One weekend in August

Not much new in the kitchen this week. We ate out a couple of times and as Phoebe is home for the holidays we are revisiting her old favourites. We did have an amazing roast lamb on Sunday with leftovers for lunches through the week. We bought a small piece of leg roast, bone in. If you are cooking it for a family use a full leg. Get the oven on to 220. For 2, chop 1 clove garlic, 1 tbsp fresh rosemary, zest of 1/2 a lemon, 2 anchovies, 3 sundried tomatoes, all together on a big board. Make small cuts in the lamb & press this mixture into the cuts. Spread the surface of the lamb all over with Dijon mustard - about 2 tsp. Season with salt & pepper. Put a branch or two of fresh rosemary into the base of a roasting pan & put the lamb on top. Drizzle with a little olive oil and add a whole head of garlic with the top chopped off. Roast for about an hour. Rest 10-15 minutes. For a change from regular roast veg we served with cavalo nero & butter beans. You could use wilted spinach.
To prepare the cavalo nero, remove the stalks & slice into largish pieces. Bring a pot of salted water to the boil, add the greens & cook 10 minutes until tender. Drain, refresh & drain again. Heat olive oil, a clove of finely sliced garlic & a pinch of chilli flakes. Toss through the greens & a can of butter beans. I like to use the El Navarrico butter beans that come in a jar and which you can get at some delis. If you can't get them you could use any white beans, or cook your own.
Remember back in July we picked olives. This week we bottled them. Having left them in the brine for 6 weeks they were covered with a fine layer of mould. That is good. We rinsed the olives, sieved the brine through fine muslin & add a dash of red wine vinegar. We then filled sterilised jars with olives & poured over the brine. Top each jar with a layer of olive oil & enjoy.
Having experimented with the sourdough, making a fruit loaf to use as fruit toast I discovered that the leaflet that came with the starter had a recipe. I made that one and it was nice but was more like a cake loaf. Mine was like fruit bread you buy for toast. I also had some extra starter so I made the chocolate cake from the leaflet. An interesting idea & nice enough. I got Phoebe to ice it but I would probably serve with cream or yoghurt next time.