My mum, dad, sister and boyfriend are all coming to stay with us for the weekend and they arrive tomorrow night. I want to cook something fairly traditional, as my dad is not an adventurous eater to say the least.

I also don't want to be slaving over a hot stove when I arrive home from work as it is likely that my family will have already arrived, so I need to pay them some attention. In these situations before I have cooked casseroles the night before and then heated up, but I have found that for the time it takes to heat up the dish, I may as well have cooked something quicker from scratch.

This time, I am trying something different. It wasn't one of the things on our wedding list, but we were given a slow cooker as a wedding present. It went straight in the loft as it is huge and just not efficient for two people, but in this situation, it might just come into its own.

I've bought lamb shanks, and I normally use a Jamie Oliver recipe to cook them, which would work in the slow cooker, but I'm wondering if I should try something else. The Jamie recipe is Spiced Slow Cooked Lamb Shanks and has quicte a chunky tomato based sauce with it. I can serve this with mash but I think I need to serve another vegetable as well and I don't think extra veg will work with the chunky spicy sauce.

I'm now thinking about a simpler sauce for the shanks, such as red wine. There are loads of recipes on the web, but there's always a little risk in cooking something un-tested for your guests. I don't want to mess it up!

Labels: cooking