The Mad Scientist's Luscious Römertopf Lamb

This is a wonderful German clay oven which cooks very juicy and tender food. It is advisable to soak the top and bottom in water overnight so that the dishes will retain some moisture when they are placed in a standard oven (the Mad Scientist generally uses 180 degrees Celsius for most things).

On this occasion a piece of pre-marinated and butterflied lamb (from the supermarket) was cooked together with some frozen vegetables, but freshly prepared vegetables also work perfectly well. Use whatever you like really!

It is best to check periodically how things are going and you can turn over pieces of meat and vegetables if you feel they are cooking unevenly.

The end result was a beautiful succulent piece of lamb and juicy vegetables which had soaked up the flavour of the lamb stock. The juices from the pan were used to make a light gravy.

The Mad Scientist's Pasta Cacciatore con Pollo e Pomodoro

This turned out to be both an innovative and inspired way to use up some 'leftovers'. The Mad Scientist had a large quantity of the luscious sauce from the Chicken Cacciatore together with two drumsticks of chicken and a small quantity of the now-famous pureed roasted Vegorama.

The chicken meat was stripped off the bone and shredded and combined with the leftover sauce, Vegorama, some extra pitted Kalamata olives sliced in half and some finely sliced sun-dried tomatoes. The sauce was mixed to an even consistency and warmed and then mixed through some cooked spirali pasta (three cups of dried pasta to be exact). The finished pasta was served with some freshly grated parmesan cheese on top.

The end result was amazingly good. There was a lovely rich underlying chicken stock flavour to the Cacciatore sauce and all the ingredients complemented each other very well.