Italian and Greek

The Bloke and I are both hanging out for western food. No curries! No rice!

I was too tired to cook on our first day back. We had breakfast at a Newtown (Sydney) cafe, lunch at Debacle (yummy lamb, sweet potato and spinach salad) and dinner takeaway from Zefirelli's (pizza, pasta and salad). Zeff's serving sizes are ridiculously huge: a "main meal" spaghetti bolognese has done us for four meals!

So far I've cooked simple steak and salad, greek lamb casserole, bolognese sauce for spaghetti for sometime next week, and I have a small free range chook to roast for tomorrow. Tonight we're going to the Backyard Backanalia's election special, and they usually have good old sausage sangers. What with all that and vegemite toast, we're set to survive at least a week with no curry. The lamb was good, so here's a recipe.

Recipe: Greek Lamb Casserole (Slow Cooker Method)

• 8 large lamb chops - chump or lean BBQ.
  
• 2 large lemons
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 large onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 tablespoon good olive oil
• Several big handfuls of fresh oregano and thyme
• 8 new potatoes

Prep: Trim any large chunks of fat and rind from chops. Get large strips of peel from lemons with a potato peeler; squeeze out juice.

Drizzle oil into slow-cooker bowl. Add sliced onion and coarsely chopped garlic, stir to coat. Add a layer of chops, a layer of herbs and lemon peel, and repeat until all lamb & herbs are used up. Pour over white wine and lemon juice, and leave on high for 3 hours, flipping layers occasionally if you can; it's good to let all the meat get to the liquid. Stir around, add new potatoes on top, and leave for another two hours. Fish out the chops and potatoes, and serve with some of the juices, and a side of steamed green veggies or a salad.

Notes: I realise I've not been putting serving sizes in to any recipes, but I think you're a cook then you can probably work it out. I'd say this one serves 4. More if you have entrees and desserts and big serves of salad and veggies. Less if you are really starving.

Leftover edit: We ate leftovers from this stew later in the week. I deboned the remaining chops, halved the potatoes, strained the juices, and used them to poach some mushrooms and spinach. I then added the meat and potatoes back to heat through. The onion, herbs and lemon peel go in the bin, they've done their flavouring job.