Eat the fruit

There's a nice side effect of this project: we eat a hell of a lot more dessert than we used to. So while Christina was busy stirring up that delicious lentil soup (which we made again last night, and will be making again and again and again...), I turned my attention to what would follow it: apple crumble.



Everybody loves apple crumble, so when it came time to choose our hundred recipes from the book, this one easily made the cut, even though I must've had hundreds of apple crumbles over the years. And besides, we had to see what Gordon would do to tart it up.



First trick - mess with the texture by grating half of the apples instead of just chopping them into chunks. For future reference, grating apples while you've got three fingers in a splint is not a great deal of fun.



Second trick - caramelise the sugar! Never done this before, so obviously I made the classic beginner's mistake of stirring the sugar, and just about ruined my skillet in the process. After a brief interlude of boiling water in the pan to get all the toffee unstuck, I started again. Much better the second time, but I was still fairly terrified of burning the sugar, so I probably didn't do it long enough. Still, it smelled like caramel, and I think that's what we were going for.



Then in with the apples and cranberries - cranberries being the third trick, messing with the texture again - and let them stew for a bit with the cinnamon, lemon juice and vanilla seeds - trick four - before covering it all with the crumble.



If I have a complaint about this dish - and again, we're splitting hairs, obviously it was delicious - it would be the crumble topping itself. I found it to be much too fine in texture, and the granola mixed in didn't really add anything. Overall it got lost, and it was more a dish of stewed apples than a crumble.



Again, though - delicious.

Mmmmmm soup

Our lentil salad was such a success that we were feeling pretty confident about spiced lentil soup. I took the lead so Robin could devote his full attention to the apple crumble (stay tuned!).



This recipe is SO easy; I totes drew the long straw tonight. All you have to do is saute some onion and garlic, mix in tomato puree and yummy spices (cumin, coriander, garam masala, ginger, and turmeric)...



...add the red lentils and broth, and simmer for half an hour until it gets soupy (you can throw it into the blender for a few seconds too, but I didn't find it made much difference).



Top with yogurt and cilantro and enjoy!



The soup was hearty and tasty enough on its own, but the yogurt brought it to a whole new level and kept us going back for more. Lentils are a hit in this house!

Hope you saved room for dessert!

Flavours of the East

What are you to do when a difference in terminology - or an unscrupulous butcher? - means you end up with twice as much lamb as you needed? Well, you could do a lot worse than moving a Moroccan tagine forward in the rotation and discovering a whole new world of taste.



That's a lot of ingredients, but we didn't actually have to buy much that we didn't have already on hand - working your way through a cookbook tends to really improve your spice cupboard. Though I'll admit we did have to go find some saffron, the king of spices. Which turned out to be on sale for 33% off; strangely disappointing, if easier on the wallet.



Once the lamb was diced up into stew sized portions, it was in to the pan with some oil to get a bit of colour on it.



That done, it was everything else's turn! Tagine might be a fancy name, but it's a stew at heart, and stews are not renowned for complexity of method. Ingredients, pot, cook.



At the risk of losing style points, let me list what we threw in the pot: red onion, garlic, ginger, saffron, coriander, cumin, paprika, fennel, cinnamon, bay, tomato, sweet potato, raisins, stock, and of course the lamb itself. Complexity of method, no - complexity of flavour, oh my yes.



Throw on some parsley to give it that touch of freshness, and dive into a whole new world of flavour. I can't say I've much to compare it to, but if ours was anything close to an authentic tagine, Morocco just climbed a few spots on the travel list.

Twofer!

THE LAMB SAGA: PART I

I’ve never been a huge fan of lamb. That being said, this slow-braised stuffed lamb and the upcoming lamb stew were life changing.

The recipe calls for three lamb breasts but the butcher at Rain Shadow Meats gave us a huge hunk of lamb shoulder. Since we intended to stuff and roll up the meat before cooking and Robin’s right hand is pretty much useless these days, I went right to work carving usable breast-like pieces from the shoulder. I think I might have a future in butchery, but I’m not quitting my day job just yet.



Next we seasoned the breasts with salt & pepper (immature giggle) and gave them a healthy sprinkling of oregano, red chili flakes, lemon zest, and anchovies. I wasn’t crazy about that last one either but trust me - it all works out in the end.



Then we carefully rolled and tied each one so they wouldn’t fall apart during cooking and browned them for a few minutes on each side.



We set them aside and cooked up the onions, garlic, kalamata olives, capers, wine, and canned tomatoes...



...then all we had to do was throw the lamb back into the pot and let it do its thing in the oven for a couple hours.





We sliced up the lamb rolls and, just to be fancy, decided to serve them up with a side of sautéed kale. Nom.



The flavors were awesome, the lamb was super tender, and the anchovy stuffing melted in my mouth. My only complaint was that the combination of anchovies and olives made the dish taste really salty.

Thanks to the butcher's up-selling, we had more than enough leftover lamb for an extra recipe (coming soon!). But first, mac n cheese with cauliflower...

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HOW THE ENGLISH DO MAC N CHEESE

With the stuffed lamb cooking away in the oven and Robin watching Cricket in the other room, I decided to tackle the macaroni and cauliflower bake on my own. I knew this would not be a problem since I am a renowned mac n cheese master chef.

Gordon uses three kinds of cheese in his recipe, two of which are obscure English cheeses that can only be found in specialty stores here. Robin said he had to ask for them at the counter and I’m pretty sure he also flashed his British passport or did the secret handshake or something to prove he was legit. In any case, we ended up with Lancashire, Cheshire, and aged cheddar.



I’ve never met a cheese I didn’t like. However, Cheshire cheese is, to borrow a phrase from the totally awesome Buffy musical, a skeazy cheese. It’s very similar to bleu cheese, which has never been my favorite. But hey, they can’t all be winners, and cheese is cheese!



First you have to boil the cauliflower until it’s tender and, if you’re smart, you’ll save the hot water for the pasta. Then you can simultaneously cook the pasta and prepare the sauce. Check out this multitasking:



The cheese sauce is pretty straightforward. Just combine butter, flour, whole milk, mustard powder, cayenne, and cheese in a saucepan. Let it get all melty and creamy before pouring it over the cooked macaroni and cauliflower.





Finally, sprinkle it with a mixture of breadcrumbs, thyme, and more cheese and bake until the top is golden brown and crisp.



Of course I loved this because it's mac n cheese, but I will say that the Cheshire was a bit overpowering and the cauliflower didn’t bring anything to the dish. I don’t have anything against veggies, I just think it would have been better on the side. And, if we're being nit-picky, it could have used more cayenne, too.

Oh baby. Lamb stew is up next!