Tag Archives: vegetables

Meaty Goodness!

Meat Recipe #8 – Roast Lamb with Seasoned Vegetables

Leave a comment

Who doesn’t love a big roast eh?  Well, vegetarians I guess, and people with eating disorders, those in a coma etc… well, lots of people.  But lots more people love a roast, especially in winter!

Be still your beating taste buds

So here is a simple recipe for Roast Lamb with Vegetables that is certain to fill your tum.  All the ingredients will be seasoned in various themes of yummy goodness but I’ve even made that easy too.  Just follow the below instructions below and eat hearty!

 

Ingredients:

  • 1.5kg roasting lamb
  • 4 medium potatoes
  • 1 medium onion
  • 1 large carrot
  • Frozen peas
  • Olive oil
  • Salt & Pepper
  • Minced garlic
  • Rosemary
  • Mild Paprika
  • Honey
  • Balsamic Vinegar

 

Preparation:

  • Peel & quarter the potatoes and the onion
  • Peel the large carrot and cut into sticks
  • Take a mixing bowl and fill the bottom with a mixture of olive oil, salt and pepper
  • Put the oven on to preheat to 180 degrees

 

Seasoning:

  • One by one take each of the ingredients (the lamb, potatoes, carrots & onion) and roll them around in the mixture of oil, salt and pepper. Sit each to one side.
  • Mix up some minced garlic and rosemary and rub generously all over the lamb.
  • Roll potatoes in mild paprika
  • Roll carrots in honey and place in fridge
  • Pour balsamic vinegar in a small bowl and put onions in to soak. Place in fridge.

 

Method:

  • Place lamb in roasting tray that allows circulation of heat all around the lamb. Set timer for 90 minutes.
  • At the 45 minute mark put the potatoes on an oven tray and place in oven
  • At the 60 minute mark put the carrots on a separate tray and place in oven (otherwise all the honey that slides off will contaminate your potatoes and obscure the paprika seasoning)
  • At the 70 minute mark place the onion in next to the potatoes.
  • At the 80 minute mark put some peas on to boil

 

Serving

  • Cut the lamb into nice slices or chunks (depending on your culinary audience) using an electric knife and place on plate.
  • Divvy up the vegetables, providing some butter
  • You can provide gravy if you like, though with all the seasoning it shouldn’t be necessary
  • Enjoy!

 

And there ya go.  A roast recipe to warm the cockles of you and your families gullets this winter.  Happy eating!

Got your own roast lamb recipe?  Would love to read it in the comments section below!

Hobby Farming, Tales of the Trev

A letter of thanks to my former farm

1 Comment

My dear former farm,

Though I have left you, I want to thank you for all you did for me over the past 6 years.

You taught me many things about caring for the land.  How to put back more than I took out.  The art of growing a tree in the right kind of dirt, the ways of composting and mulching to improve and protect the soil.  The planting of windbreaks, of nut trees, of fruit and vegetables for my family.

 

The necessity of you made me do something that my family had tried in vain to get me to do when I was a younger man – learn to properly use tools.  When you need to constantly build fences and animal enclosures, pirate ships and cubby houses, scarecrows and fire pits it forces you to finally learn how to use drills and circular saws and everything in between.  As for farm equipment, everything from the use of a humble shovel to mastering the subtleties of tractor usage became a daily activity.

 

You provided me the true experience of food.  Just how incredible so many things taste when they are straight out of your garden and grown by your own hand, rather  than having been grown on another continent and then shipped thousands of miles, put in cold storage, handled by dozens of people etc etc.  I never knew just how intense simple things like watermelon or mandarins could taste when it’s so fresh and been grown right!

 

You brought back to me the pride of properly caring for livestock.  To see the ducks growing, the chooks laying and the goats frolicking in their field in their thick winter coats – all given plenty of food, water, space and shelter to keep them at the peak of happiness and health!

 

You reminded me of simple pleasures that I had forgotten from living in the big city for so long.  Things like there is a night sky absolutely full of stars, the joy of swimming in a dam on a hot day or climbing a tall gum tree, the relaxed freedom of rambling around a paddock in a clapped-out ute.

 

You were the first farm that was truly mine.  When standing upon your ground everything felt right, I felt truly at home.  I felt a connection to the land that fellow farmers and country folk can relate to but rarely speak of, something almost spiritual.  Something sadly that your average gardener of city-dweller can never truly understand.  Just like someone cannot truly grasp the feeling of parenthood until they become one, nobody cannot truly grasp what it feels like to stand on the ground of your own farm, feeling the earth beneath your boots and surveying how you have shaped and changed and molded the land around you for the better.

Thank you for everything you taught me and gave me.  And most importantly thank you for giving my two children a safe place to spend their first few years of life – no matter how far away we may go there will always be some Mallee dust in their veins.

 

It broke my heart to leave you, but I know we leave each other better than we found one another and I never forget the life lessons you taught me.  You will always have my thanks and my love.

Ask Trev!, Hobby Farming

Ask Trev – What to plant in Primary School gardens at this time of year.

5 Comments

This question comes from Morg176 in Shellharbour

“I’d like to see an article on gardening for Primary Schoolers – What to plant, when, what might be interesting, what grows fast?”

Well first off it’s great to see teachers talking about this.  In my opinion every school would benefit from a gardening program.  It teaches so many lessons that take into account so many parts of the curriculum – horticulture, science, environmental studies, English, maths etc etc.  But most importantly, it teaches kids where their food comes from and how it is created, it doesn’t just magically appear on the supermarket shelves.

 

What to plant and when? 

As for when – as soon as you can!  Get started and it will gain a momentum of its own.  In fact I will tailor all my answers around the idea you will start as soon as possible.  At this time of year you can easily plant the following: cabbage, pak choi, lettuce, rocket, spinach, carrots, celery, cauliflower, spring onions, leek, onions, radish, turnips and swedes all should grow quite well.

If you are looking at a new garden for your Primary School and the soil isn’t great, I heartily suggest you plant some legumes which will stick in valuable nitrogen for your soil.  Peas of all kids do this but I have a soft spot for broad beans.

What might be interesting?

If the idea is to make the garden interesting for your students, I recommend putting in a variety of vegetables that all look quite different so the students can see the variety.  Broad beans will grow nearly 6 feet high, pack choi will turn into these lovely green vase shapes, radishes will provide these red bulbs half in the soil for kids to hunt for, leeks become little palm trees, rocket will become little willowy forests and cauliflowers look like big round soccer balls.

IMG_3063

What grows fast?

At this time of year?  Bugger all.  Spring and summer are the seasons where things grow fast.  However a general rule is the smaller the vegetable the faster it will reach its full potential.  Avoid swedes and turnips as they take forever, cauliflowers, leeks and cabbages take a while too.  Perhaps pak choi, celery, spring onions, rocket and broad beans may be your best bet.

 

Good luck with your school gardening program!  Don’t forget to prime that soil with lots of fertilizer, don’t forget to work in some water and weeding programs into your timetable and any more questions feel free to post them – I’’ll tackle them as best I can.