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Tag Archives: slow cooker

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.

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I make! Garbage stuffed cabbage rolls edition

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I’ve made these several times now, so I thought I might post about them.

You know how sometimes you look in your freezer and you see this random bag ground meat?  And it might be labeled something like “ground pork”?  And then you defrost it, thinking you can make something with ground pork and then realize that actually, it’s dumpling filling, as in, it’s ground pork already seasoned with sesame oil, soy sauce, ginger, and green onions?  No?  Well, it happens to me.  Because…my mother.

So, I take careful inventory of my freezer, fridge, and pantry because I’m not a fan of wasting food.  I mean, yeah it happens, but I try not to let it happen.  So when I came across the bag of ground pork and also had a cabbage on hand and also had all these cans of tomato paste to get rid of, I decided to make stuffed cabbage.

I say stuffed cabbage instead of sarma or golumpki or holubky, etc because I’m taking whatever I find in my fridge/freezer and stuffing them into cabbage leaves and then cooking them in a tomato based sauce.  It’s something inspired by the various regional dishes, but it really can’t be considered part of any one regional cuisine.  They’re garbage stuffed cabbage rolls.  This is just a way for me to get rid of food in a way that most people I know will eat.

So, when I realized the bag labeled “ground pork” wasn’t just ground pork but prepared ground pork, I went ahead anyway.  It turns out that what are essentially low carb dumplings in tomato soup are delicious.  I can also say that when you replace the prepared ground pork with what were supposed to be hamburger patties seasoned with hickory BBQ sauce and bacon and stuff that into cabbage leaves, the results are also quite delicious.  Random ground meat mixed with leftover rice, onion, and garlic, and other seasonings is pretty good too.

My sauce, really soup, is the only thing that hasn’t changed much throughout all of my experiments stuffing things into cabbage leaves.  Mostly because I’m also using this time to try and get rid of this giant box of tomato paste my mother brought home once.  I’ll mix a 6oz can of tomato paste with approximately 4 cups of chicken stock and then add Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, and sugar to taste and essentially poach the rolls in the soup, normally in the slow cooker.

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And it’s delicious.