[Sca-cooks] Lamb dinner ideas wanted

[Sharon Gordon]

I need to cook a dinner for four people.  I'd really appreciate the help of
anyone who has any ideas.  I am very weak from having whatever's been going
around over the holidays, and I'm still so exhausted that my usual ability
to be creatively frugal seems to be missing at the moment.  So I'm hoping
for some help from all the kind and creative people here.  I have a day left
to figure out what to make and 3/4 of a day to cook it.  (I don't think I'm
well enough yet to make it through the next few days without at least one
nap.)


There is a boneless lamb roast and
I can use $2.00 of other ingredients.  The lamb will have slits put in it
and slivers of garlic and parsley in the slits.  (It has no bone. I could
also cut off part before roasting and do something else with the unflavored
part.) With what else I have to work with, how can I make this a festive
dinner?  The lamb is getting cooked in an Italian style, and I'd like the
rest of the meal to be sort of European too I think.
Here's what I have to work with and the cost per unit:
Potatoes  .20/lb
Rice-white   .22/lb
Flour-all purpose  .04/cup
Carrots       .45/lb
Sugar  .05/cup
Large eggs .03/egg
Milk   2.49 gallon
Olive oil  .08/Tablespoon
Butter  .06/Tablespoon
Dry: White beans, chick peas, brown lentils, red lentils, red kidney beans
.50/lb
Tea: .01/bag

I have most dry herbs and spices, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and
sourdough starter.
Frozen orange peels
4 pears from a gift fruit basket--ripe enough they should probably be served
cooked
2 pounds romano cheese from a gift (but this is our supply for the year so I
need to use it as accent rather than as food.)

>From the garden or windowsill I have fresh:
Onions (there are 14 ounces of vidalia type pearl size onions left)
Onions spring size with leaves (I can pull some but this will reduce the
2006 onion yield)
Garlic some dry and could pull fresh, but it's very small now and would
reduce 2006 yield.
Parsley, flat and curly
Sage
Giu-tsai (flat leaf asian garlic chive)
Chives
Basil
Rosemary
Celery
A head of Pak choi (could take off individual leaves which is what I have
done so far with this last one in the garden to make some asian soups)
My beds of mixed greens, kale, and collards are under snow, but some would
probably still be good.

Sharon
gordonse at one.net