FRIDAY FEAST with Eleni Konstantine

Ahh, Fridays. I just adore them. After a big week writing there’s something completely satisfying about turning my brain (and belly) to some feasty goodness. And what feasty goodness we have in store!

This week I’m absolutely delighted to introduce a new guest to Friday Feast. Adelaide writer Eleni Konstantine is not only a talented author and designer, she’s also a total sweetheart. But if her paranormal and fantasy romances are anything to go by, it appears she also harbours a deep dark side. Probably developed form all those wonderful fairytales her mother gave her when she was young, along with her great love for Greek mythology.

Eleni’s latest release is Sealed With A Kiss. Take a look.

 

SEALED WTH A KISS

 

Can a gift from her grandmother protect Lise? 

Lise doesn’t believe in vampires. Or so she tells herself. Though, she constantly wears the garnet necklace her grandmother gave her, which wards off the creatures. Andreas, the man she’s attracted to, seems more than a little interested in it. Could there be an ulterior motive?

Intrigued? I am! Thanks to the joy of ebooks, you could have your own copy with just a quick clickety-click. Visit Smashwords where you can download a file for any ereader format, from Kindle to Kobo to your iPad, and others. You can even read it on your computer. Easy!

 

And now, prepare your tastebuds for Eleni.

 

Mana’s Pastitio

I love food. Seriously. I’m not one of these people who only views it as substance. After all, why does food taste so good if this was to be the case?! Lucky for me, food is paramount in the culture I grew up in. And I have a mum (mana or mama in Greek) who loves to cook and experiment as well. Lucky me!

But today, I’m going to bring you one of the traditional dishes I grew up with.

Pastitio.

What is pastitio? It’s Greek and is sort of like a mousaka but instead of putting potato and eggplant (aubergine), you have pasta.

There are three layers traditionally

1. Pasta – bottom layer
2. Mince sauce
3. Béchamel sauce (white sauce) – top

But we mix up the bottom two layers.

You will find variations on the web, but this is the one that always makes my mouth water no matter what. I had to pin my mum down for this as she does this off the cuff and changes according to the size of the casserole dish.

The following is for a dish 30cm x 40cm

Ingredients

• 500gm pasta of your choice. We usually go for penne as it mixes with the mince layer really well. Fat spaghetti is lovely as well.
• 7 eggs  (3 egg whites, lightly beaten for mince/pasta layer; the remainder egg yellows will go in the béchamel  (white) sauce) and 4 eggs in béchamel sauce.
• 7 cups milk
• 6 tablespoons melted salted butter
• 250gms (1 cup) of cornflour
• 1 teaspoon of nutmeg
• salt
• white pepper
• grated dried ricotta cheese or Parmesan (to sprinkle on top of the white sauce)
• 800-1kg mince – we usually do a mixture of Pork and Beef. But you can really have what you like.
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 onion (whatever type) – grated
• 2 tablespoons of tomato paste
• 1 can diced tomato (or you can put the ready made pasta sauce instead of the diced tomato and tomato paste)
• ½ cup chopped parsley (continental)
• 1- 1½ cups water
• 7 heaped tablespoons corn flour
• 8 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese or dried ricotta cheese (or a mixture of both)

The mince layer

-          Heat up oil and fry up mince until brown.

-          Add onion and stir

-          Add tomato paste and diced tomato. Stir

-          Add ¾ teaspoon nutmeg.

-          Add salt and pepper to taste.

-          Add chopped parsley

-          Stir until there is little to no liquid left.

-          Take off heat and put to side.

The Pasta layer

-          boil the pasta so it’s al dente. Tip 1: add a few drops of extra virgin olive oil;  Tip 2: when you add the pasta, add some salt to taste.

-          strain pasta

Combining layers

-          Mix the meat sauce and the pasta together.

-          Add the 7 tablespoons of the cheese(s)

-          Add  3 lightly beaten egg whites into mixture and stir.

-          Butter or oil a casserole dish (we use Pyrex) before use.

-          Pour mixture above into casserole dish and flatten out to cover the bottom of the dish.

-          Leave for 10 minutes (basically leave when making the White Sauce)

White sauce

-          Place 6 cups of milk, a pinch of white pepper, ¼ teaspoon with melted butter into saucepan to boil.

-          As this is heating, add into a bowl, the remainder eggs (4 whole + 3 yellows), 1 cup of milk and corn flour and whisk until the corn flour is absorbed.

-          Add the bowl’s ingredients into the saucepan and stir until the milk froths.

-          If there  are lumps in your white sauce, you can sift it through to make it more smooth.

-          Add white sauce to the casserole dish. Spread out.

The Finish

-          Add some dried grated ricotta cheese or Parmesan cheese to top of mixture

-          Put in oven at 180 Celsius(356 Fahrenheit) for an hour.

-          Let it rest for 10 minutes when you take it out of the oven.

-          Cut into how large you want your pieces to be, and serve.

-          A Greek village salad makes a good side dish.

 

Thanks, Eleni, for sharing this wonderful family dish. I’m a huge fan of Greek food and will definitely being giving this one a go. It’ll be perfect for a wintery night snuggle-in.

Now, my lovely Feasters, is there a dish or a food that you go back to again and again? Eleni would love to know. In fact, she’d love to know so much that she’s giving away an ebook copy of Sealed With A Kiss to one lucky commenter.

My go-to food is a fresh rice noodle dish made with chilli bean paste and pork that I adapted from a Neil Perry recipe that was featured in a Gourmet Traveller several years back. It’s hot, healthy, fast and luscious to eat. A household favourite.

So share away and you could win yourself a short tasty read!

Giveaway closes midnight AEST, Tuesday 21st May 2013. Open internationally. Rah!

If you’d like to learn more about Eleni and her stories, please visit her website. You can also connect via her Eleni’s Taverna blog.

 

NEWS: Heartland reviewed in the Daily Telegraph

Their verdict: A racy rural love story. Rah!

You have no idea how excited I am about this. So amazing to see my book in a major newspaper. There may be champagne tonight.

And today, in the Sunday Age and the Sunday Sun-Herald, I have a Books That Changed Me article. If you don’t buy the Sunday papers or live elsewhere, that’s okay. The newspapers have conveniently posted it to their websites.

Wishing all mums out there a wonderful Mother’s Day!

FRIDAY FEAST with Rachel Bailey

Happy Friday, Feasters! We’re back to normal guest programming now Heartland is well and truly out in the world, and what a lovely guest we have too.

Australian author Rachel Bailey writes for Harlequin Desire, with 7 titles to her name. If you like sexy, romantic and fantastically rich alpha heroes who have everything but the right woman, then Rachel has a book for you! She’s a USA Today best-seller and former President of the Romance Writers of Australia and knows exactly what readers want so you know you’ll be in for a cracking read.

Her latest release is No Stranger to Scandal. Check it out…

 

NO STRANGER TO SCANDAL

 

Decorum Vs. Destiny

She might be the stepdaughter of one of the most powerful media moguls in Washington, but Lucy Royall is no pampered princess—she’s making her own way as a junior reporter. But when congressional investigator Hayden Black accuses her stepfather of criminal wrongdoing, she shows her family loyalty and takes Hayden on. Then, as things heat up, the sexy single dad takes her to bed! Talk about a conflict of interest. Will their illicit passion turn into something more lasting, even in the face of controversy so huge it rocks a nation?

 

 

Sounds deliciously hot, doesn’t it? Australian readers, you might still be able to find a paper copy of No Stranger to Scandal in your local bookstore. Or visit our favourite online retailer, Booktopia. You could also try eHarlequin or Amazon. For the ebook version, clickety-click on over to Kobo, Kindle (Amazon), Nook, eHarlequin, Google Play or iTunes.

Now please welcome Rachel.

 

An Eggstravaganza!

 

I have to admit something: I’m a very lucky girl. My husband makes our breakfast every day—without being asked, just because he loves to. And not just something slapped together, no. He makes Works of Breakfast Art. Omelettes made from organic eggs, with olives, fetta, and parsley from the garden. Scrambled eggs with oven roasted tomatoes and fresh basil, served with organic Turkish bread.

The picture is the omelette he made me on Valentine’s Day this year (hence the good china).

Which brings me to my second admission: I’m not fond of eggs. I eat them because I know they’re good for me and it’s what my husband likes to cook and eat.

Be careful what you wish for, right? I have a man who chefs up amazing breakfasts every single day, and I’m incredibly grateful, don’t get me wrong, but…

What I normally try to do is disguise the taste of eggs. I’ve tried chilli sauce—that works quite well. Extra fetta, olives and semi-dried tomatoes also usually do the trick. The home-grown herbs have a flavour strong enough to help.

Some days, he’ll make fluffy blueberry pancakes and serve with maple syrup or homemade Bircher muesli with orange juice and yoghurt. I live for those days. His belief in eggs, however, is strong enough that we still have them most of the time.

So I’m asking for suggestions: what’s your favourite omelette ingredient? What other ingredients can I use in an omelette to disguise the taste of eggs?

 

Ahh, a tricky one, Rachel. I love a good egg, especially eggs from home or farm chooks. They always have the best flavour. I made a frittata this week, with potatoes, chorizo, spinach and spring onions. Not a whole lot of eggy flavour there thanks to the chorizo.

What do you think, Feasters? What can Rachel hide that egg taste with? Help a damsel in distress. I’m sure you’ll have lots of clever ideas.

If you’d like to learn more about Rachel and her wonderfully passionate and romantic books, please visit her website. You can also connect via Facebook and Twitter.

 

 

THIS WRITING LIFE: A little bit of me…

I was thinking yesterday, as I was working on my next book, how little scraps of  personal memory can seep into a story. As much as I try to make each story and character individual, leakage from my own life seems to always occur. In my current work-in-progress, it’s cooking (hardly a surprise for anyone that knows me) and the heroine’s gorgeous fluffy-coated collie, who is a reincarnation of my beautiful dog Cooch. In Heartland, there were many things, but what struck me most yesterday was the inclusion of the sewing machine my grandparents bought me when I was very young. So young that this is the machine on which Nanny taught me how to make trousers for my teddy bear – pink and purple tartan ones from left over fabric she’d used to make a pair for me (hey, it was the 70s and I LOVED those tartan duds).

I still have that sewing machine. It’s followed me all over Australia and it still works. Even though I have a modern Janome I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of the Singer. It’s too pretty for starters, and as Callie muses in Heartland, it’ll sew anything. But I guess it’s the memories. Papa passed away when I was very young but Nanny’s still kicking along in her nursing home at age 97. Kicking along so well in fact, that just the other week she staged an escape on her walker and frightened the hell out of everyone, including, I suspect, herself.

It’s nice these little things survive outside my mind. I think there’s some sort of peace in that.

 

 

 

FRIDAY FEAST with me… again!

Well, Heartland has now been out a week and what a week it’s been. So much going on, with interviews and blog posts and all sorts of fun things, including another stint on Friday Feast.

Rather pleased to be here too, because I have suffered for this post. Oh, yes. For this Friday Feast I spent an entire week with HUGH.

Hah! I bet that has you intrigued. But first, another look at my splendiferous new rural romance, Heartland.

 

HEARTLAND

 

When Callie Reynolds arrives at Glenmore, the property she’s recently inherited, the last thing she wants is to be saddled with a warty horse, an injured neighbour and a mad goose. Haunted by her sister’s death and her fractured family, all she wants is freedom.

But Callie hasn’t counted on falling for Matt Hawkins, an ex-soldier determined to fulfil his own dream of land and family. Nor could she predict the way the land, animals and people of Glenmore will capture her heart.

Callie is faced with impossible choices. But she must find the courage to decide where her future lies, even if it costs her everything she holds dear.

 

Heartland is available now from your favourite book retailer, including Booktopia (which, as Platinum sponsor of ARRC201, I like to support). You can also buy the ebook from Kobo (a Gold ARRC2013 sponsor and most excellent e-reader maker), Amazon (Kindle), Google Play and iTunes. For a longer list of retailers please visit the Heartland page on my website.

Now here’s me and Hugh!

 

My Week With Hugh

(And A One Night Stand With Neil)

 

Yes, it’s true. I spent an entire week with Hugh. No, not all-singing, all-dancing, all-looking-verra-sexy-in-a-pair-of-moleskins Hugh. The other, earnest ‘real food’ campaigning cook one, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall of River Cottage fame.

Back in December of last year, thanks to the wonderful folks at The Essential Ingredient (marvellous shop for foodie types and mad home cooks) I won a copy of Hugh’s new cookbook, Hugh’s Three Good Things. Thanks to house moving mayhem, I didn’t get to play with it much before we left Melbourne but now we’re settled in our new house with its brilliant new kitchen, it’s time to test Hugh out. And test I did!

The whole idea behind Three Good Things is that you take three ingredients, mainly fresh, seasonal produce, and turn them into something special with minimum additions. Not a bad idea in theory. In practice? Well let’s find out…

 

Day One: Chicken, Plums, Soy

Okay, so it’s not very pretty – blame the photographer – but this was a winner in the flavour stakes. Dead easy, really tasty, with a sweet, sour and spicy syrupy sauce to liven up the chicken, and I got to spend most of my usual cooking time reading the latest Romance Writers of Australia Hearts Talk newsletter instead of mucking about. I’d definitely make this again. And Hugh says that if plums are out of season, you can substitute prunes or dried apricots.

 

Day Two: New Potatoes, Herbs, Olive Oil

Another nice one. And I was able to use herbs from my recently planted garden. I love that. Anything with home-grown produce seems to taste better. I used rosemary, mint, thyme and chives but Hugh reckons you can use pretty much whatever you like. I served this as a side with grilled pork cutlets and a rocket salad. An easy weeknight meal.

 

Day Three: Oh, look, there’s Neil!

I can’t help it. I’m a total Neil Perry fangirl. His recipes are awesome, especially the Asian ones, and his restaurants are amazing. So when I spied his recipe for  Veal Involtini with Herbed Orzo and Roast Tomato and Oregano Sauce I was seduced. Sorry, Hugh, Neil has it all.

I’m a shocking food photographer and these don’t look anywhere near as attractive as I’d hoped, but boy, oh, boy did they taste good.  Veal escalopes, flattened out and layered with a mixture of pecorino, breadcrumbs, herbs, pine nuts and currants, then rolled up, browned and served with a roast tomato and oregano sauce. Yum. Just… yum.

 

Day Four: Back to Hugh and Beef, Shallots, Tomato

Thanks to the addition of star anise, Hugh has taken a basic casserole and turned it into something really delicious. I used chuck steak, which was a mistake. Shin would have been better but it didn’t matter. A great hunk of crusty bread and we were happy.

So far, so good for Hugh’s Three Good Things…

 

Day Five: Chocolate, Prunes, Brandy

Oops!

Okay, these were a disappointment. The prunes, despite being well soaked in cognac, didn’t impart any of the lusciousness I thought they would. The first fondant wasn’t cooked enough and then the others were  overcooked. Yes, my fault and I realise ovens differ, but the stated timing didn’t work for me.

What we did discover though, is that these things are gobsmackingly good cold! I tipped them all out, cut them in half and froze them for morning tea treats. Naughty, but absolutely delicious.

 

Day Six: Bacon, Beans, Tomato

Bottom line is that I have much, much better recipes than this for baked beans. I wouldn’t make these again.

 

Day Seven: Stuff it. Let’s go out.

And that ended the week!

So what do I think of Hugh’s Three Good Things? Hit and miss, but that can be said for most cookbooks. I’m currently working my way through Gordon Ramsay’s Ultimate Cookery Course and have so far had one total dud and one excellent recipe. All the recipes I’ve tried out of Two Greedy Italians Eat Italy have been brilliant. I’ve yet to try a single one out of Heston Blumenthal At Home but I will… one day. The way I look at it, if a cookbook has one keeper recipe then it’s a winner. If it’s a book I like to pluck it off the shelves and do nothing more than goggle at the pictures and recipes because they’re so fascinating or entertaining, then that makes it a winner too (although my other half tends to think otherwise).

Hugh wins on both counts. The funny thing is, this isn’t a book I would have normally bought or even picked up in a bookstore, despite having enjoyed his TV shows, but I’m glad it’s now a part of the collection. I can’t help it. I just like cookbooks and cooking magazines. A girl’s allowed her hobbies!

Because Hugh’s beans weren’t up to snuff (in our humble opinion), here’s our favourite recipe. Perfect for that indulgent weekend lazy breakfast, or for serving on toasted crusty bread as an easy lunch.

 

Simple Baked Beans

2 tins cannellini beans, drained

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 red onions, finely chopped

120g speck, pancetta or good quality bacon, chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 tin chopped tomatoes (you can use puree if you prefer a smoother texture)

100 ml espresso coffee (or good, strong instant)

1/2 tablespoon brown sugar (taste during cooking and add more if needed)

1 tablespoon cider vinegar (taste during cooking and add more if extra sharpness required)

Heat oil over medium heat, add onion, speck and garlic and cook, stirring, until nicely softened and coloured. Add remaining ingredients along with 400 ml water and cook over a low heat for a few hours until the beans have a rich thick sauce, tasting and adjusting sugar and vinegar  if necessary throughout.

Taste, season and enjoy.

 

Now, Feasty lovelies, what’s your favourite cookbook? I have about a dozen, with Rick Stein’s Mediterranean Escapes pretty high on the list. A couple of CWA cookbooks make it on too (how could they not?), as does Delia Smith’s Winter Collection and Gordon Ramsay’s Just Desserts (fantastic cookbook although all the timings are up the spout – not everyone cooks in a commercial kitchen, Gordon!). But the ultimate is the household “bible”, the special folder containing all our favourite recipes, typed-out and adjusted to our tastes, food stained and with extra scribbled notes. ‘Tis a precious thing, that! So what’s yours?

 

If you’d like to learn more about me or my books, including the story behind Heartland, please visit my website. You can also find me chattering away on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

 

Mark your diaries!

 

 

I’m really looking forward to this evening. Expect a lot of insight and many laughs. Kylie Griffin (author of the amazing Light Blade fantasy romance series) and Karly Lane (Bridies Choice, Morgan’s Law, Burnt and other awesome Australian-set stories) are lovely people as well as being fantastic authors, and I think we’ll have a fine time. So will you!

In other news…

I’m Cooking the Books with Australian romance author Louise Reynolds. Come on over for a slice of delicious date and walnut loaf, a snippet from Heartland and more!

Heartland has scored another wonderful review, this time from Lauren Murphy at The Australian Bookshelf.

“Heartland is the kind of book that draws you in and makes you not want to put it down and if you do, then the characters will haunt you until you pick it up again. Hein knows how to create characters with depth in communities that come alive on the page. This one’s definitely a keep among my rural lit shelves.”

 

Tomorrow I’ll be here again with Friday Feast, revealing some secrets from my week with Hugh (ahh, I see your mind boggling already).  I’ll also be over on Alissa Callen’s blog answering 10 Teaser Questions.

And in case you missed my non-stop squeaking elsewhere, yesterday I discovered that my rural romance Heart of the Valley hit number one on Google Play’s paid ebook store. And it’s still there this morning. Good thing no one was here to video me doing the muppet-flail when I saw that. Could’ve have been rather embarrassing!

 

FRIDAY FEAST with Me!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

Don’t mind me, just channeling a little Lewis Carroll to celebrate the release of my new rural romance, Heartland. Books always seem to take so long to birth that it’s wonderful when they finally pop out, all pretty, pink (or in Heartland’s case, blue), and shiny.

Yes, yes, I know it’s my baby and I’m terribly biased, but Heartland really is a comely thing. I love its soaring black cockatoos, stunning sky and summer-parched landscape. And the model? She’s the perfect Callie.

But it’s the content that matters, and Heartland has been earning praise. Oh, yes it has!

9/10 from 1 girl, 2 many books and this gorgeous comment:

“It’s easy to overhype books in your mind sometimes, which can lead to them not living up to expectation. That was definitely not the case with this one – it was everything I thought it would be and more. It’s a beautiful story of finding courage to be happy and letting go of the past but without forgetting it.”

And 5/5  from Marcia at Book Muster Down Under.

“Cathryn so skilfully combines atmosphere with location, creating a world which offers authenticity and a full range of sensory stimuli.  As I felt the sun stinging my shoulders, the red dust settling on my tongue and licked the saltwater from my lips, I was immediately pulled in by her fluid and easy writing style and a narrative which has a well thought-out pace, enabling this reviewer to live vicariously through her well rounded human (and animal) characters.”

But you know what else is really cool about release time? I get to take over Friday Feast.

Ahh yes, tis a frabjous day indeed!

 

HEARTLAND

 

A powerful, passionate and moving rural love story from Cathryn Hein, author of Promises and Heart of the Valley.

When Callie Reynolds arrives at Glenmore, the property she’s recently inherited, the last thing she wants is to be saddled with a warty horse, an injured neighbour and a mad goose. Haunted by her sister’s death and her fractured family, all she wants is freedom.

But Callie hasn’t counted on falling for Matt Hawkins, an ex-soldier determined to fulfil his own dream of land and family. Nor could she predict the way the land, animals and people of Glenmore will capture her heart.

Callie is faced with impossible choices. But she must find the courage to decide where her future lies, even if it costs her everything she holds dear.

 

Heartland is available now from chain stores (it’s in this week’s BigW Catalogue) and your favourite book retailers, including Booktopia (who, as you recall, we luuuurve because of their most splendiferous ARRC2013 sponsorship). You can also buy the ebook from Amazon (Kindle), Kobo, Google Play and iTunes. For a longer list of retailers please visit the Heartland page on my website.

And now please welcome… er… me!

 

My Kind Of Research

 

Novels take research. Some more convivial research than others and such was the case with Heartland. There’s a fun scene in the book where the heroine, Callie Reynolds, learns to drive Glenmore’s old Fiat tractor. As a child she’d watched her grandfather work machinery plenty of times but she’d never actually done it herself. The Fiat, with its gears and knobs and PTO, leaves her flummoxed, so she calls on Heartland’s sexy hero Matt Hawkins for help. But Callie doesn’t ask outright. Instead, in one of my favourite scenes of the book, she leaves a bemused Matt sifting through their flirtatious banter, trying to decipher what she’s really come over for.

Now, because you’re all special Feasty lovelies, I’ll reveal a bit of a secret. I nicked part of this scene from an old unpublished manuscript. The tractor in that instance was my brother’s ancient Massey Ferguson, but I needed a few more details and wouldn’t be travelling to Mt Gambier for a while to check. Rather fortuitously, I was heading to Stawell for a library talk, and had planned to spend the rest of the weekend out of town on a farm with my girlfriend and her gorgeous family, who also just happened to have the perfect tractor hiding in a shed.

And so ensued a weekend of research merriment!

Ahh, country kids. They’re classics. This lot insisted on being photographed with a stinky dead sheep.

The Fiat, now immortalised in a rural romance.

Stawell, if you’re unaware, is in the Victorian Wimmera, two hundred and fifty or so kilometres from Melbourne and close to the magnificent Grampians National Park. It’s also very close to the Great Western wine growing region. So what’s a girl to do on a Saturday in a wine region? She goes a-tasting, of course!

Where else to venture than historic Seppelt at Great Western, which not only has a wonderful history, it has amazing drives (cellars) you can tour. Seriously, if you’re cruising around the region do not miss this tour. It’s fascinating, enlightening and afterward you can sample wines not normally on Seppelt’s tasting list. Details of the tours, history and wine on Seppelt’s website.

By the time of completion in 1932, Seppelt’s drives extended 3km

Mould creeps onto every surface in the drives. A bit disturbingly War of the Worlds red weedy but harmless.

The drives were dug by goldminers for sparkling wine maturation. Seppelt’s most iconic (and tasty!) fizz is their Salinger range which is made using the best grapes of the year’s vintage.

Where some of the special wines are kept locked. Legend has it Dame Nellie Melba took a sparkling wine bath here. The bathfizz was later poured back into 152 bottles and recorked. One hopes the contents were all wine!

Naturally, enthused by the sight of those bottles and the post-tour tasting, we stocked up and tonight, to celebrate Heartland’s release (because celebrations are indeed warranted!), I’ll be popping the cork on the very nice bottle of Seppelt Original Sparkling Shiraz that I bought post tour. Lovely!

Now, what does one eat when one has built a red wine appetite? A deliciously flavoured casserole, of course! And this one is a beauty.

WINE-Y SLOW-COOKED LAMB

You’ll need to begin this recipe the night before.

1.5 kg trimmed, boneless lamb (leg or shoulder), cut into 4-5cm pieces

4 cloves garlic, crushed

250ml shiraz – use something decent!

A good slug or two of olive oil

1 red onion, finely chopped

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 teaspoons smoked sweet paprika (I use La Dalia brand Pimentón de la Vera dulce)

2 sprigs of rosemary, leaves stripped and chopped finely

3 red capsicums roasted, deseeded and peeled and cut into strips. Or for speediness and rather excellent flavour, use a jar of wood-roasted piquillo peppers.

300 g tomato passata

1-2 bays leaves

½ cup shiraz, extra

½ cup beef stock

Place the lamb in a bowl with the garlic and red wine and marinate overnight.

Preheat the oven to 160° C (or whatever temperature equates to ‘slow’ on yours).

Strain off the shiraz marinade and discard. Heat the oil in a large heavy casserole (an enamel-coated cast iron Le Creuset style pot is perfect) and brown the lamb in batches until a rich, dark colour. Remove browned meat and juices and set aside.

Add the onion and paprika to the pan and stir together for 30 seconds or so, then return the meat and juices, along with the chopped rosemary, peppers, tomato puree and bay leaves. Season well with salt and pepper and mix.  Add the extra shiraz and stock, and bring to a simmer. Cover and place in the oven for 1 ½ to 2 hours, checking occasionally to ensure the meat is covered in liquid. When meat is tender, taste and adjust for seasoning.

Serve with lots of crusty bread to mop up the delicious gravy. And don’t forget a nice red wine to match!

And now, because I’m all dosed up with red fizz cheer and book release excitement, I’m going to run a giveaway. Simply reveal a wine-y tale – anything from your favourite cellar door, to a much loved wine-including recipe, to dear old Uncle Albert’s infamous port barrel dunking – and the one that tickles my fancy most will win a signed copy of Heartland.

But get in quick. Giveaway closes midnight Tuesday AEST, 30th April 2013. Australian addresses only, sorry.

If you’d like to learn more about me or my books, including the story behind Heartland, please visit my website. You can also find me chattering away on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.