Just a quickie ...

Because things don't have to be complicated.

So tonight we ate saddle of lamb with roast potatoes and stuffed round courgettes, followed by stuffed peaches. At the end of which we were, in fact, stuffed.

I'm going to assume that you know how to roast potatoes ie heat dish in oven with oil for 5 minutes, add potato chunks and swirl around to coat evenly etc etc so I won't go into that. The saddle of lamb, on the other hand, is basically a thick slice - about three or four chops thick - of a little lamb's backbone, taken from towards its arse. Between backbones, ribs and skin you have the filet; underneath the ribs you have the contre-filet, which is probably the juiciest part but there's sod-all of it. Shame.

What I did was remove the skin from the top of the saddle using a rather sharp knife, then cover the exposed flesh with a mixture of breadcrumbs, thyme, salt, paprika and grated parmesan mashed up with sufficient butter to make a stiff, crumbly paste. A couple of anchovy fillets (if you have some left over from making beurre Café de Paris) - would also be a good idea. Press that onto the flesh and then stick it into the oven with the potatoes - depending on how rare you like your lamb, between 20 and 30 minutes for a 600gm chunk.

Remember to remove it from the oven and let it rest, covered with tinfoil, for about 10 minutes before you carve it because otherwise the centre will look raw and unappetising and the outside will be gray and dry. I have warned you.

At the same time as you're getting that ready, do the courgettes. There's a stall at the Saturday market with 3" diameter round ones: they're good. Whatever, cut the tops off and, using the melon baller you always have to hand (or a sharpened teaspoon if that's all you have available) scoop out its little guts. Which you will then chop, reasonably finely, and stick into a frying pan with olive oil or butter over high heat, until you've started to get rid of most of the water in the stuff. At which point you should add a chopped tomato or two, some garlic, basil, shallot, chopped ham - whatever.

Then reduce it some more, there's a lot of water in tomatoes. Then turn the heat off and stir in some breadcrumbs: you want it thick and porridgy. Let it cool a bit, stir in some grated cheese, and fill the hollow shells with that. Top with a slice of goat cheese (if you have some, if not anything smelly will do provided it's not actually a sock or something) and stick them in the oven too - they'll take about 30 minutes.

Finally, dessert. One peach per person. This is a bastard version of an Italian recipe, but we like it anyway. Whatever. Cut the peaches in half and remove the stone - using the same melon baller with which you eviscerated the courgettes, scoop some of the flesh out from around the hole and stick that into a bowl. Then stick the halves - cut side up - in an oven dish just large enough to hold them and put that aside.

Now mash the peach flesh well with a fork and add, not necessarily in that order (I'm assumlng just two of you, so two peaches - if more, do the arithmetic yourself) - 1 tbsp brown sugar, 2 or 3 tbsp ground almonds, 180gm of crumbled ladies fingers (the biscuits, I mean, not actual fingers from a lady - that would be gross, and they don't mash well anyway), a wodge of butter (OK, that's not terribly precise as measurements go, about 25 gm is probably alright) and an egg.

When all that's mashed together you should have a not-too sloppy mush which you will spoon into and over the peach halves, at which point you're almost done. You just need to pour some orange juice into the dish till it comes about halfway up the peaches, then put the whole lot into the oven. For about 30 minutes, until the peaches are soft, the topping is nicely browned, and the orange juice has reduced to a syrup. Personally, I like it with vanilla ice-cream, but that may be just me.

Just a hint for carving the lamb - first of all, remove the crispy crumby topping and put that aside somewhere you won't forget it. Then slice down each side of the backbone to the ribs and slide the knife along them to remove the filet. Flip it over and repeat the operation on the underside to get the contre-filet. You should have dangly bits attached to the ends of the ribs on each side: cut those off too and slice them thinly. Put all the bits back in the skillet in which they were cooked and put the crusty topping back on top so you can fight over it, then serve. Leave the denuded backbone somewhere safe in the kitchen so you can go pick at it later before you give it to the dog.

I started getting all that ready around 19:30 and we sat down to eat at 20:45 - the last half-hour was spent drinking and waiting for things to cook. So it didn't even take too long. I like that.