This was a reality-based menu: no ideal recipes, just making a meal of what was on hand.
I had a pound of frozen ground lamb, so that meant I should go in a Middle Eastern direction. Claudia Roden's New Book of Middle Eastern Food listed a recipe for lamb meatballs baked in tomato sauce, very interesting because the lamb was bound with ground onion rather than breadcrumbs. They were light and flavorful, baked rather than fried. The tomato sauce was mixed raw and poured over the meatballs and baked another half hour, so the preparation was wonderfully simple.
I roasted some vegetables, including a fennel bulb, and mixed in a lot of fresh herbs at the end.
The red quinoa was exciting. Russell served this to us, and it is so much more interesting than the pale tan variety I've seen up until now. It had a little more texture, too.
