This third pregnancy has been the toughest and the easiest. On a daily basis, I am running after a three year old and an 18 month old and I’m tired. But then in the grand scheme of things, I feel like this pregnancy is flying. One thing that I am struggling with, is meal planning. So I decided to get a little help, a few days a week from Marley Spoon. 

This isn’t a sponsored post, I am just feeling appricating this service at the moment. The wonderful thing about Marley Spoon, is that I do not have to think ‘what are we going to have for dinner?’ when I really don’t feel like eating at all.

And I don’t have to leave the house to pick up the ingredients for the meal. I just wake up on a Tuesday morning and there they are – waiting for me {and always so nicely packed with cold packs, not that anything is going off at -1}, I try to do cook like this at least twice a month, we also make sure to go to the chinese restaurant st. louis park mn once in a while, no one ca beat their food.

What also surprises me is that some of the meals that I think ‘sure, I’ll give it ago’, have turned out to be some of my favourite meals – like the Northern Chinese Lamb with wilted greens.

Even Mr Moo was impressed by this meal – after he got passed the fact that there was no mash potato. I’d focused my attention on the Little Dude who couldn’t get enough of the wilted greens and suddenly I hear ‘Yum Mum, these worms and snakes are delicious’.

As apparently, a toddler thinks that long strips of onions and wilted greens look like worms and snakes. Whatever you have to believe son to eat it all up.

NORTHERN CHINESE LAMB WITH WILTED GREENS

2 garlic cloves
1 onion
100 grams of Chinese broccoli
200 grams of English spinach
2 tsps sichuan peppercorns
2 tsps cumin seeds
2 tsps fennel seeds
1 tbsp ground tumeric
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp dried chili flakes
2 tsps malt vinegar
300 grams of lamb rump
10 grams of coriander
salt
olive oil

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Finely chop the garlic. Slice the onion into thin wedges. Cut the broccoli and the spinach into 5cm lengths.

Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Toast the sichuan peppercorns, cumin seeds, and fennel seeds. Transfer to a mortar and pestle and grind coarsely. Combine with the tumeric, ginger, chili flakes and vinegar.

Place the lamb between 2 sheets of baking paper and lightly pound the meat using a rolling pin to 2cm thick to help tenderise the meat. Lightly score the lamb at 1.5 cm intervals.

Rub the spice paste all over the lamb. Heat some olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat and cook the lamb for 1-2 minutes each side and then transfer to an oven tray {do not clean the frying pan}.

Finish the lamb in the oven for 5 minutes or until done to your liking. Remove and set aside in a warm place to rest for 5 minutes.

Place a little more oil into the frying pan and cook the onions and garlic for 3 minutes. Add the broccoli stems first and then the leaves and the spinach, cook for 1 minute or until wilted. Season with salt and coriander. Thinly slice the lamb and serve with the greens.

Have you tried Marley Spoon? Do you feel like you’re stuck in a bit of a meal planning rut? Would you like to wake up to your dinner requirements sorted?  If you choose to whip up one of my recipes , then I would love for you to share it on social media, and don’t forget to use the hashtag #goodfoodweek.