Lamb chops champvallon

I cannot tell you how delicious this smells. It has infused the whole house as it has been cooking in the slow cooker all day. It’s from the DK Slow Cook Book, my favourite slow cooker cookbook. I’ve not made this recipe before, and I haven’t had lamb chops for a very long time. Basically there are layers of potatoes, onions, thyme and garlic with lamb chops in the middle, cooking in vegetable stock. The recipe apparently was originally created by a mistress of Louis XIV to stay in his good books…I don’t know if it worked. I’ll see if it works on David later…

As usual I got all the ingredients out first. There’s nothing worse than starting to cook and realising half way through you don’t have an essential ingredient.

Here are the lamb chops browning in the pan. The lamb is from Gloucestershire, hope it’s nice.

Here are the onions mixed up with the sliced potatoes and thyme.

This is how it looked about 5 hours ago, through the lid of the slow cooker.

And this is now.. (you have to imagine the succulent little lamb chops snuggling in beneath)…

I’m planning on serving this with some green beans or carrots. I’m really looking forward to this dinner.

But first I have to do LBT. Unfortunately I didn’t say BLT as that sounds nice… crispy bacon, fresh iceberg lettuce, juicy sliced tomatoes, a little bit of mayo, the freshest softest bread… yeah, dream on Gail! I have decided to be brave and try my friend’s Zoom LBT = Legs, Bums and Tums class. Wish me luck! I will be deserving of my lamb chop stew.

This lockdown 2 feels different for me than the first. The first for me was about the abundance of nature and growing in the garden, cocktails, extra food treats, affordable decadence, processing the shock of events. This second one seems calmer, easier, with a focus on health and well-being. It’s about nurturing the body with walks, yoga and mindfulness. I’m planning on doing some home spa pampering, looking after my body, whilst also focusing on books and films, cultural food for the mind. I hope it’s the same for you, that it’s a bit easier this time around? We know the drill.

I had a request today for some tree bark on The Waffle, so here goes, beautiful bark of Windsor… this is a magnificent lime tree, we gave it a big hug, very therapeutic.