When The Bride’s Away…
A few weeks ago my Bride and Daughter were out of town for the week and once again left me cruelly to my own devices. Every year when they do this I end up wandering around food stores like the 13th Tribe looking for the gluttonous promised land. I was trying to think of something else to use the baby portabellas I had in, as ‘shrooms are generally verboten when the Beloved Ladies are around. Since it was early July and only around 95 in both temperature and humidity I figured what better Summer dish than a nice hearty lamb and potato and mushroom skillet?
As I am a big tent kind of guy I picked up some of those funky fingerling rainbow coalition ‘taters
and sliced them as thin as I dare attempt after a drink or two
well, first actually that empty glass needed to be taken care of
I do apologize for this shoddy caipirinha technique; please be assured that I would never use the lime press for guests but by gum it sure does speed things up when I am thirsty. Claude, of course, purist that he is, found my corner-cutting to be beneath contempt
Anyhow, refreshed and refilled I carefully made ever thicker slices of these pretty little things called spuds
until I had about a pound or so done
Now I threw half a stick of butter into the pan and let it meltify
over medium-high heat and dumped in the spuds with a little salt and pepper as I reckoned they’d take a while to cook
Now it was time to turn my attention to the lamb, which suddenly made a certain someone forget his earlier (wholly justified) disdain for me
after tithing him his portion of the ground lamb in it went to a different pan
to be browned and drained of all that lanolin slickness. This gave me a moment to slice up about a pound of the baby ‘bellas and mince up a little onion and toss them in with the spuds
along with some rosemary and a little bit of thyme. After five minutes or so in went five cloves of garlic
and a couple of minutes after that the by now browned and drained lamb made its glorious entrance
I then added about a half inch of beef stock
loosely covered it and let it simmer for, oh, twenty minutes or so while I attended to some pressing business
that I could no longer safely ignore.
At the end of the twenty or so minutes things smelled quite delish and it had reduced somewhat to the point where it was rather good
Not quite traditional “light” Summer fare, but, hey, that’s why we have air conditioning.
Swill Food and Grog | Mr. Bingley | 
July 24, 2010 11:30 am
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That looks scrumptious! ESPECIALLY with the ‘shrooms. Your Beloved Ladies don’t know what they are missing…..
BTW, am I mistaken, but does Claude vote Democrat? Or is he just a typical politician?
Add saffron and rice and you’ve got paella.
That DOES look good. You may think Claude was criticizing your technique, but my experience with Labradors indicates that you could’ve drunk warm beer out of a rusty tin cup and he would still adore you. Labs are endearing that way.
Looks yummy! (You “tithe” to the dog? I’ve joked about paying the “chicken tax” to the cat!)