I am in a slow cook phase. I’m simmering and braising and letting flavours mellow and evolve slowly and in their own time. I find this type of cooking incredibly soothing, and that if you don’t rush it, it usually works out. It’s something I am trying to echo in my own life at the moment too which is challenging because my natural state is to rush, rush, rush.

Work has been up and down this year. I published my book which was a huge high and something I am incredibly proud of but was also met with some crushing work lows that hit me harder than I expected. I also feel old for the first time in my life which is a weird sensation. I turn thirty-seven this year and it’s the first time I can look back ten years ago and feel like my morals, opinions, and the way I carried myself were still the same. When I was twenty-seven looking back ten years, I simply saw a child but it’s different now. The pace of time feels strangely stalled, yet somehow slipping by all at once. Like one of those flick books where the world flutters by too quickly to grasp, only to leave you with the smallest shift - a stick figure who's moved a few centimetres. I look back and feel like I haven’t really done much. When I was seventeen I genuinely believed I’d change the world. Of course I have had a baby which is a huge, life altering change. I adore her and feel hot surges of love and joy at least a dozen times a day but I also feel depleted by my lack of achievement. I thought I’d have bought a house, nailed my career and perhaps have reignited a bit more of my crafty side by now. But this year I feel like I am starting at square one again. I feel tired and I feel old.

So back to slow-cooking. My best ideas have always come following a period of slowness. A weekend out of the city, the one week a year I take off my phone, an accidental bed day as a result of too much wine the night before. It’s when my mind is sort of empty that the best ideas come. Day to day, I moan internally about missing being creative, missing painting, missing using my hands and then I rush straight into something else. So I am trying something new this year. Slowing down.

The way I cook, the way I eat - has always been a mirror for how I’m feeling. I’ve been through phases of eating too little, eating too much, drinking too much. Like most women I’ve had to work hard to form a healthy relationship with food and all that it represents and I feel lucky that it’s now the tool that grounds me more. So for the moment I am slow-cooking.

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THE RECIPE

SLOW COOKED LEG OF LAMB WITH SHALLOTS, TOMATO AND OREGANO

I cooked this for Sunday lunch a few weeks ago and it felt like the perfect meal to bridge Winter into Spring. Hearty and warm but with the perkiness and promise of greener, brighter days.

Serves 4

• 1.25kg bone in leg of lamb

• 4 banana shallots

• 500g tomatoes

• 1 head of garlic

• Olive oil

• Salt

• 200ml approx white wine

• A few sprigs of fresh oregano

Marinade

• 2 fat garlic cloves, finely chopped or grated

• 2tbsp rosemary roughly chopped

• 2tbsp fresh oregano leaves

• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard

• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar

• 2tbsp olive oil approx

• Good pinch of sea Salt

The night before, combine the marinade ingredients in a bowl.

Rub all over the lamb and wrap the meat in cling film and transfer to the fridge for 12-20 hours.

30-60 mins before you plan to cook remove the lamb from the fridge and preheat the oven to 140 degrees fan setting.

You will need 2.5-3 hours of cook and rest time so work backwards. We aimed to eat at 1.00 so I put the lamb in at 10.00am and removed it from the fridge at 9.30 to come to room temp.

Peel and halve the shallots and add to the base of a deep lidded casserole dish or deep oven dish. Slice the base off the whole bulb of garlic and break in the cloves from the smaller end. Drizzle everything with olive oil and season with sea salt.

Unwrap the lamb and place it in the centre of the dish. Pour in the wine (trying not to splash the meat) and nestle in the cut garlic clove cut side up. Drizzle the lamb again with olive oil, season with sea salt and toss in a few oregano sprigs.

Cover loosely with a cut round of baking parchment tucking it in at the sides. Cover with a tight fitting lid or a makeshift lid using two layers of tin foil and cook for 2.5 hours. Lamb is quite a fatty meat and I like to spoon off some of the fat after about 2 hours.

Then remove lid and paper from the lamb and baste the joint with the juices from the pan. Increase the oven temperature to

180 and cook for 15-20 mins until browned.

Remove the lamb from the oven and allow it to rest for 10 mins.

Spoon the cooked vegetables onto a platter, shred the lamb and place on top of the vegetables before spooning over any remaining juices.

We ate this lamb with the anchovy chive butter potatoes from my new book Cooking Made Simple which my husband declared were the best potatoes in the world. So that was a win!

BIG LOVE and see you next week

Alexandra

x💋x💋

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