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Tag Archives: dinner

I make! Lamb neck stew edition

Right now if I reach blindly into my freezer and pull something out, I’d say there’s an 80% chance that I’ll pull out some kind of salmon.  But this post isn’t about salmon.  It’s about lamb neck.  Because before pulling out all of the lamb neck in the freezer, I’d say there was an 18% chance that I’d pull out lamb neck in were I to blindly reach into the freezer and grab something.  Because…my mother.

So, I’ve been trying to get rid of lamb neck.  But lamb neck is kind of a weird cut of…meat(?) to work with.  It’s pretty easy to figure out what to do with chops or ribs or something, but what about lamb neck?  Well, I opted for stew.

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I did a fairly standard stew with things that go well with lamb.  I coated the lamb neck (about 2lb) in flour (about 0.33c) and then browned them (I used an electric pressure cooker, which has a sear function) and took them out.  With the leftover fat in the pot, I sautéed a bunch of chopped celery, carrots, and onions (whatever I had on hand) and then coated the vegetables with the rest of the flour leftover from dredging the lamb.  Added some chopped potatoes (also whatever I had on hand), salt, pepper, dried thyme (about 2tsp).  I nestled the lamb on top of the vegetables and then added 3-4c of chicken stock and a bunch of Worcestershire sauce.  I cooked it on high pressure for about 45min.  I’m really liking the pressure cooker guys.  But I’ve also done it on the slow cooker before, 3-4 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low.  But seriously.  Pressure cooker.

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I ended up serving it with focaccia and salad.

I make! Some kind of baked chicken dish edition

I’m trying to clean out the fridge/freezer/pantry again.  Like always.  I took an inventory just recently.  SMH.  At least my grocery bill will be relatively small for the next few months?  So in this edition of me making stuff, I made dinner with an old onion, a bunch of red potatoes, and chicken thighs.

The potatoes and onion were diced and thrown together with a packet of onion soup mix and oil and then baked at 425degF until tender.  Normal stuff.  I like adding other vegetables to the mix when I make potatoes like that.  It increases the number of vegetables people are eating, thus helping empty the pantry/fridge faster.

The chicken I ended up dredging in a mix of poultry seasoning, grated parm, and red pepper flakes (no measurements, just eyeballed to see if I had enough for all the chicken), then dipped it into an egg wash, and then dredged that in some panko.  I put that in the oven with the potatoes and then forgot that I wanted to take it out before the potatoes were done.  The result was that the internal temp of the chicken thighs (boneless) reached about 190deg.  Oops.  It was ok though.  Chicken wasn’t tough.

I paired the potatoes and chicken with a salad and tada!  Dinner!  I got rid of maybe 2lb of potatoes and 1.5lb of chicken this way.  And it was pretty good.  The chicken baked up nice and crispy and the flavor of the crust was nice, not too overpowering.  Next time, I’ll probably add a little salt to the mix though.

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