/langshipley/
Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/langshipley
Makeup and beauty blog: http://langshipley-deannasworld.blogspot.com.au/

Brandied strawberry tarts with fresh whipped cream ... in the Thermomix

Anyone who knows me and knows my cooking abilities will know that dessert is not my strong suit. I suck at baking and I always struggle with trying to figure out what to make and serve for dessert when we have company.

Recently, we had some friends coming over for dinner and after a while of thinking, I had managed to figure out starters and mains but dessert still eluded me. I even posted on Facebook asking my friends to offer suggestions (I got some good ones!).

Then I looked into the fridge and found that I had a lot of strawberries waiting to be eaten and I thought that I would do something simple like fresh strawberries and cream, but that just seems like such a cop out.

Next, I decided that I would marinate the strawberries to give it a little something interesting to just fresh strawberries. This quickly evolved into the idea of perhaps a strawberry tart.

I'd like to point out that I have never made this dish before at that point and was rather nervous about the whole thing, but decided to be adventurous. I was experimenting on dinner guests, which I generally don't like to do, but these friends were our neighbors and well, they've seen me in my pajamas so an experimental strawberry tart would not be too terrible.

Here's what I did to make the tarts:

Ingredients:

• 500g strawberries halved
• 1/2 cup of spirits, rum, brandy or any sort you like
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 2 sheets of puff pastry, defrosted, halved
• 1 egg
• A dash of milk

Instructions:

• Halve the strawberries and put them into a large bowl.
• Pour in spirit, brown sugar and lemon juice. Mix thoroughly. Cover in cling wrap in put in fridge to marinate. After a few hours take out, stir, cover again and put back in fridge. Best if marinated overnight but if not, 4 to 6 hours is good.
• When ready to cook, thaw out two sheets of puff pastry. 
• Heat oven to 200°C.
• Halve the puff pastry sheets and fold over the edges on all sides to make a 1cm rim. Make an egg wash with the egg and milk and paint over the rim of the pastry.
• Place strawberries (without the liquid marinate) into the middle of puff pastry - divide equally between the 4 serves.
• Put into oven and bake for about 25 minutes or until the sides are golden brown.
• Serve with freshly whipped cream.

And of course, the cream was just quickly whipped up in my trusty Thermomix.

Ingredients:

• 250 ml Whipping Cream
• 40 grams Caster Sugar

Instructions:

• Speed 3, 1 Minute 15 seconds, Butterfly  - Place the ingredients in the TM 31 bowl and mix per settings.

If you find the cream is not thick enough, just whip it for an extra 15 or 30 seconds, but be careful not to over-whip it or you will end up with butter.

I'm very pleased to say that the tarts turned out to be delicious. Served with the whipped cream, which got all melty from the hot tart, it was just divine. The Boy loved it and our guests asked for spoons so they could scoop up the melted cream that had mixed with the brandy mixture from the strawberries. Very tasty!

If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram - be sure to tag me with @langshipley or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny's Fortunes Pty Ltd

Find me around SOCIAL MEDIA:
Cooking blog: http://dazinthekitchen.blogspot.com.au/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dazinthekitchen
Twitter: @langshipley https://twitter.com/langshipley
Instagram: @langshipley http://instagram.com/langshipley
Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/langshipley/
Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/langshipley
Makeup and beauty blog: http://langshipley-deannasworld.blogspot.com.au/

How to sharpen a Wushtof panini knife / super slicer / scallop edged knife

I'm not sure if I have ever mentioned, but I love my knives. I'm a huge fan of having a really good knife for the purpose that it was designed to be used in order to maximize your cutting experience.

I have a rather large collection of knives, though I do not think it is excessive. A 6-piece set of Global knives, some Wushtoff knives, The Boy has his favorite 3-piece set of Henckel knives and most recently added to the collection some Ken Onion "Rain" knives.

Out of all the knives I have, the most specialized knife I own is my Wushtoff Panini knife. This is a scallop edged knife, sort of like a reverse serrated edged knife.

I bought this knife from Eversharp Knives in Minesotta when we visited the US about 3 years ago.

This knife is perfect for slicing slightly frozen meat, hard meats like salami and pepperoni, and even hard cheeses. It slices through those suckers like they were butter.

The problem though, that I have with this knife is that it is very hard to sharpen because of the scallop edge. In fact, I went three years without sharpening the knife and fortunately, the knife held it's edge and I was able to continue to use it quite effectively, even though I knew it needed to be sharpened.

We traveled to the US recently for a vacation to visit family and I completely forgot to take my knife with me to get it sharpened at Eversharp.

When we got to Eversharp, I mentioned sharpening the knife to Joe who is the knife sharpening guru there (he sharpens betweenn 150 and 300 knives a day!). Joe recommended a small, thin diamond sharpener to me and demonstrated how I could sharpen the knife myself.

I filmed a short video of the demo so that I would remember it.

I'm so glad that I have this video and the knife sharpener because it means I am now able to sharpen one of my favorite knives and I do love my knives sharp!

If you have a Wushtoff Panini Knife or any other type of scallop edged knife, like the Wushtoff Super Slicer (a long version of the Panini Knife). this is how you sharpen it yourself, if you can't find someone who knows how to sharpen them.

If you do do this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram - be sure to tag me with @langshipley or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny's Fortunes Pty Ltd

Find me around SOCIAL MEDIA:
Cooking blog: http://dazinthekitchen.blogspot.com.au/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dazinthekitchen
Twitter: @langshipley https://twitter.com/langshipley
Instagram: @langshipley http://instagram.com/langshipley
Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/langshipley/
Deanna's World Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/langshipley
Deanna's World blog: http://deannasworld1.blogspot.com.au/