Holiday cooking

We've just come off a four day holiday, celebrating first the Jewish New Year, and then a normal Shabbat. As a result, I've been cooking every day and it's about time I shared some of what's been going on in our kitchen.

For the first night of New Year (we get two nights), we had decided in advance that my daughter would cook roast beef. After checking a few recipes, my wife was dispatched to the local supermarket to buy a joint of sirloin steak. As the supermarket was very crowded (this was on Monday morning), she in turn delegated the task to a friend that she met on the meat counter. Only when she came home did she discover that the butcher had cut the sirloin into slices, presumably so that we could cook them as steaks. Disaster! After explaining to her why this ruined our plans, she returned to the supermarket. Initially, the head butcher was very angry and unwilling to receive the meat, but after my wife turned on the waterworks, he changed his attitude. They didn't have any sirloin left in the supermarket, but he ordered some more specially for us and my wife picked it up the next day. After the cooking the joint in the oven for about an hour, we let the meat 'rest'; whilst this apparently improved its taste, it also caused the meat to cool down.

The next day, I whipped up meat balls which I cooked in the oven, along with a delicious tomato sauce.

Friday night had us eating pineapple chicken, cooked in the wok, accompanied by rice. I like this very much.

For Saturday lunch, I thought that I would try something new and experimental. I asked my wife to buy deboned chicken drumsticks with the intention of stuffing them with something suitable for the occasion, such as apple and cranberries. The drumsticks turned out to be very small and I couldn't put much stuffing into them, so I took a complete chicken breast and 'stuffed' this as well. I had to tie the breast with wire in order to hold it together; the drumsticks were held together with toothpicks which did the job admirably. My wife had baked an apple pie a few days earlier so I asked her to save the peels; these I put at the bottom of the slow cooker and on top I put the stuffed drumsticks.

The dish turned out to be very tasty but there are a few things which need improving should I do this again. First of all, I have to find a better type of meat; maybe a deboned turkey leg will be better. Secondly, it would be nice to have a rack within the slow cooker, so that I can put the chicken pieces on this, raised above the apple peel, instead of placing the chicken directly onto the peel. I have found something on the Internet but will look for a local supplier.