Lamb Leftovers Take 2

As mentioned in yesterday's post, I still had loads of lamb leftover from my roast on Sunday and not wanting another wrap I had a look in the fridge and cupboards to see what I could come up with.  I love mixing up a lot of different ingredients without a recipe to follow.  It's fun to see how it turns out.  Sometimes it's fantastic but other times it goes straight in the bin!

I thought some sort of tagine would work nicely with the ingredients I pulled from the fridge.  Here's what I had to work with:

 And these are the spices I thought might work best:

Ah - just noticed the spelling mistake on my spice jars! The horror!

The roast vegetables (butternut squash, red onion, carrots and garlic - still in the skin) were also from Sunday's dinner and the sundried tomato paste was starting to near its expiry date.  This way I could use up all the leftovers one go.

Here's what I did:

Saute finely chopped onions in a little oil for a few minutes until soft.  Add a tsp each of cumin, turmeric and cinnamon.  Take roasted garlic out of the flesh and mash in with onions and spices.  Thinly slice red chili (or finely chop- however you like it and include the seeds for extra spice).  Chop tomato in sections and add to the pan.  Toss in the lamb already cut into chunks.  Add one can of chopped tomatoes and 2 tbsp of sundried tomato puree.  Simmer for about 10 minutes or until desired thickness.  Add the vegetables in at the end as they are pre cooked.  (For uncooked veg I would par boil or add in at the beginning with some stock to allow them to cook through)

I also tossed in a handful of raisins and dried cranberries (they are already pre mixed in a container as I have them on cereal).  This added a little sweetness to the spice and was really good.

I ate this over couscous. Really delicious.  It's fun to play around with different flavours and I hate waste.  So I gave myself a little pat on the back for this one.  Nothing ended up in the bin and there was enough for 2 servings too!  Win win.

Lamb Leftovers

Last Sunday I made a roast dinner because I had bought a huge frozen leg of lamb and there were actually people here to eat it.  My brother was visiting before he heads off to France for the winter.  It was delicious but try as we might we were unable to finish it off.  And then he was gone and I was stuck with loads of leftovers. 

I didn't fancy eating the roast dinner as it was the night before so rummaging in my fridge I found some wraps (it's only a small fridge - there really wasn't that much rummaging to be done) and thought a lamb wrap of some type might be nice for lunch.  I took to Google for inspiration and realised I was missing a vital ingredient for a lamb wrap - tzatziki.  I had a looky loo to see how I might make my own - cucumber? check! (I actually had 2) Everything else?  Nope!  So I improvised.

 I had some sour cream (the base of tzatziki is supposed to be natural yogurt but hey, it's in the same food group) and herb and garlic cream cheese.  I stirred about 2 tbsp of each together until blended well and added finely chopped cucumber (about half).  I shredded some lettuce, thinly sliced some red onion and chili and then layered everything on the wrap, heating the lamb through while I fried the leftover roast potatoes to make hash browns.  Then I dug in!

It was delicious and super easy.  Sure, nothing probably beats the real thing but you gotta do what ya gotta do!  There was still some lamb left after this meal and I'll tell you all about that concoction in tomorrow's post.  Anyone else get creative with lamb leftovers or totally fudge a recipe by substituting pretty much every ingredient?  Do tell!