Cooking Again

We went to Lake Padden Park with Miss Annie mid-morning, and took photos of the ice on the lake, reflections, and ducks, but none of mine were very appealing as blips. We much prefer early morning or late afternoon light, and will pay more attention to that next time.

Annie had a good time "reading" all the doggy messages, and plopped down to enjoy the sunshine while we talked with our friend C, whom we hadn't seen in a while. She was also there walking her dog, and said that she'd been composing an e-mail to me in her head while she was walking around the lake, and then suddenly I just appeared in front of her! (She'd better be careful what she thinks about...)

I have a Bellingham Farmers Market meeting at 6pm tonight, so we had our main meal at lunchtime -- the Lamb, Mushroom, and Barley Bake featured in today's blip. It was supposed to be last night's supper, but I started making it too late in the afternoon, so it cooked while we ate a hastily cobbled-together alternative instead.

It's a delicious and economical recipe from Not Your Mother's Casseroles, making four to six servings, but requiring only half a pound (230 grams) of lamb stew meat. The barley soaks up the flavor of the sautéed mushrooms and lamb beautifully.

The organic lamb came from the Community Food Co-op -- it's from Oregon, I think. The carrots were from Hopewell Farm, the shallots from Cedarville Farm, and the mushrooms from Twin Sisters Mushroom Farm, all here in Whatcom County. It was supposed to have pine nuts in it, but they are very expensive, so I substituted slivered almonds. The parsley is from our garden -- it survived all that snow!

I'll definitely be making this again!

P.S. For those of you wanting to know more about pickleball, here is a good link.