12 hour roast lamb

I had good intentions of posting consistently this month. As you may have noticed it really hasn't happened. I have meals that I made ages ago that need to be blogged but just haven't gotten around to doing them. I think that I may have mentioned at some stage previously that I have depression and sometimes it just gets on top of me. I am really struggling with it at the moment. I usually like to "cook my way out" however even that is a struggle at the moment. Cooked meals are few and far between, well at least anything that involves any work. There has been quite a few "antipasto" plates, tins of soup and too many takeaways, mainly McDonalds.... The lack of good food contributes to the problem so it is important for me to start cooking my way out. 

Last weekend I did a pork roast which turned out really well and gave me leftovers, that I took to work for lunches. So I decided to do another roast this weekend. A couple of months ago I purchased a whole lamb, all cut up. I forgot to get the butcher to cut the leg roast in half. They are pretty big and I had been planning to save them for when I had visitors (rare) or cook and take it somewhere. However yesterday I thought that I should just cook it for myself and then I can freeze some for later. I didn't want to just do anything I wanted something a bit different. I had heard before about making 12-hour roasts and thought that this would be a perfect opportunity. All the recipes that I saw involve rosemary, which is traditional with lamb, but I really don't like rosemary. I searched all over the place but could not find a recipe for anything that I wanted to make. So I made it up as I went along. 

1 leg lamb

2 cloves garlic, sliced 

Peel from 1/2 lemon, chopped into small pieces

1 tbsp sumac

2 tbsp pomegranate molasses 

1 tbsp olive oil 

1 carrot

1 onion

1 celery stick

1 c chicken stock (some wine would be nice too) 

1 tbsp pomegranate molasses extra 

Pre-heat oven to 100 C

Pierce lamb with a knife and place pieces of garlic and lemon in the holes. Sprinkle with sumac and rub in. Combine pom molasses and olive oil brush over lamb. 

Chop carrot, onion & celery and place in bottom of baking dish and place lamb on top. Pour stock into the bottom of the pan. Cover with a double layer of foil and roast in the oven for 11 hours. 

Remove from oven, increase temperature to 200 C and place tray of mixed veg, I used pumpkin, potato, sweet potato and baby turnips, to roast. 

Drain liquid from lamb and then drizzle with extra pomegranate molasses and place back in the oven for 30 minutes. 

Skim fat off the liquid, bring to boil and reduce by half. I added some cornflour to thicken after about 20 minutes. 

Remove lamb from the oven, cover with foil and let rest until vegetables are completely cooked, another 20 - 30 minutes. 

Serve lamb with gravy, roast veg and steamed greens.