Ok so thanks to my amazing sourdough experiments I have put on 3kgs (might also be all the wine and cake and sweeties…) and my wonderful neighbour also got me a subscription to Olive magazine for my birthday, which is packed with amazing recipes that I just needed to try immediately!

None of this is going to help my waistline, but oh my god I do love trying new things in the kitchen, AND some of these are slow-cooker recipes which is encouraging me to use mine a bit more and also helping me manage my transition back to work as I can slow-cook dinners while working from home – all kinds of win!

Here are a few things I have tried out:

Slow-cooked lamb shoulder with tahini garlic sauce Gyros/Scharma:

The marinade was basically a mint sauce – so it was slow-cooked lamb in mint sauce! So gooooood

It was delicious, though I was eating it for a week and a half, so next time need to make this when I’ve got people coming over…

Slow-cooked aubergines with feta and pomegranate:

This was one you can serve warm or cold as a salad, and it went really nicely with the lamb.Though I do find often with my slow-cooker it doesn’t reduce the sauces so I always end up with loads left over (I kept the lamb mint sauce to freeze for gravy, and kept this pomegranate oil and juice for salad dressings).

Spinach and Feta Pastry thingy (can’t remember it’s real name):

Also delicious and amazing, although I had slightly less spinach and feta, so made a smaller amount, but forgot to reduce the amount of garlic, so it ended up being way too garlicky. Also these recipes all called for garlic powder/granules, which I don’t like as much as fresh garlic – can’t think why they wouldn’t just recommend using fresh but I will next time. 

I’ve also been enjoying more food from my garden – fresh lettuce from my veg patch and my homemade sourdough bread with amazing cheese from my local cheese shop…