This week’s Secret Ingredient for Friday Foodie Fix is Lamb. Lamb is a sheep that is less than 1 year old. Baby lamb would be 6-8 weeks, Spring lamb is 3-5 months and regular lamb under a year old. According to the Food Lover’s Guide, when purchasing lamb let the color be your guide. The darker the color, the older the animal. Baby lamb is pale pink while regular lamb is pinkish-red. If you purchase ground or small cuts they should be stored in the refrigerator loosely wrapped for up to 3 days and roasts up to 5 days. Also they can be frozen for 3 months for ground and up to 6 months for solid cuts.
Lamb Chops with Dried Cherries and Port Recipe from The Bitten Word
I don’t cook lamb mostly because the only lamb I’ve ever eaten and liked were New Zealand lamb chops I got from the cool place I worked in NYC, DeBragga & Spitler. They are fine meat purveyors to the white table cloth restaurants in the city and all over the world. Very cool job, always had a packed freezer. They even have a consumer branch of the company.
While searching on Flickr I came across this photo (click the pic for that recipe) from a blog I’ve mentioned before, The Bitten Word. Cool site you should check out. They’re not gluten free but they cook with great ingredients and a lot of the recipes they share are naturally gluten free. They basically make recipes from good food magazine. Great idea.
So how do you serve lamb? Do you have traditional recipes that you make over and over or are there some new ones? Share your recipes here and please be sure to link back to this post. Also, don’t forget to follow the links and see what others are cooking.
This post is probably going to make a lot of people mad, but just keep in mind it’s my opinon and you’re entitled to yours.
I’m really tired of hearing people whine about the high cost of gluten free foods. Their grocery bills are outrageous, they pay too much for gluten free bread, my grocery store doesn’t have what I want or their prices are too high. Waa waa waa. Around my house we call that B & M. First word is a female dog and the second is moaning, like Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter. But I digress to my happy place.
First I AGREE that much of the processed gluten free foods are expensive, there is no doubt about it. So why are you buying them? Why not make it yourself? Please don’t tell me you don’t know how or you have the time. I can go toe to toe on being busy and does not have extra time. I have a full time job where I work 40-70 hours a week, plus my wonderful food world of blogging, plus I do have a family with a son in high school who is not driving yet and one in college. I intentionally left our dog off the list because I have given all of those tasks to the rest of the family.
Sunday’s I now spend baking breads, muffins, quick breads, cakes and anything else we want to eat for the week. Now if you’ve read my blog for any length of time you know I really was not handy in the baking department. This is something new I am learning in order to save money and enjoy the baked goods we’re eating.
Now that I have found some recipes that are being requested by my family, I’m going to take one afternoon and pre-measure the dry ingredients for the recipes and place them into a plastic bag. I’m basically making my own mixes ready to have on hand for when we run out of muffins mid week. Do you have any idea how much money that saves? I also make a lot of other things myself. I utilize great kitchen equipment like a crockpot to save me tons of time and money. I also utilize my pantry and freezers. Now I will admit to having more than one refrigerator which makes storing extra foods easy.
The point is to use what you have available and make those high cost foods yourself. Don’t fall into the trap of being afraid to try something new. There are so many wonderful people in the gluten free community and they are very giving and helpful. Read up on those blogs and visit their Facebook pages. Talk with the community and ask questions. We’re here to help.
For instance did you know you can buy dried beans (dirt cheap), cook them and then freeze them in little baggies to pull out for your recipes instead of buying cans of beans ready to go? Soak them overnight and then toss them into your crockpot. Total time investment around 15-20 minutes. Basically you are creating those convenience items that save you time when you need it, at a time when you might not.
There are tons of ways to make things yourself for less money, that tastes better and that gives you more control over what ingredients are in there and are not. I’m guessing when you make something yourself you don’t add in all of those extra chemicals and preservatives.
I recently read a great post by Linda at Gluten Free Homemaker on saving money called Gluten Free Frugality. She did share a tip on shopping around for good deals. That’s true for processed and whole food ingredients. Buy things when they are on sale. If you live where it’s warm all year I hope you are heading to the farmers markets or growing some of your own foods. I can’t wait to grow some of my own this summer. I’ll have to get creative with our home owners association but if there is a will there is a way.
If you are thinking about planting a garden check out Erin’s $5 Dinners FREE Garden Planner Printables. She is planting her second year of Square Foot Gardening.
So those of you who have some great ideas on how you save money and make things yourself please share them here. If you’re one of those who say you’re spending too much money on gluten free foods, I want to hear what you’re spending too much money on.
For those who want to yell at me I’m not intimidated, I have kids. But by all means share your opinion, I’m asking for it. Let lose, don’t hold anything back, just please do not use profanity, you will be edited with pretty symbols like @%#!!
Really, thank you for sharing your thoughts with us all on Thought-full Thursday. I really do want to hear what you have to say. Maybe you can change my mind.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I hope you all have a day filled with luck and happiness.
I know I said I would share my crab veggie pizza recipe with you today but I forgot it was a holiday. Instead I’m cooking with an ingredient often used in many Irish dishes, cabbage. Traditional dishes like Bacon and Cabbage, Colcannon (creamy potatoes and cabbage), and Cider Braised Chicken and Cabbage to name a few.
Growing up my mom would stuff cabbage with ground beef and rice and simmer it in a tomato sauce. I was never a fan of ham and cabbage but I loved this dish. My mom is a wonderful cook. This is an old traditional Polish recipe, not Irish, but I thought I would share this one with you today anyway.
This is a really easy and very tasty dish. You simply put all of the ingredients into a crockpot in the morning, go about your day, then enjoy a wonderful dinner at night.
Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground pork
1 head cabbage sliced
1 small onion diced
1 small can of fire roasted tomatoes 14.5 oz
2 cups of organic chicken stock
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp salt and pepper
for a deeper tomato flavor add in 1 tsp tomato paste
Directions:
First add the ground meats into the crockpot and break apart. Add in the onions and cabbage. Top with tomatoes and add in the stock, salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours.
Notes:
To keep this a little closer to the traditional recipe serve it over cooked rice. If you want to cook the rice in the dish add in 1/2 cup rice and an additional 1 cup stock.
You can also change up the ground meats you use. I’ve also made this with ground pork and turkey thigh meats.
Is the luck of the Irish with you? I hope it’s with us all this week. Wednesday is St. Patrick’s Day so don’t forget to wear green. If I see you with no green on I’ll be sure to pinch you. I plan on having my Irish Beef Stew simmering with a little gluten free beer. Of course the day will have to start off with green eggs and ham (I add spinach)and a nice green smoothie for lunch. I also will be making another loaf of Karina’s Irish Soda Bread. What about you? Will you be turning any foods green to celebrate? How about corned beef and cabbage for dinner? If you celebrate the holiday I’d love to hear how.
Well here is our gluten and dairy free menu for the week. I’m hoping for dry warm weather. Maybe I’ll get lucky. My maiden name was Dougherty. I’d say that should give me at least one day of luck this week.
This week’s Secret Ingredient for Friday Foodie Fix is raisins. You might be thinking why did I chose this ingredient. Well I was eating a piece of Gluten-Free Irish Soda Bread I had just baked, thanks to the Gluten Free Goddess, and thinking about the many Mexican recipes I have been reading that use raisins and I thought that’s it. This coming week some of us will be celebrating St. Patty’s Day making Irish foods, some green some not. I will have to make another loaf of that soda bread since the first one is long gone. Maybe you have a recipe for that bread you would like to share.
Back to our star ingredient raisins, those dried grapes we love to snack on. Raisins are made from Tompson seedless grapes and are either sun-dried or mechanically dried. I used to really love to eat the golden raisins but after what I’m about to share with you I’m not so sure I want them anymore. This is from my favorite book, The Deluxe Food Lover’s Companion (You own this book right? If you eat food you should own this book) ”Golden raisins have been treated with sulphur dioxode (to prevent their color from darkening) and dried with artificial heat, thereby producing a moister, pumper product.” I’m just not a fan of chemicals in my foods.
Here are some interesting facts, also from my favorite book.
Freezing raisins makes them easier to chop. Currants can be substituted in recipes calling for chopped raisins. When adding raisins to a batter, first toss with some of the flour called for in the recipe, separating the pieces with your fingers as you do so. Keeps the fruit from sinking to the bottom of the batter. And this little gem, stored in brandy, rum or liqueur will add flavor when used in baked goods. Put in jar with screw-top lid and store at room temperature or in the refrigerator. Now that sounds like party raisins to me!
What do you make with raisins? Are you baking, cooking or snacking? Share your recipes with Mr. Linky and in the comments section. Please make sure your recipes contain raisins and are your creations. Please link back to this post even if you are sharing an old recipe. I like to add a line like UPDATE: This recipe was shared on Friday Foodie Fix. That would work great. For more details check out our Friday Foodie Fix page. You can also find all of the past week’s ingredients.
I had so much fun reading all of your great comments last week on Dining Out. Thank you for playing along. If you check the poll almost half of those responding eat out once a week. That makes me happy to hear that you have found out life does not end when the foods you [...]
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Is the luck of the Irish with you? I hope it’s with us all this week. Wednesday is St. Patrick’s Day so don’t forget to wear green. If I see you with no green on I’ll be sure to pinch you. I plan on having my Irish Beef Stew simmering with a little gluten free beer. Of course the day will have to start off with green eggs and ham (I add spinach)and a nice green smoothie for lunch. I also will be making another loaf of Karina’s 
