Sunday Conundrum

A typical Sunday morning

• wake up (late) and get ready for church
• worship
• start to feel peckish while talking afterwards
• start to feel a bit hungry (at least 1/2 hr. later) while finally thinking about making a move
• chased out of the sanctuary by deacons (themselves now positively hungry), you realize, hey I'm hungry

At this point, you have a choice:

1. Invite the people you've been talking to for the last hour to go out to lunch with you
   
2. Go home hungry and wonder why there isn't much in the store cupboards (namely, because it's Sunday and the budget week starts on Monday)
   

Choice 1 gets pricey sooner or later (usually sooner). Choice 2. comes with kicking yourself for not thinking ahead and having something at the ready. But then you think to yourself, "Wouldn't it be great if waiting for me at home was a sizeable cooked lunch (so that you could invite over on the spur of the moment) that I could sit down and eat in a chilled-out 30 min. or less?"

The probem is, of course, that you've been out of the house for the last 3 hours or so. The typical <30 min. options are things that often require last-minute hustle and bustle, so that's out. All you really want to do is slide things in and out of ovens or microwaves or rice cookers. A small amount of measuring and garnishing is acceptable.

So I'm looking for recipes for Sunday post-church lunches with the following qualities:

• stretches easily to accommodate 2-4 unanticipated guests
• not just those listless variations of pot roasts with onion soup mix
• filling and warm - this should be the main meal of the day, paired with a light meal / snack at supper. Pancho can't just eat salads, I'm afraid.
  
• small amount of AM prep (e.g., browning) and moderate amount of Sat PM prep ok
• modest cleanup - not loads and loads of sticky pans!
• affordable on a modest budget
• ready in less than a leisurely 30 minutes from arriving home from church
  
• well-balanced, nutrition-wise
  
• and (do I have to say it?) delicious - this should be something we look forward to, not sigh about!

What could work:

• Slow-roast lamb shoulder, served with couscous and yummy garnishes and salad
• Carnitas?
• Artisan bread in five minutes a day (including pizza dough) - but then the oven is taken up...which may or may not be a problem
  

What doesn't work:

• Standard 1 1/2 hr roast chicken with trimmings - too much last minute faff and too many pots and pans, and it roasts too quickly to put in before church and too slowly to put in after. Otherwise, it's perfect.
  

I would like to make a collection of suitable recipes, starting with my slow-roast lamb and then possibly adding Jamie Oliver's 3-hr pork goulash. Slow-cooked cheap-cuts of meat seems like the best strategy, but I don't want lackluster pot roasts (which is what you're directed to if you google "sunday lunch church") and slow-cooker specials that all taste alike. I'm also interested in collecting quick and easy side dishes (especially if they can be prepared and served in the same dish). Here's the rub - I just know there's stuff out there that families do, or at least used to do, in order to avoid being consumed by meal preparation and clean-up on days of worship and rest. I just don't know where to look for the recipes! Any ideas or tips would be very welcome.

Straight from the (now) Pope's mouth

Pure objectivity is an absurd abstraction. It is not the uninvolved who comes to knowledge; rather, interest itself is a requirement for the possibility of coming to know.

Here, then, is the question: how does one come to be interested, not so that the self drowns out the voice of the other, but in such a way that one develops a kind of inner understanding for things of the past, and ears to listen to the word they speak to us today?

from "Biblical Interpretation in Crisis: The 1988 Erasmus Lecture"
By Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI

Zee Recipes

First, some pictures:


Yes, it snowed on Easter!

See the previous post for direct links to some of the recipes we used on Sunday. Panna cotta is a super-easy do-in-advance dessert, by the way! Highly recommended.

Prosciutto-wrapped Asparagus
Brought in by A., this was a super-easy starter: simply wrap asparagus spears with prosciutto in a spiral, put in a roasting pan, drizzle the tips and ends with olive oil (and sprinkle with a bit of freshly cracked pepper) and roast in a 450 degree F oven for 5 minutes. Shake and roast another few minutes until the asparagus tips are nicely browned. Voila! and delicious.

Slow-Roasted Lamb
This recipe I concocted with reference to Nigella's overnight slow-roasted lamb in Nigella Bites (also posted on BBC Food), Jamie's version in Jamie at Home (plus advice from a forum of Jamie readers). My version:

1. Preheat oven to 140 degree C. Drizzle a large roasting pan with oil.
2. Poke holes all over the fat cap of a whole bone-in shoulder (mine was about 6 lbs.). Rub all over with spices (harissa, coriander, mint, sea salt, and garlic) and a bit of olive oil.
3. Place shoulder fat-side up in roasting pan, throw in two cups of water, cover tightly with foil, and roast at 140 degrees C overnight (mine was in for 12 hours - in the future, I would check to make sure the water hadn't totally evaporated when I woke up).
4. Remove from oven and let rest for about 30 min. to 1 hr.
5. Shred with forks - it will literarally fall apart
6. Sprinkle over freshly chopped mint and coriander and some more sea salt.
7. Serve warm with haroset, harissa, pita, hummous, etc. DO NOT EAT COLD.

The verdict: pretty finger-lickin' good, but could have been better by adding more liquid and making sure there were no holes in the foil for moisture to seep out of. The moistest bits were delicious (if you like strong flavours), especially with the haroset and the harissa.

Haroset
See here for several recipes and some comment on the Seder dish, haroset or charoset. As the website says:

Haroset (also charoset or charoses), the blend of fruit and nuts symbolizing the mortar which our forefathers used to build pyramids in Egypt, is one of the most popular and discussed foods served at the Seder. The fruit and nuts found in almost all haroset recipes refer to two verses in the Song of Songs closely linked with the spring season: "Under the apple tree I awakened thee" (8:5) and "I went down into the garden of nuts" (6:11). The red wine recalls the Red Sea, which parted its waters for the Jews....The real purpose of the haroset is to allay the bitterness of the maror (bitter herbs) required at the Seder.

I took a glance at these and adapted a recipe for haroset in Nigella's Feast based on affordability and my desire not to blacken the bottom of the pan with burnt sugar (in other words, I added more liquid and cooked it for less than 1.5 hours). Key element in mine was muscat, a sweet and orange-blossom scented dessert wine (1/3 c.).

Berry Couli
Well, really, this wasn't a real couli, just a sauce made by adding a small amount of water, some sugar, and frozen mixed berries into a saucepan and heated until it was the consistency I wanted. It still worked brilliantly with the smooth milky panna cotta.

Elderflower and Blackberry jelly
Again, a made-up special. I needed a dairy-free dessert that was low-hassle. I found some sparkling elderflower presse in the fridge and simply made a jello of sorts by adding gelatin. Someday, I'd like to figure out how to keep the bubbles in it:

1. Measure out 1 English pint of elderflower presse (or elderflower cordial mixed with water to taste).
2. Soften a packet of gelatin (about 2 1/2 tsp.) in a small amount of water.
3. Heat up the elderflower presse until just about to boil. Remove from heat and stir in gelatin until completely dissolved.
4. In glass tumblers, place some fresh (or thawed) blackberries. Pour over elderflower gelatin and chill for at least 4-6 hours, preferably overnight. Serve with berry sauce or a tiny amount of cream on top.

That's all folks! The rest was just bought: cheeses, crackers, mints, fruits, and nuts, laid out on bowls and platters at the appropriate time

Zee Menu, Mesdames et Messieurs

Entracte

Appetizers: olives, cornichons, melon, asparagus and prociutto wraps

Prime

Green salad with orange, fennel, and asparagus,

served with a crisp white wine or juice

Mains

Harissa-spiced slow-roasted lamb shoulder with haroset, couscous, pita, and hummous

served with a robust but soft red wine

Dessert

Vanilla panna cotta with summer berry couli, or an elderflower and blackberry jelly

served with Sauternes

Fromage

Brie, Blue, and Comte, with biscuits

no more wine for you!

Cafe et The

Coffee, tea, and chocolates

Sortie

Fresh and dried fruit and nuts

Zee chefs extraordinaire

A. (zee hostess) et Ladybug

....et zee sous chef langue-suffering

Pancho

Planning the Easter Feast

Inspired by Nigella AND with the idea that it would be best to feast in a way that doesn't require lots of kitchen time at the last minute, I'm leaning towards slow roast lamb.

Did you know that you can roast a lamb shoulder overnight? How cool is that! I'm thinking of adopting Nigella's all-night technique and giving it a spice rub of something like ginger, cumin, coriander, turmeric, harissa, lemon, etc. I'm still pondering side dishes, but I think definitely quickly-cooked seasonal veg and possibly a funky salad (e.g., watercress, pecorino, and pear). Updates will follow, and hopefully we'll take pictures this time around!