Shepherd's Pie
The sixth day of the economy regime... and, as anticipated, it's not too bad at all. In fact, it's possibly a little too easy at the moment given the forward planning abilities - and flood / terrorist strike / hurricane / other unlikely disaster paranoia of Mrs Lambshank. Seriously, we have so much food we could probably eke this out with three square meals (and regular snacks) a day until the end of the month. With a little careful planning it could even be March before we're looking at things like tomato soup risotto or frozen pea and lentil sandwiches. Accordingly we are considering taking the 'regime' into February...
In the meantime though, it's going pretty well - and last night's shepherd's pie was a thing of beauty, even if I say so myself. Shoulder of lamb is such a sumple dish to do and the leftovers are so versatile. Plus, if you've slow roasted the meat - I typically let it melt away for four hours plus at around the magic temperature of 180 degrees - by the time you simmer the remains down with a little stock, tomatoes and a generous splash of Worcestershire sauce, it'll break into succulent strands of intensely flavoured meat.
I normally buy Farmer Sharp's lamb at Borough which is excellent stuff if a little pricier than usual for a shoulder. Mind you, the last one was from the Ginger Pig who do a very decent £15 flat rate for the joint: that's pretty good value at any time, but when they find you one that weighs around three kilos? Happy days. It was also first rate meat, as you'd expect from this multi-award winning butcher. And that near enough three kilos fed four people generously for lunch, made a rich (and freeze-able) stock, a couple of sandwiches and around 10 portions of shepherd's pie. Some might baulk at a £15 meat spend when you can buy two crap chickens for a fiver but it's far more economic. Those £5 'deals' give you a meal for four, assuming by 'meal' you mean 'portion of bland, flavourless meat with bugger all nutritional value'. That's £1.25 a portion then. My last leg of lamb provided enough big flavour-packed, protein-rich meals for about 90p a head. I'm no maths expert but I'm pretty sure that's less than £1.25...
Right. Today sees my first trip to Inamo, which I'm quite excited about (black cod AND battleships sounds like a winning combination to me), and also sees my lovely itinerant friend Darren start his own blog, the 'food porn' / wine punning Squeezing Grapes. Welcome to the world of food posting mate! Like me, Darren has left banking for a proper job you can be proud of and, subject to exchange rates, he'll be in New York training as a chef this year and charting his adventures on the blog. I sense it's going to be one to watch...
In the meantime though, it's going pretty well - and last night's shepherd's pie was a thing of beauty, even if I say so myself. Shoulder of lamb is such a sumple dish to do and the leftovers are so versatile. Plus, if you've slow roasted the meat - I typically let it melt away for four hours plus at around the magic temperature of 180 degrees - by the time you simmer the remains down with a little stock, tomatoes and a generous splash of Worcestershire sauce, it'll break into succulent strands of intensely flavoured meat.
I normally buy Farmer Sharp's lamb at Borough which is excellent stuff if a little pricier than usual for a shoulder. Mind you, the last one was from the Ginger Pig who do a very decent £15 flat rate for the joint: that's pretty good value at any time, but when they find you one that weighs around three kilos? Happy days. It was also first rate meat, as you'd expect from this multi-award winning butcher. And that near enough three kilos fed four people generously for lunch, made a rich (and freeze-able) stock, a couple of sandwiches and around 10 portions of shepherd's pie. Some might baulk at a £15 meat spend when you can buy two crap chickens for a fiver but it's far more economic. Those £5 'deals' give you a meal for four, assuming by 'meal' you mean 'portion of bland, flavourless meat with bugger all nutritional value'. That's £1.25 a portion then. My last leg of lamb provided enough big flavour-packed, protein-rich meals for about 90p a head. I'm no maths expert but I'm pretty sure that's less than £1.25...
Right. Today sees my first trip to Inamo, which I'm quite excited about (black cod AND battleships sounds like a winning combination to me), and also sees my lovely itinerant friend Darren start his own blog, the 'food porn' / wine punning Squeezing Grapes. Welcome to the world of food posting mate! Like me, Darren has left banking for a proper job you can be proud of and, subject to exchange rates, he'll be in New York training as a chef this year and charting his adventures on the blog. I sense it's going to be one to watch...
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