Life has been hectic lately. It always is, but with Alan away filming the Syfy series “Dominion” in South Africa again, and the end of the school year, it seems to have moved into high gear. The first casualty is healthy home-cooked meals and after a particularly bad weekend for fast food (we’ve been on the road at sports events 3 days straight), everyone at my place is craving delicious dinners.

I keep forgetting my slow cooker, but that’s the answer at times like these. So, yesterday I got the day started early with school drop-off and then headed straight for Trader Joe’s.

I was back home by 8.30am and tossed a bunch of ingredients into the slow cooker. It was so nice to smell great cooking aromas all day long and when my energy was at it’s lowest (the 5pm droops), dinner was magically ready, the kitchen clean and all I needed to do was serve it up and enjoy.

This lamb dish has all of the vegetables already added at the start (with the exception of the pitted and halved green olives). This recipe calls for lamb shanks, you can also use lamb leg steaks which have the advantage of fitting more easily into your slow cooker. Both are fairly chewy cuts of meat but when cooked over a long period, they are as tender as the more expensive cuts.

Call me biased but I love lamb from Australia or New Zealand the best. The sheep are usually grass-fed and have a different flavor from the grain-fed US lamb.

This dish would make a great dinner party meal as well, leaving you more time with your friends, less stress, and hardly any time in the kitchen.

Recipe: Martha Stewart’s Lamb with Olives and Potatoes