I am terrified by everything. This ranges from the normal: flying (I have alerted the cabin crew on two separate occasions to suspicious looking possible terrorists) and being attacked (I carry a rape alarm and a small can of hairspray with me at all times) to the things that normal people do worry about but are hardly terrified of: going to a hairdresser, eating rare meat, failing at writing a blog, getting to the train station late etc.
It also doesn’t help matters that my boyfriend is more cavalier than your average. He would get to an airport twenty minutes before departure if he had his way. In fact, as I said in my last post, we recently flew to New York on a service that did actually allow its passengers to check in to the airport twenty minutes before departure. As I had sorted the flights out, I was toying with the idea of not telling him, hoping that he would assume we were on a normal flight. Obviously I am far too honest to keep something from my beloved and after a little erm, debate, we thankfully agreed on forty minutes. I was a wreck.
This general cautious nature also means that I worry about spending money. I am not one of these people who think nothing of spending five hundred pounds on a neck scarf. Although in a moment of madness a long time ago, I did happen to purchase a Luella jacket from Net-a-Porter, which I have never actually worn. I’m too scared that I might damage it.
Nevertheless, this week I grudgingly spent over ONE HUNDRED POUNDS on pots, pans, baking trays, hand blenders, wooden spoons, knives and so much more. Until today I did not cook because I was too tight to buy any cooking stuff. This meant I happened to eat out a lot (every day), which cost a lot of money. I was stuck in the most vicious of circles.
Thankfully, that stress is all behind me now and with my new found set of pans, I plan to revolutionise my life. Not surprisingly, I am normally a pretty safe cook eg: chicken or fish but usually vegetarian. In an attempt to loosen up, I chose a crazy, zany dish for my first act: a Fruity lamb tegine from the BBC Good Food website
Firstly, I doubt I had ever cooked lamb before and secondly, the idea of having FRUIT in a savory meal was simply something that was beyond me. Nevertheless, the recipe had five stars and it would be stupid to ignore something like that.
The browned lamb, taking a well earned rest.I did have a few incidents along the way, so please take the following as a guide of what not to do.
Firstly, I was unable to find the Ras el hanout spice mix, which from the reviews seems to be pretty vital. To make matters even worse, my own attempt at blending the particular spices that the mix apparently contained did not really work because I had no cardamom and I just didn’t put enough of the other stuff I did have into the pot. My meal wasn’t spicy. At all.
As I am really quite poor at the moment, I was also unable to buy the full amount of lamb. I used about 250g (half!) but I still used the full amount of apricots, meaning the meal was a little bit too sweet. In fact, it was a lot too sweet and the only positive point I can draw from the apricot fiasco is that it was one of my five a day.
The introduction of the pesky apricots. If only I had take a couple of them out.
As I poured my stock over the mixture, I realised that most of the cube (yes, sorry – not at the stage of making actual stock yet!) had not dissolved. In a panic, I just sort of threw the gritty bits left in the bottom of the jug into the mixture. Not sure if this is okay to do or not. Presumably it is not advisable; otherwise why waste your time dissolving the stuff in a bloody jug beforehand.
The final result of all the risk-taking. Kind of worth it. All in all, when you taste a spoonful of the meal with the correct proportions eg: one piece of apricot, a big piece of lamb, a big bit of carrot and lots of chickpeas, it really is quite delicious and it is true that the apricot does bring out the taste of the lamb quite beautifully (I feel so sophisticated saying that!).
So, do try this at home but probably stick more rigidly to the recipe than I did. It will probably take me the rest of the week to polish the leftovers off. Apparently it tastes better a few days after it has been made. Let’s bloody hope so.
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