Help a veggie with meat dish please?

[janeite]

Hi. I have friends coming for dinner in a couple of weeks, both chefs - arghhhhhhhhh. Normally I just do a sort of family supper thing and they are happy to eat veggie but this time I want it to be a bit more formal and think I should have a go at doing meat.

Does anybody know a mega easy lamb or beef casserole/stew recipe that can be bunged in the oven, doesn't need me to actually touch the meat, and can be served with new potatoes and baby steamed vege with no need to make a separate sauce? Needs to serve three adults and three teenagers please and I'll do something veggie for dd1 and I to have with the potatoes and steamed vege.

Am I asking the impossible? Please treat me gently as I am totally clueless.

janeite, I think you are wonderful for thinking of doing this this. I am a meat-eater but would never expect a vegetarian guest to cook meat for me. Will look out a link to a lovely lamb tagine I've had recently (and posted several times on MN!) It is served with couscous - but you could serve with potatoes if couscous not right for your vegetarian course. Back in a mo once I've found them....

lamb tagine here

couscous here

I had a vegetarian guest and i did sausage casserole with dumplings and did two separate pots one with the vegetarian sausages and one with normal pork sausages. Rice and salad go with. You could get big sausages with herbs etc. Do like a vegetarian casserole then grill the sausages on separate trays then mix together at the end. For 2nds we were eating either vege or meat (except for the vegetarian)

lamb tangine is lovely - had it without dates when I did it - and cous cous is yummy with it but agree you could serve with potatoes.

Thankyou - that looks good.

Would prefer something that can be stuck in the oven though if at all possible, so I don't need to "interact" with it at all!

janeite - do you like cooking? Why don't you concentrate on doing a really good vegetarian recipe? If they are chefs, they must be fairly adventurous and I'm sure they won't expect you to cook meat for them. Also, I wouldn't want to cook and serve something that I couldn't taste myself. It will be much more fun for everyone if you are all eating, and enjoying, the same thing.

I should have told you the added complication!

It is a murder mystery evening (first one I've ever done) and set in 1912, so Edwardian-ish recipes even better, hence the potatoes and vege!

Why don't you have a look here

tbh...do a roast...that way touvching meat is none or a little and you don't have veggie food contaminated...

I am not veggie, so may still have this wrong..
but, do flavoursomne lamb
you can do this from a frosen piece..open packet and wash put on tray/rack...cut slits in, and stuff fresh mint in..roast and do all veggie dishes potatoes etxc..than
curryes are nice veggie wise

Thanks again. Is a roast lamb thing easy then? What do I buy? How long in the oven?
Sorry - I really am being useless!

They'd be perfectly happy with veggie but I'm not sure that there that many veggie dishes pre-war!

Bumping for the Saturday people.

Any more ideas please? I do like cooking, just not used to cooking meat - the closest I ever get is sticking sausages or a chicken in the oven for dp and dd2.

if you can bear it, just cut into the meat of a leg of lamb and stuff a bit fresh mint into the slits...and then just put it into the oven....times/temps are on the packet usually...

the mint will really infuse the lamb and give it a gorgeous flavour!

Thanks. Is it hard to cut/serve?

not really, once cooked it should be easily carved!

And as for the cuts into the meat to insert the mint....that is simple enough , too...just use a sharp knife, iykwim...tey don't need to be large, about 1cm wide and probably less deep....

Thank you so much. How much meat needed for six people, about?

And would a leg of lamb maybe be nice with ratatouille and new potatoes and perhaps baby carrots, asparagus and sugar snap peas?

not sure about the ratatouille, tbh...
but new potatoes definitely...and the veggies sound fab....
it would also work well with a potato gratin, I would think...

as for amount...hmmm....not sure, tbh....but it often says on the packets, iykwim

It's just I seem to notice lots of recipes suggest lamb and ratatouille together. Maybe it's a different kind of lamb?

hmm...I suppose if you do it in a casserole style....ratatouille would go lovely...but with a roast lamb, personally I am not so sure, iykwim

Thanks again. Dp has agreed to make a beef stew (Jamie Oliver recipe) which he has done before. I just need to think of something for me and dd1 now.