Stretching a massive leg of lamb to feed a child who hates lamb

[SBD1]

I'm on a tight budget in October due to moving house and a huge childcare bill and UC taking ages to process blah blah

I'm working on the assumption that I've got about £60 to feed myself and DS for the month. Not the end of the world, I have a gastric sleeve so I can't eat anyway and I've probably got about 3 months worth of Huel I can get through.

I'm trying to not buy anything other than essentials because I've got a full height freezer full of meat and other shit, as well as a small three drawer freezer with a random assortment of stuff (don't ask, previously was a food hoarder)

So....I want to start with the massive waitrose leg of lamb (discounted by a ridiculous amount and I had to have it, lesson learned from that).

Thing is, DS doesn't like lamb. He never eats roast lamb at his grandmas. How do I disguise it? He's picky in some ways but will try new food. He'll eat things like Paella, Chicken, Roast Veg, Brocolli. I haven't tried him with a curry yet but I don't really like the sugar content of most jarred sauces.

What would you do with a great big leg of lamb to stretch it/feed a semi-fussy DS?

Make a stew of it, it tends to taste less lamb like if stews for hours.

Oh and eat stew with poratoes one day, serve it imixed with tomatoes for a pasta sauce, serve it tgrough rice and make croquettes of tge left overs

You don't need to use jarred sauces for curry. Curry was my first though...but no jars needed!

If you just buy a packet of curry powder...there's loads of different ones...and use a mild one...that will make a good first/basic curry.

Of course, curries can involve way more than curry powder but for a child and for you if you've never made curry, the powder mix will be fine.

Just finely dice some onions, garlic if you like too...throw in any other vegetables you want...into a heavy bottomed pan. Then add meat and curry powder plus some diced tomatoes and a bit of water. Simmer it and serve it with rice.

You could also mince some of it up and make fajitas?

Mince it, make a Bolognese sauce and don't tell him it's lamb.

Make it in cottage pie topped with cheesy mash initially and surround it with his favourite veg and he won’t notice. Lamb curry isn’t the first curry I’d try on a child who doesn’t like lamb!!

Rather than waste some of the £60 buying accompaniments for the lamb that he may not eat, why don't you just work your way through the rest of the food instead?
Save the lamb for when you have people round for a roast or suchlike. I love lamb, but I'd be sick to death if I had to eat a whole leg and I'm a fully grown adult.

@sofiaames How to I mince it? Wait ignore that I'll use google. I'm an idiot

Thank you google, so apparently chop it into cubes, freeze again for 20 mins then stick it in the food processor. I'm feeling less stressed now, that kids going to be living on cottage pie for weeks

Kebabs? Moussaka?

Whenever I have left over roast lamb, I make a really simple biryani! If he likes paella, he’ll love biryani!

meerasodha.com/leftover-lamb-pilau/

Pilau... sorry! :)

Could you not batch cook and freeze small portions for yourself to eat instead of potentially wasting it if your ds wont eat it? Just if you already know he doesn't like it, I dont understand why you're trying to feed it to him, esp if you're trying to avoid food waste.

Rather than waste some of the £60 buying accompaniments for the lamb that he may not eat, why don't you just work your way through the rest of the food instead?
Save the lamb for when you have people round for a roast or suchlike. I love lamb, but I'd be sick to death if I had to eat a whole leg and I'm a fully grown adult.

This

Pasties or sausage rolls work well here. If mincing some anyway or dicing it. Add lots of herbs, then either cut circles add filling and make pasties or make into sausage rolls.

Mainly because the lambs the biggest thing in the freezer and getting rid of that would free up space to batch cook. I don't have people round apart from the boyf because I don't know anyone in this new city, he will eat shepherds pie so I'm going to try that, I think I could get him to eat lamb burgers as well so if I mince the lot...

I can't eat lamb in a roasted form etc, I can manage it in a minced form though

If you want to see if he’ll eat lamb burgers but don’t want to waste meat you could try making little cutlets mixed with potato? The recipe below is good and perfectly fine for kids even if you leave out the spices.

www.thespruceeats.com/mince-meat-and-potato-cutlets-1957311

If you have a decent selection of spices, you could also make a donor kebab fakeaway with minced lamb.

Mince it and make meatballs, don't tell him its lamb.
I'm a terrible food hoarder too, it stems from when Dd was little and sometimes there wasn't enough for me to eat too, I'm now terrified of running out of food.

Don't know if this would help but my mother did this:
Day One - roast beef with gravy, potatoes, carrots on the side.
Day Two - Beef Stew: cut leftover roast into bite size chunks, coarsely chop carrots and potatoes, stir in leftover gravy add a chopped onion and a can of tomatoes.
Day Three -Beefy Vegetable Soup: chop whatever stew is left into small cubes. Add a can of peas, two cups of water and beef bouillon cubes.

Free up the space using other things first? Before you batch cook? Seems silly to use it all when there's only 2 of you and you're not that keen

Make meatballs with onion and breadcrumbs and cook in a Beef OXO gravy with a tin of chopped tomatoes in it. Perhaps also crumble an OXO cube in to the mince before making the meatballs. It should pass off as beef then.

Swap the leg of frozen lamb with grandma then, if she likes it, and ask her to swap it with a load of things your dc will eat.