Easy Lamb Shanks

Until recently I've always felt that lamb shanks were a very intimidating piece to cook but then one day I picked up a pack at the local supermarket, both the new zealand spring lamb and PC have halal symbols on them and usually come frozen.
This is probably the easiest recipe you'll ever make, seriously!

Lamb Shanks

- 1 pack of shanks, 3 are included inside

- 5 big cloves garlic

- Salt and Pepper

- A drop of oil (grapeseed, or avocado oil or something that you would normally use to fry at high temperatures, not olive oil!)

Thaw your shanks in the fridge for a couple of days and then remove from package and pat dry. Heat a bit of oil in a pot and add the shanks turning from side to side so they brown evenly on the outside. All 3 fit perfectly in a large pot. Don't forget to turn on the fan and get yourself a splash guard ready, and I also lay a piece of paper towel over the splash guard so that it collects any splatters. Lamb has a lot of fat and splatters, plus the smell lingers so open the windows too if you can.

Transfer your shanks to a pressure cooker, mine is electric. Add the salt and pepper, and raw garlic cloves. Cover and set to 50 minutes. At this point I can just walk away because it's been set to high pressure, so once pressurized it will cook and then cool down and set itself to warm until I return.

Easy BBQ naan recipe here, we covered it earlier on the blog

The lovely dish of rice that you see crowned with golden almonds, raisins and jewelled carrots is Kabuli Pilau and made to order from Mama's Kitchen, as well as the Spinach and braised veal dish, both absolutely delectable!

Ramadan Eats

Delicious, homemade and authentic Alo Gosht from Mama's Kitchen in North Oshawa. If you live in Durham Ontario do check out her facebook page and see what Mama's cooking up for the week!  Place your orders and pickup on the day that she has finished creating these masterpieces.

And oh! Did I mention she packs it all in a brown paper bag?! And includes complementary almond stuffed dates!..... It's the little touches that I love so much!

I can't wait to try more of Mama's recipes, we absolutely loved the Alo Gosht dish of tender veal and Potato in a delicately spiced gravy, accompanied by homemade fresh roti breads.

Below is a chicken leg recipe of mine from yesterday, because I buy whole chickens I tend to have the legs laying around, mostly because I remove the breast for quick stir fries and breaded "chicken fingers" and then I'm left with the carcasses for soup and lots of chicken legs with skin.

This is a really quick one that just came together!

4 Chicken legs, with skin

1 pack of small potatoes - wash and boil in salted water until tender

Marinade: 4 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp tomato paste

salt and pepper

worstershire sauce, about 2 tbsp

1 tbsp dijon mustard

3 cloves of garlic, smashed or finely minced

Mix the above and coat the chicken legs in the mixture, allow to marinade for about an hour.

Preheat oven to 420, convection roast setting if you have or just convection. Add the small boiled potatoes (strained) to the baking dish and then the chicken legs in the middle of the pan, coat the chicken with any leftover marinade. Place the chicken skin side down.

Bake and halfway through flip the chicken legs over so the skins are at the top and continue roasting until browned and cooked through.

Serve with a salad or your favourite vegetables. I served with green beans and sauteed raddichio.

Baby's first Ramadan

Ramadan Mubarak to all my Muslim followers! Hope you're having a blessed third of Ramadan so far... Baby has been keeping me very busy but I wanted to quickly share a couple of shots of my Ramadan decor, these beautiful pieces are by a lovely sister who is starting up a little Eid business both on Etsy and locally, please check out her shop - MyLittleEidShop  for these gorgeous birch mosque cutouts and many more upcoming products that she's working hard to bring to all of us.

And I can't leave you all without a recipe so I'm sharing my favourite Ramadan sweets, the famous Luqmat Al Qadi which we make all across the Middle East. Of course we covered it before on the blog but I have perfected and tweaked it a little so here it is
Luqmat Al Qadi 

Celery saving tips

Freezer prepped ingredients or meals have saved my life and one of my favourites is this simple recipe that I like to call "soup starter" because it's so handy to just pull out of the freezer and throw a couple of beans and greens over and a little broth and you've got a meal!

Soup starter is basically a meripoix but without the onion (because my husband doesn't like onions but if it was just for me I would totally add them)

- 3 bunches of celery, use the stalks and save the tender hearts for snacking, and the bottoms are useful too for stock.

- 9 big carrots

Peel the carrots and dice. Clean the celery stalks and dice.

It's easier to do this in 2 pots so I got 2 big pots going on the stove with a little oil and then I add half of the celery and carrot to each and sautee away, the carrots will begin to soften and release a lot of colour into the oil. Season with salt or I use A.Vogel's veggie infused seasalt product which is super handy!

At this point you add a little stock or even water works, just a couple of tbsps (maybe 1/4 cup) and cover, simmer until carrots are just tender.

Once it's done remove from the heat and cool completely then you can bag it and freeze, try to break it up while it's freezing (kind of like you would do with a granita so you don't end up with a big ball of frozen veg that you can't portion)

I'm on my second batch and truly this is just such a handy mix to have around.

For the celery middles, sometimes I save them for snacking and as you see the bottoms go into a stock so every part of the vegetable is used.