The Stew Catastrophe!

LAST WEEK I made a wonderful stew with lamb and noodles {not noodles ~ DUMPLINGS; Knödel!} (I translated this post from German) and delicious spices. The ingredients were: 1kg (2.2lbs) neck of lamb; 2 large red onions; half a bulb (about 5 cloves) fresh garlic; a double handful mushrooms; a double handful okra/gumbo/ladies' fingers; 2 huge carrots; one tin black beans; one can chopped tomatoes.

The herbs and spices were:
Half teespoon ginger
Half teespoon garam masala
Half teespoon each: Tescos Value, Chinese and Jamaican (Mr Brown's) currypowder
2 tablespoons Lea & Perrins Worcester Sauce
About a third of a teaspoon Chinese five spice seasoning
About three teaspoons "chicken seasoning" (salt, 30% paprika, celery... etc)
Home-dried mint leaves
Mixed herbs
Half teaspoon Colmans English Mustard

I cooked it slowly for at least three hours, after which time the lamb was so tender it was literally falling off the bone. It did taste slightly burnt, which I blamed on the new pan...

The next day I reheated it to add my dumplings. Catastrophe! It came back all burnt! Like a liquid barbecue. Ugh. I could only eat the meat (I quite like incinerated meat). But carbonized vegetables are not to my taste.

It wasn't like everything went black or anything like that. Just this horrible burnt flavour pervaded everything. Not nice. And such a shame as otherwise the spicing, the dumplings... everything was perfect.

Where did I go wrong? Was my new pan too thin? Did I reheat too rapidly?

Or did a goblin sneak into my kitchen when I was too busy losing my old broadband down the loo and mess everything up..??!?


PS- You don't think excessive stirring (well, only once every 20 mins - is that excessive??)... you don't think that might have messed it up, do you...??

Vegetarian Vomit

ME MUM had high tea but I was starving so I had vegetable lasagne. I don't usually go for vegetarian options these days but used to when I was younger. I have found in general that vegetarian cooking is of a higher standard that non-veggie ~ and with a less-inspiring ingredients-list, let's face it, it has to be!

The lasagna was OK. I'm no expert on cooking but if I'd made that myself I'd have labelled the flavour "empty" and poured far more tomatoes and seasoning into it. I don't know whether this place was having boiler trouble but oh my days! It was Vesuvian in there!! Conkers of sweat dripping off patrons and increasingly bedraggled waiting staff alike. (OK slight exaggeration but I was feeling increasingly queasy.)

Then when I got outside I was sick EVERYWHERE... thankfully Mumzy and I had gone separate ways by then.

These are the Siberian hamsters I was talking about yesterday. I had two about six years ago, but one died after about three months ~ and I suspect through old age. The other ESCAPED and never came back ~ the only one of seven hamsters I have ever lost that way.

If you look closely at the weary swine here, you might just be able to see the furry soles to his feet.

On a lighter note the vomiting had gone by just three outbursts (next to but sadly unable to aim IN the tiny opening on London's bomb-proof rubbish-bins)... And by this morning my appetite had come back with great avengance. I trotted down to Sainsbury's where I got a huge selection of own brand falvoured whip-ip-up desserts. Chocolate and strawberry are just 8p each. Butterscotch is always the best and costs 30p against Angel Delight (the market leader)'s 38p. I shake it up in a special disused coffee jar. My top tip to avoid lumps is add powder a bit at a time...

And I can't believe this, but having start-stopped "learning" Japanese several times (for learning, read glancing idly over books and dictionaries, thinking, "I wonder how you say such-&-such" and brainlessly transcribing roman-lettered Japanese sentences into proper script, which is a by no means straightforward occupation... I actually seem to be getting somewhere!

When I was irritatedly waiting for a bus the other day I went through the list of Japanese animals I know in my mind and it's more than ten. Including the words for bee, wasp and hornet. That's not bad for a beginner.

The rate I'm going I might be semi-fluent by 2026!

Here is a really good Japanese "cultural link" www.japandemic.com (it's not academic at all)...

Huge Food Shopping Expedition

I JUST BOUGHT A WEEK's dindins from my favourite shop, Iceland ~ where you can get all the components of a roastbeef dinner frozen ready to slam in the oven and take out ready with crispy battered diddly potatoes, gravy and all the trimmings, including cauliflower-and-broccoli cheese and Yorshire puddings within 40 minutes. Wonderful!

Provided you're no better than an average cook, the Iceland stuff actually comes out better than most people's from-scratch. It's the standard you'd expect from a pub lunch ~ right down to the thin-sliced roast beef that no-one ever serves at home (how'd you cut it that thin?)

Don't worry y'all I'm not back on the crack. I did have the urge to score more "just a £10 'rock'" this morning... but the memory of my head being full of so much noise put me off sufficiently... And crack is highly habituational, like druggie chocolate and I was glad to be rid of it (apart from just three occasions this year). It took nearly two years from properly trying to actually give it up, so I'm not undoing that in a hurry... Anyway I was so exhausted I didn't really get up till past midday. I do like the person I was with yesterday (he has a good heart). He can be "slightly" stressful, that's all... (ahem!)

And apart from that all is fine and I've an Italian stonebaked garlick chicken pizza ready to be slammed in the oven ~ yumm yummmmeeee!

Illustrated: Kerry "cokenose" Katona (former "face" of Iceland stores ~ sacked for being filmed snorting a line in her own bathroom); cheesy potato slices (I got these for the first time today ~ haven't tried 'em yet ~ these are what I consider trimmings to my RBD); cauliflower cheese ~ I go for the cauliflower and broccoli variety but couldn't find a pic of the pack; they do lovely chocolate caramel slices like this "2 slices extra free" at £1 a pack; cauliflower-broccoli cheese as it's meant to look (ie when I haven't burnt it!); and last but not least the whole shebang put together; prefilled black pepper grater ~ used to be £5 in Sainsbury's! I got mine for £1 from Iceland...