I was out at lunchtime having a wander around Vic Markets, getting some fresh groceries for the rest of the week and weekend like a good little naturopath-to-be. I visited my favourite fruit and veg store (Garden Organics), my favourite butcher (Hagen’s Organic and Biodynamic Meat) and my favourite cheese shop (Curds and Whey). I avoided the American Doughnut Van and the guy that makes those deep fried chicken ribs. As I said, I’m a good little naturopath-to-be (I save those friends for the days in which my hormones are raging out of control, of course).
I’ve been working on developing a chummy relationship with my butcher so I can be one of those highbrow foodie types who is all like “my butcher is fabulous”. So I was feeling very proud of myself when he brought me some lamb shanks from out the back – like, they weren’t even in the front cabinet. Only very cool people buy stuff from the butcher which isn’t even on display, y’know. Ok, if I’m going to be honest here, and let’s face it, I’m only lying to myself – it wasn’t a highbrow foodie type conversation. Here is a pretty accurate transcript of how it went:
Me: “Do ever get in any lambshanks?”
Him: “Yeah I have some out the back, how many do you want?”
Me: “Umm, how big are they?”
Him: (goes out the back and returns with a lambshank and holds it up for me to see)
Me: “Ahh, 4 please?”
Him: (goes out the back again and comes back with 4 lamb shanks) “Do you want me to cut the bone?”
Me: “Errr, ahhh, I’ve never cooked lamb shanks before…”
Him: “How are you cooking them, baking?”
Me: “Slow cooker”
Him: “I’ll cut the bones for you” (looks at my blank face) “so they’ll fit in the slow cooker”
Me: “Oh yeah, cool, thanks man” (super friendly smile, and looking around the market like I’m all that with my butcher)
I’m awesome. And then I had 25kg of lamb bones + the usual bag of groceries to get home on the bus. As I said – awesome. Now I’m at that stage where I’m wondering how do I move from friendly chit chat twice a week to first name basis? Without looking like I’m trying to pick up my meat man?
Anyway, so wandering with my basket of veges and I see this punnet of big, red, juicy, delicious looking strawberries. I stopped, my saliva glands went into overdrive. I stared at them. I walked closer and picked up the punnet and looked at the bottom – no squashing or moldiness. I wondered to myself “my strawberry plant on the verandah is approaching dead – how are these still in season? Is that even normal??” I justify – “They’re organic! Must be a greenhouse or something… (is that environmentally friendly? Don’t know, as I said, this was justification for lusting after these perfect delicious looking strawberries)”. So I buy them which triggered a chain reaction into preparing a fully fledged romantic dinner for two. As a general rule, I don’t cook mid-week. I rarely cook full stop, but the husband-to-be really is master of the kitchen domain Mon-Fri (and all weekend too if I’m going to be honest). So when I get motivated to cook, I go all out!
Here’s what we had for dinner tonight:
Main: Bacon wrapped chicken breast stuffed with camembert and parsley (from the balcony garden of course), served with variation of this emerald salad. Notice there are no pictures of the chicken? Well, let's just say it tasted divine (how can you go wrong with chicken, bacon and camembert?) but had a face for radio. The salad was fabulous.
Dessert: Strawberries (of course) with spiced Cointreau mascarpone. This was a bit of a made up whim – but was easy and pretty tasty! Once again, hard to go wrong with mascarpone!
I’m a culinary genius. Wonder if this means that this weekend’s lamb shanks will taste like something other than the usual meaty water I make in the slow cooker?
PS - new found respect for food photographers. It's hard to make food look good!
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