Moroccan lamb with tomatoes, almonds & apricots
Colin had a little lamb…….
…and it was delicious ๐
Griddled lamb rump on minted peas and beans with feta
Merguez meatballs with roasted red peppers, halloumi and red onion
Merguez lamb meatballs with roasted red peppers, halloumi and red onion topped with yogurt and coriander
Lamb and greek salad for one
My favourite lamb curry
Aside from my current obsession with Central American food, I love Indian-style lamb curries. Sadly our local restaurants tend to stick with chicken or prawns, and their food give me an upset tummy these days anyway ๐
There is something quite therapeutic about having a pot of exotic smells, blipping away on the hob for hours but i don’t always have time for that – especially as it’s only really giving me one finished dish. Poor ROI ๐
This homemade version goes in the pressure cooker for 20mins and is ready to serve, but like all stews it benefits form being reheated the next day. This is a relatively quick curry, but you do need to season the meat a few hours ahead so either start the night before or do it in the morning and it’ll be ready to cook for dinner.
Ingredients:
- 1kg Stewing lamb (you want pieces of meat with cross-sections of bone, not the super-trimmed diced leg meat)
- 2 tablespoons Garam Masala
- 2 tsp Salt
- ——————————————————————————————————-
- 1 tablespoon Coconut oil, or fat of choice
- 1 Onion, rough chopped
- 200g very ripe Tomatoes or 230g (small tin) Chopped tomato
- 2 x Green chilli, seeds removed (leave the seeds in if you like it hot)
- 5 cloves Garlic, finely grated or crushed
- 1 tablespoon Garam Masala
- 1 tsp Salt
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 30g (small supermarket packet) Coriander, leaves and stalks chopped separately
- 4 x Spring onion, thinly sliced
Method:
Toss the lamb in the garam masala and salt, and use your hands to rub the seasoning into the meat. Pop into a zip-lock bag, or a covered glass or plastic bowl, and leave in the fridge overnight or all day.
When you’re ready to cook, take the meat out of the fridge and allow it to come to room temperature. While that’s happening, make the sauce. Using a food processor, or heavy duty blender (plastic ones won’t be up to the job) blend the onion, tomatoes and chillies until smooth. Set aside.
Heat the coconut oil in the pressure cooker (lid off, of course) then brown the lamb in batches. When brown, set aside and remove the pot from the heat before adding the garlic. Stir well before adding the tomato and onion sauce. Put the pot back on the heat, add the garam masala, salt, coriander stems and lemon juice. Bring to the boil and put the lamb back in – stir well to coat.
Lock on the lid and increase the heat to reach high pressure. Decrease heat to low and cook for 20mins. [If you want to freeze it, now would be a good time. Thaw completely before reheating. ] Taste sauce and adjust seasoning with salt or lemon juice if required.
Before serving, sprinkle on the chopped coriander leaves and spring onions.
Muffins
Well, if I say so myself the latest batch of meat andย spinach muffins were a resounding success. This time I used frozen leaf spinach instead of the frozen chopped, which I found really messy when trying to squeeze out the water, and the finished texture is much less dense.
The pork version had Chinese 5 Spice added (just a teaspoon full) and it gave a tasty, but subtle, flavour – will be quite happy eating a couple of these for breakie.
The lamb version had garam masala and cayenne pepper, and chopped raisins. I went a bit heavy handed with the spice but the 50:50 lamb:spinach ratio seemed to handle it quite well. Those will do nicely for snacks with chutney ๐
Lamb liver and bacon, caramelised onions and balsamic vinegar w/ kale and roasted swede – a story in pictures
Sunday dinner for one
After an early start, and lovely day out shopping and lunching with a friend, it was time to come home and deal with Sunday evening chores. Boo! Laundry, dishes and dinner. Normally i love nothing more than spending time slaving over a hot stove but, as it’s just me on my lonesome, there doesn’t seem much point. Then I remembered I’d got lamb from the farm shop specially, and the leftovers were destined for my lunchbox today, so I pulled myself together and got cracking.
Roast multi-coloured carrots dressed with pomegranate molasses [tastes like vimto] and sesame seeds, s+p roast lamb, baba ganoush and greek yogurt.
Not bad. Would have been nicer hotter, but got a bit side tracked hanging up laundry.Probably just as well i was on my own; garlic in the baba ganoush was pretty strong ๐ Fortunately not included in the lunch reincarnation: frisรฉe lettuce, slivers of radish, cherry toms, pesto and yogurt dressing. Well, it’s more interesting than a tuna baguette ๐
Ooops, forgot about the 3rd task – dishes. Oh well, tonight is a no-cook dinner so plenty of time for that later.