30 December - bruschetta and slow-roast lamb

When I had the oven on to cook the salmon yesterday, I popped some peppers and squash in to roast at the same time. I had both today on some bruschetta for lunch with a bit of goats cheese - mmm!

For dinner, I decided to try out a slow-roast lamb recipe I'd seen in the Guardian magazine a few weeks ago where you coat the lamb in yoghurt spiced with ras al hanout (the Moroccan spice mix usually used in tagines) and cook it long and slow with red wine and sliced onions. I slightly miscalculated my timing and put it on earlier than it should've been - I didn't think it'd matter too much with a 4-hour cooking time. Towards the end, I probably should have checked it a bit more, but was distracted by other things and was rather annoyed to find when I finally took it out that it'd completely dried out, so that the onions had shrivelled and burnt and there was no sauce left in the dish to pour over the meat. So all in all, the meat was a bit dry and disappointing. We had it with some couscous and a bit of roast aubergine and pepper and some extra yoghurt on the side. Not bad, but not as tasty as it should've been.

19 May - slow-roast lamb ... again!

Tonight was Book Club - a gathering of friends to chat, eat, drink and exchange a few books. We usually decide on a food theme and all cook something, and today's was 'seasonal spring food', so I offered to do lamb to go with everyone else's spring veggies. Because the food has to be transported round to a friend's house, it's easier not to go for something that has to be cooked and served straight away, which made nice pink, rare lamb tricky. So I went for the slow-roast option again, but this time with lots of herbs and garlic. The herbs on the terrace have been going mad recently, so I was happy to give them a bit of a prune to provide a big pile of rosemary, thyme and oregano to sit my shoulder of lamb on. I threw in a bulb of garlic, some white wine, a bit of olive oil and then topped up with water to about halfway up the lamb. It went in the oven for half an hour at 180C to brown the top of the meat, then down to 150C for about 4 hours, basting regularly and topping up the water when it boiled down too far.

Keeping with the home-grown herbs theme, I also made up some fresh mint sauce; a big pile of chopped mint, mixed with a couple of spoons of sugar and some boiling water to dissolve it, then 3 tbsp white wine vinegar when it's cooled.

The smell all afternoon from all those herbs was wonderful and the lovely tender, aromatic lamb went down really well with the book club girls. It was even better served with some great veggies, including Ros's delicious peas with cabbage and spring onions, braised French-style - have to give that one a go myself.

14 May - slow-roast lamb

With the FA Cup Final to watch on the telly this afternoon, it was the ideal time to do slow-roast lamb - popped in the oven at half-time, it was perfectly cooked for 8. This is a favourite recipe, originally from Waitrose Food Illustrated magazine.

• Slice two large onions and scatter in the bottom of an oven-proof dish. Add a whole bulb of garlic, split into cloves, but unpeeled, 50ml red wine vinegar, 150ml red wine, 50ml olive oil, a heaped teaspoon of rose harissa paste and some salt.
• Nestle a shoulder of lamb (c.700g today) on top of this mix and add water until the lamb's about 80% covered. Bring it just to the boil on the hob, then put in the oven at 180C for about half an hour.
• Turn the oven down to 150C and leave to cook for around 4 hours.

The resulting lamb is meltingly tender and falling to pieces on the bottom, but with a lovely crunchy crust on the top. The onions and garlic become really tender and jammy, but need straining out of the remaining liquid with a slotted spoon. I dollop the onion mix onto plates and top with a chunk of lamb (a mix of soft and crunchy bits), then serve it with some couscous, roast beetroot and pepper, and a splodge of minty yoghurt (just Greek yoghurt with chopped mint). It's a fabulous combination of flavours and textures and today was washed down with a bottle of bubbly to celebrate Man City's cup win!