It’s Abbotsford Convent Slow Food Farmer’s Market week this week. The Ankle Biters and I arrived just before 8am and filled our trolley to overflowing with locally grown spring goodness. The seemingly endless hues of green at a spring market make my heart sing.

In addition to this cornucopia of spring vegetation, I also treated us to a rolled lamb shoulder roast. A rare breed lamb from The Gypsy Pig. If you haven’t tried rare breed, free range meat, I highly recommend that you do. The flavour is so extraordinarily real. Sweet, juicy, earthy and so tender it falls away at the mere sight of a knife. The differences between mass produced meat and this are subtle but undeniable.

I covered roasting pan with a bunch of chopped nettles with a cup of demi glace poured over them. The lamb and a sprig of rosemary perched jauntily on top while nicola potatoes, baby turnips and baby carrots cheered on from around the edge. All local and picked within the previous 36 hours.

Two hours in a moderately slow oven. The pan juices made a superb gravy and the nettles and lamb were a mixed race marriage made in heaven. If ethical reasons do not convince you to eat local, the flavours of a meal like this would. I guarantee it.