Summer eating

Our freezer is full of lamb. I mean, literally FULL. We were (extremely generously) given a whole lamb by Dan's parents a week or so ago. However, roast lamb isn't exactly what I fancy during a period of scorchingly hot weather! With the freezer groaning under the strain I had to find a way to have roast lamb on the hottest day of the year without feeling a bit sick and heavy.

I was actually very proud of my solution - spiced roast leg of lamb, with a fennel, pomegranate and feta salad, new potatoes, and a yoghurty minty dip.

I slathered the leg of lamb with a mixture of Ras-el-hanout spice, olive oil, a good squeeze of lemon and some salt and pepper then left it to marinate in the fridge overnight. I then slow cooked it so that I ended up with wonderfully tender lamb, almost falling off the bone.

The real star of the dinner was the salad;

An Ottolenghi masterpiece of fennel, tarragon, parsley, sumac, feta and pomegranate seeds. With this and a spoon of yoghurt (with chopped tomato and mint leaves mixed in), the lamb made a lovely summer meal. Not stodgy at all.

Speaking of Ottolenghi, I'm working my way through the salads in the Ottolenghi cookbook. I've recently made the French bean, orange and hazlenut salad



Which I had with new potatoes and grilled halloumi



and the Peach and Speck salad (I used parma ham instead of speck)



My lunches have been more interesting than usual this week!

Ottolenghi is my favourite person. Really. He makes my lunches and dinners so much more interesting. I hope I get to see him at
Alex James's Harvest festival. If he's there the same day as us Dan plans to tell him that its OK if he fancies coming round to cook for us sometime (and that he's willing to overlook the vegetarian cookbook).

UPDATE: Richard Corrigan, Monty Don and Yottam Ottolenghi will all be at the festival on the day we're going. The music line up sounds fun too. Marvellous!