food fight

I've mentioned before that I've lost my cooking mojo. What with the whirl of December zooming by, Christmas, birthday parties, activities... I got out of my regular weekly meal planning and into a daily buying tizz. Of course this has two side-effects.

Firstly, the hassle. Deciding what to cook on the day sucks. It's taxing, it's stressful and never as effective as if you'd planned.

Secondly, it's damned expensive. Whether it's a frantic dash to the supermarket, or quickly ducking in to buy the world's most expensive head of garlic {at $5 this one had better be damned good} this is an expensive way to eat.

So today I was uninspired till I watched Nigella whip up lemon and garlic chicken. Yum. So I walked up to the organic shop to buy two unwaxed lemons and that gold-plated head of garlic. Next, I walked in the opposite direction to the butcher - where they had no free-range chicken, and only breasts or thighs with no skin. Pointless. This recipe calls for slow roasting and crispy skin - seriously there's no point to chicken without crispy skin {except for poached - that I'll allow}. Then I pondered the meat cabinet for, oh, I reckon a good 15 minutes...

Ditherer.

Now I'm slow roasting an easy carve leg of lamb that's studded with slivers of the world's most expensive garlic and slivers of anchovies. I'll serve it on a salad and bedazzle it with some pomegranite seeds.

Next step is formulating a meal plan for tomorrow on. Which shall, of course, include Nigella's crispy-skin chicken.