So many cookbooks... so little cooking! I have decided to make a greater effort to try out recipes in my cookbooks and at the end of the day compile my favourite recipes to make my own cookbook. So I have tried out Jamie's "Melt-in-your-mouth" shin stew from "Cook with Jamie". I must admit that we diverged significantly from the recipe. It was supposed to be cooked slowly in the oven.... but we pressure cooked it instead. Anyway, here is a brief recipe: 1. Cut up the veggies for the stew - carrots, celery, onions, garlic. Fry in olive oil with herbs (Jamie uses rosemary, bay leaves, stick of cinnamon - I used rosemary, cinnamon and 3 cloves for a little more Asian flavour and I admit that my rosemary wasn't fresh). 2. Cut up 1 kg of shin beef into chunks, shake in flour seasoned with a little salt and pepper. Add to the pan and stir, add 2 tins of plum tomatoes, 2/3rds of a bottle of wine. Sprinkle some chilli flakes on top. 3. Pressure cook for 20 minutes. We needed to top up the water to generate the steam, so after we removed the lid from the pan we had to boil off extra liquid. In general, it is quite a nice stew except that frankly it is rather similar to some Eurasian stew recipes.

The pressure cooker (not to be used at full pressure function for the hot water bath, the pot in which I've blanched the peaches for peeling, and the pot in which I've sterilized the jars