Hello Dear Reader,
This is the season for local lamb and it was the cheapest meat in my local butchers when I went last. The freezer has been well and truly topped up.
I've had a busy day and been to Trago again! I should get a birthday present off the boss because I mention it so often!! I dug deep and bought the fabric for the upstairs blinds and the new curtains for the dining room and two front upstairs rooms. There will be a reveal soon! I've made another roman blind today, this time for DB's office, curtains for the dining room and one of the pair of curtains for DB's office. His little hideaway is the next project. We'll have fun looking for furniture in there. Remember I have a £500 for the entire decorating, furnishing and soft furnishings for the entire house, so we're being very thrifty.
As I knew I would have a busy day, I got the slow cooker out this morning. It is cracked but it's holding on and I'm on the hunt for a 'new' one. It's the sort of thing people don't want to post and I shall search for 'collection only' items in the kitchen section on ebay. I might be lucky.
My lamb tagine was lovely. Here is the recipe I used. As for instructions? Just tip in the slow cooker, switch on and eat eight hours later.
450g/1lb of diced stewing lamb (my butcher had packs of lamb for BOGOF and I bought just under a kilo for £1.99) - you could use some rehydrated soya chunks or some quorn chunks. If you don't like lamb but eat meat, stewing beef would be a good substitute.
1 onion peeled and diced
1 heaped tbsp of flour- gf works fine
2 tsp of cinnamon
1 tsp of cumin
1 tsp of corriander
1 tsp of tumeric - I didn't have any and it was fine
1 tsp of ground ginger
300ml/ 7fl oz of stock - I used chicken as that's what I had
salt and pepper to taste
1 tin of drained chick peas
2 tbsp of runny honey
100g/4oz of chopped dried apricots
2 handfuls of chopped spinach - I had frozen so chucked in a few nuggets near the end of cooking.
To make this - stir all of the dry ingredients into the meat to coat well.
Then add everything else and stir.
Cook slowly for 8 hours or a working day.
The recipe suggested lemon and parsley cous cous. I don't eat wheat so we had rice.
Make the cous cous as usual. Or, do as we did and have rice.
Add the zest of one lemon, some butter and a handful of chopped parsley.
Serve with the tagine, sprinkle some lemon juice on everything and eat. The lamb is meltingly tender and has a combination of spicy sweetness. It's just divine.
The parsley and lemon gave the rice, of if you can eat it, cous cous a really zesty fresh taste. It complimented the casserole really well.
We still haven't used our newly decorated dining room yet, so in keeping with the tagine, we ate it sat on the lounge floor as if we were eating a picnic.
Thanks for the concerns about the joint pain, it gets worse if I'm immobile which I have been sewing today. It eases if I keep moving. Thanks for the emails and your concerns xxxx I'm better in the day and use mild pain killers in the evening if I really have to. Keeping warm really helps.
I thought I would add that I've started my winter stock pile. I took delivery today of UHT milk, lots of tinned and dried goods. It's good to get ahead of the winter bills and fill my pantry cupboards. Does any one else stock up on essentials to keep them going through the winter. Who's ordered the logs and coal yet? Make sure you do, it will get more expensive when it gets cold.
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs xxxxx