Lamb, rosti and creamed spinach with a red wine sauce

Despite having half a lamb in my freezer, when I saw that rack of lamb was on special offer last week, I couldn't resist getting one.

No advance planning and shopping for me, I get what's on offer usually when it comes to proteins and vegetables, with a back drop of weekly staples of course.

What usually happens is that I will be sitting at work working a spreadsheet, minding my own business and I'll start thinking about culinary creations.

So round about midday I got the desire to make rosti, which I've never made before and as I drove home thought how well they'd go with the lamb and how I had a big bag of spinach almost out of date in the fridge.

So the concept is hatched. In the food processor I grated an onion, 2 medium potatoes and a sweet potato. Put them in a tea towel and squeezed out all the excess water. Seasoned the mix really well, then formed them into 4 patties and fried them in vegetable oil. Once they were crispy on the outside I put them in a medium oven to cook through until everything else was ready.

The lamb weighed 680g, I seasoned it well and fried it to seal it for a few minutes on each side, in olive oil with some crushed garlic and a spoon of butter. Once it was well browned I put it bone side down in a roasting tin and roasted at 200 C for 25 minutes (20 minutes if you like it really pink, 30 if you like it well done). You should rest it for 10 minutes before carving.

The spinach I wilted in a pan with a little butter and some of the cooked garlic from the lamb. When it had just wilted I blitzed it in my blender with about 100 ml cream. tipped it back in the pan to heat and seasoned with salt, pepper and grated nutmeg.

For the sauce, I fried a finely chopped onion, added a quarter of a bottle of red wine, a bay leaf and reduced it down over a high heat. I added some sliced mushrooms, a teaspoon of red wine vinegar, a couple of pinches of sugar, a little of the meat juices and 2 teaspoons of cranberry sauce. Seasoned well and at the end added a decent knob of butter to add some gloss.

It was very tasty, but there's lots I would change. Not the lamb, the lamb was superb, soft and tasty, The spinach, I would use more spinach or less cream as it was more of a sauce than a vegetable accompaniment and I will say it takes a lot of seasoning, I don't usually use much salt and felt like I used quite a lot for this. The rosti were delicious and crunchy and chewy, sweet and savoury, but a little greasy and if I did them again I would cook them in rings (which I don't have) to make them deeper and more substantial.

We had some broccoli on the side but commented that carrots might have been better to lift the plate a little,

The great thing was it was all done in roughly an hour with no forethought and although it wouldn't win Master Chef...Greg and John would have found plenty of errors in there..it was a pretty good effort for a midweek tea!