Old friend

The inspiration for Sunday's cooking spree was this dish. Yes, I made this as well as the dishes from my two previous posts on Sunday. I figure that I should take advantage of those times during which I actually feel energetic.

See, what happened is that after resting quite a bit over the weekend -- thank you, pinched nerve in my shoulder that made only being in a prone position comfortable -- I awoke on Sunday only to realize that I didn't really have any food options available. I had some red lentils. And I had some lamb stew meat. So I decided to shop based off of these two ingredients. The beef dish was an afterthought. Because not only did I not have a lot of options available, but I also had a lot of empty freezer space begging to be filled.

So the lamb meat ended up in this Braised Lamb with Apricots and Herb Dumplings. And this dish I watched carefully as opposed to the beef dish. (I'm getting used to this new-fangled thing called a timer on the stove.) Because when I have made this in the past, there is a point at which it becomes dried out and starts sticking to the pan. But this time I set the timer every 30 minutes so that I could make sure that everything was well hydrated. And I guess they're right. Third time is the charm.

Oh, and on a final note. There are pearl onions in the dish. About a year ago I was talking to my "real mom" about a recipe that she and her granddaughter had made. She complained about how hard it was to peel the pearl onions. The trick is to blanch them first.

And don't forget. There's still time to enter the contest.