Never fear, I have returned.

I cooked recipe #47 a few weeks ago and yes I have been extremely lazy, apologies to my faithful readers. 

Moroccan Lamb with couscous.

First things first. I hate cooked fruit especially in savoury things. I’d have to say that its one of the only things I really hate when it comes to food! This recipe has apricots in it. (Gag) EW! They were evicted from the recipe.

    I chopped the onions, tomatoes, chilli and parsley as Jamie asks. Next was to heat oil in a large pan cook onions and garlic till tender. Add 2 tsp of cumin, pepper and salt. Next add tomatoes, parsley, pine nuts and chickpeas. Cook for about 5 min.

    Meanwhile cut Lamb; I used lamb back-strap, into 2.5cm pieces. Season with salt, pepper and a sprinkling of ground cumin. Put a pan on high heat and cook lamb for about 2-3 min on each side. My Lamb was still a little frozen so it didn’t go as crispy as what Jamie’s looked like.

    I had Julia Child’s voice going through my head. (Well actually Meryl Streep’s voice) telling me that “wet meat does not brown properly” and she’s right! My lamb cooked in a puddle of water that came out of the lamb during the cooking. It did not brown nicely and I overcooked it waiting for the couscous to cook which ended up being a big bowl of glug.

     Yes Glug.

What is Glug? It is couscous that does not separate and sticks together as one big disgusting patty. How can you stuff up couscous?? I have no idea what I did wrong. Every time I cook couscous not following a recipe it works, when I use a recipe it glugs. If someone knows what I might have done wrong please comment and let me know because I failed at making it this time.

    You are meant to squash the sauce with the back of a spoon and add a tbs of balsamic vinegar before serving to make it saucier. It was nice though but not enough chilli.

    All I kept thinking was that if Pete and Manu were in my kitchen last night I would have been so embarrassed. Overcooked Lamb and Glug.

FAIL.

Mum's is better by far!

Receipe #25: So last night we had Jamie's Chilli Con Carne. It was well… lets just say I cannot look at chickpeas again. I LOVE(d) chickpeas but this dish made everything go mushy, watery but also if possible dry. The flavours of chilli, cumin and cinnamon were delicious but the texture was all wrong and I did not need to add the extra can of water which Jamie says to do.


Jamie instructs: Chop garlic, onion, carrot and celery and fry with spices for about 7min. Add a can of chickpeas, kidney beans, 2 cans of tomatoes and then your mince.
When do you brown the meat???...I guess never.
If your reading the recipe in front of you now you’ll notice that I did not include the capsicum. We didn’t have any and as it was raining outside no one was willing enough to go to the shops and buy one.
Next to use a can from the tomatoes and fill it with water. Add it to the mixture. Then chop coriander stalks and add them to the watering uncooked mince stew looking thing on the stove. The only coriander stalks we had were frozen ones… I think they loose their flavour when frozen. Believe it or not you couldn’t taste them at all and there was quite a lot in there.


It takes and hour to cook so thank goodness netball was cancelled from wet weather.
Serve it with rice and sour cream (Jamie says yougart but we have our traditions still).


While everything was cooking I made lumpy guacamole with a hard avocado. I would say it was the highlight of dinner (not being sarcastic).


Fish for dinner tonight but all I can think about is Duck Ragout from MKR. Could I get any more opposite?