life lessons

Last night's dinner was a disappointment - but also a success. It was my Nigella slow-cooked lamb with macaroni which should have been delish, but was an epic fail - some could say it was on iSnack 2.0 scale of a fail {that's for the aussie readers...}

So, I hadn't written down the recipe. Fail one.

I neglected to include garlic. Fail two.

I bought the meat from Coles instead of the butcher. Fail three.

I bought leg of lamb instead of shoulder. Fail four.

I didn't cut off all the fat. Fail five.

I used white wine {as Nigella suggested}. Fail six.

Now, while this resulted in a bland, fatty meal it also resulted in me coming to a few realisations. Firstly, take note of all the ingredients in a dish, or use common sense. Which leads to 2. Everything tastes better with garlic - except pudding. No matter how busy you are buy meat from a butcher. Buy the right cut for the dish. Cut off fat from lamb when stewing, particularly when it's in a tomato-based dish. Otherwise it results in unappetising orange fat. Erk. Use red wine in rich dishes, white wine in subtle dishes. I like my red meat rich, ergo, I should always use red wine with it.

So there you go. Not Nigella's fault and I think that next time this dish could be a winner. I'll make it properly next time and post the recipe.

Now I'm off to apologise to my butcher for cheating on him...