CEiMB: Lamb Stew with Orange

I had sort of mixed feelings about this week's pick. I'm so-so with lamb. I like to order it from time to time when I go out to eat. What I'm not red hot on is stew. I just have childhood memories of "no-peek" stew that my mom used to make. Don't get my sister started on the horrors of this stew -- apparently we're both scarred for life.

But, I wanted to make this week's pick because a) I think that it's important to try new things and to revisit things that I didn't like as a child because I'm generally pleasantly surprised and b) I missed last week's CEiMB. So, yesterday after class I walked up to Whole Foods because I am particular about where I buy my meat, especially meat like lamb. I think that there are some great butchers in the area but I didn't have time to search for one and I thought a butcher is probably closed at 7 pm anyway so, Whole Foods it is. I went and procured the lamb and I was standing in line, waiting to check out, pondering my brother's assertion that Whole Foods "is a bunch of hippies saving the world one organic carrot at a time" (mind you, he shops there all of the time so there's no animosity in that statement), and generally minding my own business. I was literally knocked out of my reverie by the very loud slam of my cart into my abdomen. You see, this punk-a** little kid in front of me decided to mess with me. He took his empty cart, turned it around, and gave it a mighty shove into my cart. I like kids a lot, and they generally like me a lot too, but it took all of my "grown up" sensibilities not to rudely shove my cart back into his! And the look I got from him was just daring me to do it, too. We could have had a Billy Madison dodgeball moment: "Now you're all in big, BIG trouble." But his poor mother was embarassed enough as she was whispering to him not to do such things and I thought it was probably best to go back to musing about the organic carrots.

I made this in the morning before I went to class and I brought it back up to temperature when I got home that evening. The changes that I made were pretty simple. First of all, I forgot to get parsnips and mint at the store so I left that out (and darn it too on the mint because I love mint). Second of all, I didn't have any tomato sauce so I substituted a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes. I actually liked having the tomato pieces in it as opposed to the sauce and I think I'd make it that way again in the future. I served it with rice because it seemed like a better option than potatoes or grits. I pondered couscous too but we're making chicken with couscous next week so rice seemed like a good option. Yes, brown rice would be healthier but I didn't have any so I made white rice.

The verdict? I liked this a little bit, Dudley liked this a lot bit. But, I think that we both liked this in proportion to how we like lamb and stew. He loves lamb and stew; I like lamb and I don't like stew. But, I'm still really glad that I made this because it was so different and the combination of flavors in the stew is great. I was also a big fan of adding the chick peas to replace some of the meat. So, thanks to Farah of Confessions of a Novice Baker for this week's pick and be sure to check out her blog, it's wonderful.