Another day, another dinner

 

Nothing much of interest goes on around here these days. I’m not sure if that means I’m still in the doldrums or if my life is really that dull. But that sense of sameness accounts for my sporadic blog posts. Other than giving you my daily word counts—I am writing a bit each day—or talking about politics, which I’ve forsworn for a bit, though I can hardly contain myself with subjects like Marjorie Taylor Greene, there’s not much left to tell except cooking news.

So tonight I fixed what was billed as a quick lamb ragu. Ragu is simply another way of saying a meat-based sauce, and indeed Jordan presented it to Jacob as like spaghetti with meat sauce. But there were a couple of differences—it was lamb, not beef or pork.

When I moved to Texas, I was astounded that no one eats lamb. Granted, I grew up in an Anglophile household where leg of lamb was a real treat, and I still relish a sandwich of cold, leftover leg of lamb. I’m not sure as a kid we ever had it in any other form, but in the years since I’ve had lamburgers, lamb casseroles, and lamb ragu. I mentioned this particular recipe to Jordan several times, but she always said it sounded too heavy or something. So when she didn’t object this time, I right away bought a pound of ground lamb.

A quick recipe it was not, at least for me. Cooking from a seated position simply takes longer, and it took an hour and a half for me to get the finished ragu to simmering on the hot plate. That includes time to sweep the kitchen floor with my kid-sized broom (so handy from my seated walker)—I’m a messy cook. And time to do the dishes and clean up my tiny kitchen. There was enough chopping of garlic and onion to take me a while.

At any rate, I had the ragu simmering on the stove and the kitchen cleaned up in time for a quiet glass of wine while I watched the news. We dined about seven, and I served the ragu on soft polenta. It takes polenta a while to set up, and Jordan thought I got it too runny. But by the time it sat a few minutes and then the plates were served, it was just about right.

This was a New York Times recipe, so I can’t directly share it. But you should be able to find it here: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020022-quick-lamb-ragu One thing that struck me—other than salt and pepper, there were no spices. But the one thing that many will be tempted to leave out and shouldn’t is two anchovy filets. Oh, go ahead use the whole tiny can—you’ll never know they’re in the dish, but they add great depth of flavor.

In my book, this was a winner. I’m looking forward to lunch tomorrow.