Moroccan Lamb Tagine

It's been an AWESOME week!  It was the first week of the Easter holidays which started with a large chocolate egg!  We then went on a road trip to London and The Making of Harry Potter.  I was really good along the way and packed loads of healthy snacks, meaning that my first Big Mac meal of the year, followed by a huge full English at the hotel the next morning, were completely guilt free! I definitely eat differently when I'm away from home and out of a routine but that is totally fine because indulging for a couple of days makes absolutely NO difference when you eat well 80% of the time. Simples!

Because it's been a busy week, I haven't really had time to do any real cooking or trying new recipes.  The slow cooker has been out though- it currently has a gammon joint in it for dinner tonight; I also used it to make my Easter dinner of Morrocan Lamb tagine.  The recipe below is a concoction of various ones on the internet and it is really delicious!  You can fry your lamb a little before you throw it into the slow cooker as this gets rid of some of the fat which you may notice once the dish cools/ defrosts if you have frozen it.

Moroccan Lamb Tagine
Ingredients:

800g minced lamb (two packets if you're buying it from Aldi)
1 onion, chopped
1 heaped tbsp of plain (or gluten free) flour
2 tsp of ground cinammon
1 heaped tsp of coriander leaves, cumin, turmeric, ground ginger
1 tbsp runny honey
300ml lamb stock (made from a lamb stock cube according to packet instructions)
1 400g can of chick peas, drained
A large handful of dried apricots, halved
2 large handfuls of baby spinach

Method:

1.  Basically- throw it all in apart from the spinach.  So mix the lamb with both the chopped and dry ingredients in your slow cooker pot.  Then add the lamb stock followed by the honey and give it all a good stir together.

2.  Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.  About half an hour before the dish is done, add your spinach leaves and mix through. Season with the salt and pepper if needed.

3.  Serve with either baby potatoes, brown rice, couscous or even a salad.  Freeze any leftovers.

No photograph of this one- I've been super efficient today deleting old pics and uploading others. Whoops...

I have got a picture though of my latest Aldi bargains!  I have raved about Aldi several times in this blog and always seem to be using their ingredients- they're not sponsoring me or anything, it's just that their food is so good!  I was an Asda girl until last year when I decided to give Aldi a whirl.  i did my full weekly shop for a fraction of the price.  Their fruit and veg is miles cheaper and much fresher than it ever is in Asda; Aldi's meat is also much better too in terms of quality and price.  It seems too that Aldi have realised the new trend for healthy eating and are stocking things that I had to previously go to Holland and Barrett for- things like seeds, ground almonds (a flour replacement), etc.  This week's haul of lovely healthiness was as follows:

First up, a bag of kale...not sure what exactly I can do with it, but it is considered a superfood and is full of antioxidants, vitamin K, antioxidants...you name it, it's got it! Plus it was only 75p. I also picked up a bag of milled linseed (£1.99 per bag) with goji berries, sunflower and pumpkin seeds.  All of the ingredients are ground so that you can sprinkle this on porridge, salads, in yoghurt or use it in smoothies.  It's basically a nutritional top-up for your fibre and Omega 3 levels and contains lots of healthy fats.  The little box of trail mix was 49p and like the milled linseed, is sugar and additive free.  It's a selection of sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds that you can graze on through the day and these are more superfoods that you would pay a fortune for in a health food shop.  Basically, get it all down you- it's good stuff!

I suppose next week's post will be dedicated to my experiments with my bag of kale.  Wish me luck!

Happy eating xxxx