Tuesday

This is the day Alex should be having that operation on his hand but I doubt it will happen today.  He's not been vomit-free for long enough, I suspect.  However, being no specialist, I could be totally wrong - and if they think he is well enough it would be good.

I do feel a bit of a prune!  Lat week I oh-so-carefully planned this week's literacy and theme planning only to remember, yesterday, that Friday is a non-pupil day, which puts it all slightly out of kilter, darn it!  It's also messed up my student's three Reading Revelry group lessons which she has to plan and deliver, which is unavoidable but a great shame.  She said it doesn't matter, what will be assessed is the planning/evaluation cycle and she can show that anyway.  She took register yesterday, took them along to the hall for violins and afterwards back they came in a very controlled and sensible way.  Great start!

Can anyone have too much slow cooked lamb?  Lamb for breakfast yesterday, again for dinner and I've just prepared another lot for breakfast today (weird, I know, but my choice).  I find that conventionally roasted lamb isn't really the same second day.  It's still nice enough but not the same.  However, this slow cooked stuff is just gorgeous and seems to keep developing flavour.  Hardly a varied diet and it's protein overload, I know, but - mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Today is another slightly muddled day.  My student is certainly getting the idea of how it really is in schools at times.  Not the perfectly structured and timetabled smoothness that OFSTED looks for but the oopsy daisy mishmash of stuff that has to be fitted in somehow, somewhere.  Today is is family assembly rehearsals, show dance practice and outdoor PE (which is timetabled for the morning).  My student is taking register and then phonics - sorry, Word Workshop - and then I take over.  Another one of those days, for sure, although I think the afternoon is more settled.

Ho hum!

A little extra . . .

. . . to say how utterly scrummily delicious the slow cooked lamb was.  So good that here's the recipe.

Slow cooked leg of lamb

Serves: 6 generously – very generously. I’d say 8 to 10 myself, looking at how much I have left over

Ingredients
1 large leg of lamb
Head of garlic, split but not peeled (I kept one clove aside for the dauphinoise potatoes
Some Chantanay carrots or any you might have about 6-8 depending on size
300ml red wine (I used a merlot)
300ml stock (I used a lamb stock cube in 300ml hot water)

Method
1.Preheat oven to 120C / fan 100C / gas 1/2
2. You need a roasting dish large enough to get the lamb in
3. Heat carrots, garlic, wine and stock in a saucepan until boiling. Pour into the roasting dish and lay the leg of lamb on top. No other seasoning needed.
4. Carefully cover with foil tightly, put in oven and cook for 7 hours. No need to check.
5.Remove lamb to a another tin, turn oven up to 200C / fan 180C / gas 6 and put lamb in to crisp skin for about 15 to 20 mins. (I actually didn’t do this, I just poured off the stock into a saucepan, re-covered it and put it back in the oven until time to serve).
6. Reduce cooking juices to make tasty gravy. I thickened it with thickening granules or you could use cornflour or a buerre marnier.

Great served with dauphinoise potatoes and veg – the carrots cooked in the wine and stock were gorgeous.

Scrummy!  And so much left over for other meals!  I do love leg of lamb but can never cook it just for one.  That would be silly!