Lamb Stew

Take about three pounds of lamb, chopped into roughly bite-sized pieces. Put it in a container with 1 t each of ginger, pepper, and cinnamon; 1/4 t. each of turmeric, cayenne, cardamom, coriander, nutmeg, and cloves; and 1/2 c. wine. Leave it in the fridge like that for awhile.

Throw a stick of butter in your stock pot. Chop onions or just throw in pearl onions. Put in some garlic. Saute awhile. Add the meat in its marinade, scraping the container to get the marinade out. Brown the meat.

Add some chopped potatoes, barley, mushrooms, and carrots, if you like those things. If you don't, don't. The carrots are the least optional in this step, but I'll bet you could make some substitution. It's stew. Stew is not about precision.

Add about three cups of stock, more if you added lots of things in the above step. It can be beef stock, mushroom stock, veggie stock, whatever you like.

Throw in 1/3 c. honey or so and 1 c. each of slivered almonds and dried apricots, halved or quartered. Simmer a good while until it starts looking like stew instead of soup. Squeeze a lemon into the pot. Squeeze two if you feel like it. Zest the lemon into the pot if you feel like it. Eat.