I'm back!

See it really did break!

It's been ages since I was last here. The main reason is that I went on a fantastic overseas holiday. I hit New York for a week, London for a day then hopped over to Italy for two weeks. As a result I have a lot of trouble eating Australian cheese now. The mozzarella in Italy was amazing, so good in fact that I went to the Vic Market on Saturday and ordered some. Whilst waiting for it to arrive I tried buffalo mozzarella. It lasted less then 12 hours........

Any way time to spam you with my latest creation. This is a recipe from Jess and her mother. I highly advise eating it with rice or pasta to soak up the sauce.

Directly pasted from my inbox as typing it all out required patience.

Calderada

How much of ingredients you get kind of depends on how big your pan is. I could only fit two layers of stuff in my pan. But here are the basic ingredients.

Basically you need:

Lamb

White wine (Yalumba unwooded chardonnay works well but whatevs, just make sure it's dry and doesn't taste like piss)

Vinegar

Paprika

Dried Bay Leaves

Olive Oil

Parsely

Tomatoes, or a tin of tomatoes

Capsicum

Potatoes

Onions

Garlic

Salt

Cloves

Marinate the meat (I used two chump chops) in vinegar, salt and paprika, with just enough marinade to coat the meat and a little left over. Marinate for the time it takes to chop everything else (big slices, not diced, except for the onions and garlic)

Fry off the onions and garlic in a heavy-based pot (like a casserole, or in my case, a bessamer pot) until soft. Switch off the heat.

Cut the meat into bite-sized chunks.

In the pan, layer like this:

Meat

Potatoes

Capsicum

(if you remember) Tomato

Bay leaves

2 cloves

If you fail like me and forget the tomato, just layer everything else, say "Oh crappy crap" and pour a tin of chopped tomatoes over the top.

Fill to about 3/4 (if in doubt, a little more rather than less) with white wine, and then pop a handful of parsely in on top (don't bother chopping it, just the whole bit, stalks and everything). Grab the olive oil and pour some on so there's a thin film of it.

Put back on the stove and bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 2 or so hours (at least an hour and a half) until the meat falls apart and the potatoes are hard on the outside but nice and fluffy on the inside :)

Serve with rice and modafila (which is for another day, i.e when I've asked my mum for the recipe...it's basically spinach but interesting).

Hope you enjoy :)

Jess

Now for the photos!!

I went, I ate, I drank, I bought the book and never wanted to leave

The bestest salad in the entire world