An average Sunday

{c}
Spent a pile at the wine shop for everyday quaffing red and white to build up the stocks again, made a Turkish-style lamb and freekah soup that was excellent (preparing for lunches in the week ahead), and made an Italian lamb stew that was only ok. And managed to create enough dishes to make anyone think I'd been feeding a whole army barracks.

The stew went with mash and gently cooked red and yellow peppers, and required a whole bottle of red for marinating the lamb backstraps overnight and then cooking. Lots of unexpected fussing about, straining this and sweating that, which usually just ends up making me irritable. The much reduced gravy (from that bottle of red and lamb stock I made yesterday, reduced in the cooking process to about 1/5 of the original volume) was delicious. Probably still not cooked down enough, but it was getting late since I hadn't factored in quite enough time for all the reducing that had to happen. And in the end the meat was only OK. Perhaps this is worth trying again, with some better red next time, and perhaps I'd cook the meat a bit longer.

Dessert was very sweet (and funny): Dr Who's christmas special with Kylie (well, it's not long after the winter solstice here, so it almost makes sense).