Slow and steady

[commodorified]

I have cramps, ugh.

So around noon, I hauled myself to the kitchen and loaded one of the enamelled iron pots with:

Two frozen lambshanks
A box of chicken stock
A generous slosh (1/8 C?) dried onion
1 C chopped frozen celery (We've taken to chopping all the celery when we buy it and freezing what we don't immediately use. I love raw veggies in warm weather, but can't get excited about them in January, so right now celery=cooking celery.
I would have added 1C chopped frozen carrots, but we're out.

Then I added
1T Penzeys's Lamb Seasoning and
1/2 T Maharajah curry powder,

(I could have gone with 1/2 T lamb seasoning and 2-3 T Maharajah, but I wanted richness rather than spice, this time.)

Put the lid on, turned the oven to 300F, and wandered back to my book.

At 5 I started rice with a bit of lemongrass and cilantro, and added two large handsful of wax beans to the broth around the lamb shanks. I may add a big bunch of baby spinach right at the end; it's basically cooked as soon as it hits the hot liquid, so. And I've been trying to get our vegetable consumption up.

Meanwhile, supper smells promising.

Comments

[graydon]

That certainly sounds like it's going to be food.

[commodorified]

It was excellent. The farmer we get our lamb from is sending me a shoulder of hogget and some stewing mutton this month. I AM EXCITE.

[graydon]

I hadn't run into "hogget" in a context outside the first/juvenile shearing before, so that took me a moment.

(I mean, there's dedication to knitting, and then there's Going Too Far.)

Yay, EXCITE!

[mmegaera]

It has always seemed wasteful to me to buy a whole head of celery when 99% of the time I only need one or two stalks for a recipe (I don't like raw celery, no matter what the season). So I chop the celery, put each ribsworth into a baggie, then put all the baggies in a Ziploc and throw it in the freezer. That way it's pre-measured (and not all frozen in one big lump) and ready to go whenever I need it.

[commodorified]

*nods* I have found that so long as the celery isn't wet when I bag it, and I don't cram the bags, it doesn't clump very much, but I like that idea too.

Harimad

[(Anonymous)]

For things that might clump together, I freeze on a flat surface, then dump into a bag.

Re: Harimad

[commodorified]

I do that with berries, and it works really well!

[raaven]

Sounds delicious. Also, I am going to steal the celery-freezing trick.

[commodorified]

Having bags of frozen celery, carrot, and onion has done wonders for my stews, of which I make a lot.

[krait]

That sounds delightful, :) I had lamb curry last night, and now I want more!

Warming food for cold weather

[james_g4clf]

Nothing like a nice warming curry in cold weather. We had murgh aloo matar last night (chicken thighs with potato and peas).

And seafood risotto the night before. http://www.jbryant.eu/recipes/SeafoodRisotto.htm