My daughter tried out a crockpot recipe from our new Best-Ever Slow Cooking cookbook last night. She went for a recipe with an Italian flair- Tuscan Pot-Roasted Shoulder of Lamb. It was a riot shopping for the ingredients. First challenge was getting the butcher to cut a 3 lbs piece of Lamb shoulder. It is a very European cut of meat to cook in a stew. He needed some convincing that I really wanted shoulder meat. Then I had on the list "rinded smoked bacon". I asked the butcher if there was a difference between "rinded" bacon and bacon we get from the grocery store. To his credit he called someone and surfed the term on his iPhone. We decided I was safe to use "regular" bacon although pork belly would work as well. Good news is that all the ingredients worked well in the recipe. It was fun to have the adventure of figuring these ingredients out! Our middle son is now home with us for a week so we splurged with this recipe. His favorite meat is lamb. The calories were higher than we normally plan- 710 cal. We then completed the meal with a slice of European whole wheat bread I got at the bakery for 132 cal per slice and 1 cup of mixed berries for 64 cal. This is not an everyday menu. We had a light lunch of salad for 290 cal in order to offset the big dinner. It was worth it. A delicious dinner that made us feel we were in Tuscany! Our son was impressed with his sister's cooking! A definite repeat for another special night.
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