Lamb and Laminate

It's been kind of a joke in our house that when any of our friends went to the bathroom we'd say, "Don't pee on the carpet!" We decided after 3 years of people peeing on our carpet (yes, there was carpet in the downstairs bathroom- why oh why people think that's a good idea, I'll never know) that it was time to rip out the old and lay down the new.  So we bought up a bunch of laminate flooring from Costco, ripped out the existing 1990s-esque carpet and made the executive decision to put the flooring in ourselves to save a few bucks.  Of course the week we chose to do said project was the week it rained all week, forcing us to make cuts with powerful saws in our kitchen, spraying sawdust everywhere.

And you would think that I would not make meals during this time, and you would be wrong.  I made the shit out of some meals.  This delicious lamb and pine nut-stuffed eggplant was one.  And it was amazing. They just had an added flavoring of formaldehyde (did you know that formaldehyde is a naturally occurring substance in all wood products?  Me either, until now). It didn't really taste like formaldehyde, I promise.

Anyways, this recipe comes from a cookbook I've been dying to use, called Jerusalem: A Cookbook.  I can't wait to cook more out of it.  Just thumbing through the pages makes me drool.  Of course, since our house was in shambles, I had to find the recipe online.  But luckily it wasn't hard.  Here it is.  I didn't have sweet paprika, so I used regular, and I didn't have any parsley that wasn't covered in sawdust, so I left it out.  And I also didn't have the patience to look everywhere for tamarind paste, so I used lime juice instead.  And don't worry, you will see more recipes from this book.  Haven't met one I didn't like yet.

We still have to remodel the actual bathroom.  Decided to also get rid of our seashell sinked vanity and our old, falling apart cabinets. 

Here's what I learned in doing our first home DIY remodel:

1. Walking into Home Depot with a vagina is like walking into a casino with a million dollars. 

2. When your man walks into Home Depot he all of a sudden knows this weird language you've never heard him speak.  

3. Big powerful saws are scary.  To me and to cats.

4. The person who works the least hard is the one who ends up needing a tetanus shot and antibiotics.

5. Installing laminate flooring isn't easy.  And you spend a ton of time making it look perfect only to then need to buy a rug to cover up all your hard work!  

Try this lamb recipe.  It's really good and good for you.