Look What I Did!

We had a very pleasant Moroccan lamb and lentil stew on Sunday, which required half of a red cabbage. We all enjoyed it a great deal, but we used 300g of lamb instead of 500g and it was still about double the amount we needed. There was half a red cabbage left, so I pickled it using this recipe and it looked like this.

I was most impressed by the pretty colours staining the kitchen roll I used. As far as I can tell, that's the only thing that got stained and I'm taking it as a win. It has to settle for a couple of days in the fridge, but should be great for the men's sandwiches at the weekend. Of course the kitchen smells... intense! Normally I put out little saucers of vinegar to get rid of bad smells, but as it's mainly spiced cider vinegar that's causing the problem, I'm not so sure that it would do much good this time. 

This Sunday coming, we're likely to have Moroccan beef. It will use up the leftover apricots and some prunes that need finishing off, and we have all the spices. I'll have carrots left over from the bag that will come in the delivery for that recipe, but I've seen some very pleasant recipes for carrot and lentil burgers so I'm not so worried about that. Having said that, every time I try and plan food, something goes wrong, but I think I've got a fighting chance this time.

I've had some good coupons from Tesco this week, including 10% off herbs and spices. I added some coriander seed to the order, as that was about the only spice missing from the selection of allllll the spices. There was a good deal a month ago and I stocked up on our favourites, so there isn't much to get.

... you ever have that sinking feeling? The recipe for the pickled cabbage called for either coriander seeds, fennel seeds or caraway seeds to go with the mustard seeds and peppercorns as the spices. I ignored the caraway seeds, which I normally have with cabbage, and added fennel seeds. Except now I can clearly visualise the label. I didn't read the recipe properly. Instead of fennel seed, I've added fenugreek. 

Bugger.

This is why blogging is so useful. I honestly wouldn't have realised without posting this and checking over the recipe to talk about the choice of spicy seed. I wonder how it will affect the taste? 

Here's a question - I've added a small jar of Tesco own brand coriander seeds to the order. It's £1.00 for 26g, or 38p per 10g/£38 per kilo according to the website. I could buy some Natco coriander seeds at £1.75 for 300g or 6p per 10g/£6.00 per kilo. Is it worth buying the bigger bag? I'll be honest, I'm not sure that I'd ever use 300g of coriander seeds, but for only 75p more, it seems insane not to get them. There's a whole section on BBC Good Food here but it's still not a guarantee against waste. I suppose it depends on how much pickling we do. 

I need to go away and add fennel seed to the grocery list (small Tesco own brand jar of 36g costs £1/£28 per kilo or Natco 300g is £2.65 or £9 per kilo, though I could get the 100g for £1.30 or £13 per kilo) and to drag everything out of the kitchen cupboards to see what I can use up to avoid waste. There are worse hobbies than avoiding waste. 

Hugs and good health to all.