Help! A disaster must be avoided! Help!

[MarkStretch]

I am making morroccan lamb stew.

It has been cooking for an hour. In the last 20 minutes the recipe says to add red lentils. I have run out and so has my corner shop.

What can I use instead?

I have coucous, bulghar wheat or rice?

I would reduce it with the lid off to thicken it and then serve it with couscous.

I'd cook couscous spearately - and use it then to abosrb the extra liquid that the lentils would have absorbed. It'll still be really tasty.

I'd say serve it with rice, and add some floury potatoes if it needs thickening up?

Ok I think my options are:

Add the rice to the stew

or

Have it with couscous which I will cook seperately?

If I cook the couscous should I then add it to the stew?

No really you should reduce it and serve it with the couscous. Step away from the rice and potatoes.

Serve the cous cous separately; it will soak up any extra juices. if you think the recipe seems a bit too gravy-ish, maybe you could add a handful of frozen peas or a tin of cannelini beans or something? Oh yes, I see Snigger has suggested potatoes; they'd be good too.

Ok thank you all.

I am reducing it now and will serve with couscous.

Now - can you all go and answer my freezer question in Food please and inspire me to get off the computer?

This is completely unrelated to anything we have been discussing but I have a tiny kitchen.

It is a tiny galley kitchen and it is the main route to the bathroom.

DH now cannot get past me to get to the bathroom as it mean I have to squish myself against the worktop and I can feel I am squashing the baby.

Sometimes I look at houses with big kitchens on Rightmove and weep.

Oh fuck. Sorry. That post was for my antenatal board.

I put canned chick peas in my morrocan lamb and serve with rice on the side

Lol! We moved house two years ago and I now have a decent kitchen; the previous one was rather like a large cupboard. Don't want to make you jealous at all but it has made such a difference, being able to turn around without knocking an elbow, a pile of dishes, a child or dp trying to make a cup of tea!

Don't make me cry janeite!

Janeite puts the kettle on and offers MarkStretch the earl grey:

in her nice big kitchen! If it makes you feel better, my garden is about as big as an envelope.

MarkStretch - I saw your picture on fb - you are gorgeous.

Awwww thanks bella.

And thanks for the tea janeite, have posted you a recipe.

Seriously though, LOOK at this kitchen.

Sob.

wow that looks lovely - but hey - I think it doesn't matter how big your kitchen is - you always want something bigger - well I do anyway

Markstretch, I really feel for you. cooking has been my life, my profession, my passion and yet I have NEVER had a decent kitchen. My dsis on the other hand couldn't boil and egg and yet has the most fabulous huge kitchen with a fab range and marble island and everything

Me too Carmenere- I spend hours in my kitchen and I love cooking.

The only good thing I can think about it is it forces you to be a tidy cook simply because there is no room!

But I long for more cupboards, more worktops, a bigger oven, a hanging rack for saucepans, a marble slab for pastry.....

Carmenere, that is so, so like me, exactly. My dsis has now had 3 (count em) gorgeous kitchens with room to swing large family of humungusly proportioned felines, with all mod cons and swishy stuff.....life's a bitch sometimes aint it? And she's a tiny 5ft with size 3 feet and a size 8-10 ~ had 2 huge babies and not a bloody stretch mark or saggy bit it sight. i bloody bloody hate her!!!!!