Stuffed Breast of Lamb

We always have a roast on Sunday and my favourite is lamb.  For a change this week I bought a boneless breast and stuffed it with a sweetcorn & herb stuffing. It was delicious.

Stuffed Breast of Lamb - serves 2 with leftovers
1 boneless breast of lamb (all major supermarkets sell them or you can order one from your butchers)
1 onion, chopped small and sauteed in a little olive oil
1/2 small tin of sweetcorn
2 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon dried oregano or thyme
1 beaten egg
1 carrot, halved lengthwise

The lamb usually comes wrapped in bands of elastic cooking string.

Remove these bands and keep to one side for later. Unroll the breast and lay skin side down on a chopping board.

Mix all the stuffing ingredients together and spread over the lamb leaving a gap to one end.

Starting from the right, re-roll the lamb and secure with the elastic string bands.

Because breast of lamb is quite fatty it needs to be kept off the base of the roasting tin, so make a trivet from two halves of a carrot and place the joint on top.

Heat the oven to Gas 9 and cook for 15 minutes.  Then turn the oven down to Gas 3, cover the joint with foil and cook for 2 hours until tender.

Leave to rest for 15 minutes and serve in slices with roasties & veg. You can make gravy from the pan juices
but be sure to skim off any excess fat first.

I made the leftovers into rissoles which we had for lunch today.

Enjoy!

Snow beautiful Snow!

I just LOVE snow! 

Here in Macclesfield it was about 3" deep this morning.

In weather like this you can really tell which boats don't have good insulation. The one moored next to us is a live-aboard and had hardly any snow on the sides or roof.

Chico also loves the snow and I had a hard time trying to get him to come back in. The figure behind him is one of the tree carvings here on the marina.

The monkey is holding a bottle of rum in case you were wondering.

A bit of a fruit cake

Ginger has been recommended as an anti nausea aid during my chemo so I've been adding it to practically everything and it seems to be working.

My latest "ginger creation" was these little ginger & sultana cakes that I rustled up this morning. They must be good as there are hardly any left!

Little Ginger & Sultana cakes - makes 12

4oz soft butter
4oz brown sugar
5oz SR flour
2 eggs
1 heaped teaspoon ginger powder
2 tablespoons milk
8 oz sultanas

Whisk everything except the sultanas together in a large bowl.
Stir in the sultanas.
Drop mixture into 12 paper cases in a muffin tin & bake at Gas 4 for approx 25-30 mins.

Simple & delicious.

Enjoy!

Birdsong

I've been concious that there was something missing when we were moored in the marina but couldn't quite put my finger on what it was.  When I woke up this morning I realised it's the birdsong.  There just aren't any birds there apart from a load of mallards which peck at the boats scrounging food. I made myself a pot of coffee and sat for a full half hour just listening. It was wonderful.

It's been a beautiful day here and Roger has washed the roof of the boat. If it stays nice tomorrow he'll do the sides as well. It's amazing just how filthy the boat has got moored in the marina. I suppose it's the dust being whipped up from the car park and because there are so many smoky chimneys.

Escape from the Marina

On Christmas Eve we had a party here on the marina and as usual the boys had to "play".

They set off a huge Santa Chinese Lantern which looked quite surreal floating over the roof tops of Macclesfield.

I've been getting cabin fever being stuck in the marina but at least I've had plenty of time for hooky.  I made this tea cosy for my son as part of his Christmas present.

It was based on an American pattern I saw HERE but I couldn't get any suitable wool and wanted more realistic looking feathers, so I found a tutorial for crocodile stitch HERE on youtube and made it up as I went along. I'm really proud of how it worked out as it's the first thing I've made without a proper pattern.

With no hospital appointments now until next Wednesday we've decided to get out of the marina for the weekend.  We haven't gone far, in fact just one mile to moor at Gurnett Aqueduct, but it was lovely to be moving again and to have an unrestricted view out of the window. If it's nice tomorrow we may go further, if not we'll stay here.