On a cold fall evening I returned from the grocery with some 2 cuts of loin of lamb, bone-in. I love lamb, this particular cut is inexpensive, fatty and good for roasting and stews. This particular chilly evening, I wanted something easy, so I searched the cabinets and the freezer and came up with some basic ingredients for lamb stew. Once again my chopping up vegetables and freezing them in advance made my job easy.
one - 16oz can of crushed tomatoes
2 1/4 cups of (frozen) green beans
one chopped (frozen) green bell pepper
Medium yellow onion (frozen), diced
two carrots cut into half-moons
Salt and pepper to taste
Two lamb loins, bone-in (cut off the fat if you want, I leave it on for flavor)
I served the stew with wheat bread and, of course, when the meal was complete the bones went into the freezer for a future meat-based broth. However, the bones were not alone in the leftover category. There was still delicious tomato-based stew left, now infused with lamb flavoring. I saved this of course, and made a second meal of it the next night:
I simply added peas and served the leftover stew over jasmine rice . . . but it did not end there, as there was still more stew left over. This time the leftovers went into the freezer. They came out of the freezer recently and I simply heated the stew on the stove and in my All-Clad skillet I pan-seared some lamb chops in red pepper olive oil, seasoned with lava salt and fresh ground pepper.
After I removed the chops (cooked to a medium-rare temperature, a few minutes on each side) I kept the skillet on the burner and added steamed, diced red potatoes and a little more of my red pepper olive oil - to pick up the lamb flavoring left in the pan.
Finally, I then served the last of the stew over the potatoes aside the lamb chops. And once again the bones of the chops were saved for my next batch of meat broth.
