Lamb steaks with pea and chickpea mash and mint and lemon pesto

This week has been extraordinarily tiring, thanks to a series of meetings that required prior reading and thought; I've spent my evenings struggling to keep my eyes open as I plough through another pile of mindbogglingly dull documents. I am more than relieved that it's now Friday and I can start to relax (and think about food again....) - and even blog again. The problem is that my mind is still playing in a continuous work-loop, which means I'm writing jerkily and hesitantly. I do resent work occupying my brain on Friday nights.

Anyway onto the recipe: this is one I made earlier, to borrow the Blue Peter phrase, because this week has been a bit slow on the cooking front (I've had to cut corners to make as much time as possible for the aforementioned boring paperwork). This recipe is from the healthy section of In the Mood for Food, but it bears no resemblance whatsoever to what you might expect a diet dish to look like. It is, basically, lamb leg steaks served with pesto (made from almonds, mint, parsley, lemon, extra virgin olive oil, Parmesan and seasoning) alongside a mash made with tinned chickpeas, frozen peas, paprika and lemon juice and blitzed in a processor or roughly mashed. Hardly rabbit food...


This was delicious. Really easy, allegedly healthy but very tasty (so often, healthy and tasty don't go together). I served it as suggested with briefly roasted cherry tomatoes on the vine. Another dish I'd make again, not least because I liked the mix of colours and textures (how superficial am I...?). Thank goodness it's the weekend, and I get to cook properly again...