Tagine. Ish. Brown the lamb with ras al hanout or and spices you like, cook some cous cous (fine, not the big balls), sauté some chopped vegetables. Onion, peppers, etc. Combine with chopped fresh herbs and a little yummy liquid and cook on low-ish together until well melded. If you don't have a tagine pot, a heavy skillet with lid will do. Heavy for insulation and heat retention, cover to retain moisture, Cast iron is next best to the traditional clay.

Or just make meatballs, meat loaf, tacos or burgers. Top a pizza. Make a shepard's pie.

Shepherd’s Pie. I make it a couple times a year, sometimes with ground beef but never with cheese in the mashed potatoes. When it’s made with ground beef it’s called Cottage Pie. Simply delicious.

I would use it for anything you would have used the beef for.

I'd make burgers. Lamb burgers put beef burgers to shame!! Top with some feta, crispy fried onions, baby spinach, a slice of tomato and some tzatziki and you are good to go!! YUM!!!

I make this with all lamb. I’ll often use just a pound for the two of us cutting back accordingly on the other ingredients. I also will form the meat into patties for grilling…just easier. Could also bake or fry them, if needed. I use Ina G’s tzatziki instead of the one here.

Weber's Mount Olympus Meatball Kabobs

Serves 4-6

Meatballs:
2 medium garlic cloves
1 small red or yellow onion, roughly chopped (about 1 cup)
1/4 cup lightly packed fresh mint leaves
3/4 pound ground lamb
3/4 pound ground beef
1 T. red wine vinegar
1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. paprika

Sauce:
4 ounces English cucumber
1 cup plain yogurt
2 T. olive oil
2 T. finely chopped fresh dill
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/8 tsp. Tabasco sauce

For Meatballs: In food processor (or by hand) finely chop garlic, onion and mint. Combine in large bowl with lamb, beef and remaining meatball ingredients. Blend lightly with your hands until well combined. Form into meatballs about 1 1/2 inches in diameter (you should have 20-25 meatballs). Thread long, wide skewers through meatballs, about 4 or 5 per skewer, leaving a little room between each meatball. Place kabobs on baking sheet, cover and chill for 2 hours and up to 8 hours.

For Sauce: Grate cucumber. Drain in colander and squeeze out most of moisture. In medium bowl, whisk together cucumber and remaining sauce ingredients. Cover and chill until ready to serve (can be made 1-2 days in advance).

Lightly brush or spray kabobs on all sides with olive oil. Grill over direct medium heat until fully cooked, 8-10 minutes, gently rotating meatballs 2 or 3 times during grilling. Serve warm with the sauce.

Wow, thanks for all the wonderful ideas!!!! It got me excited to try somethng new, so I pulled the package back out from the fridge... I bought it two days ago, and the package says to use it by 3/6 (10 days ago). This is not my lucky day regarding beef or lamb! lol!

I would return it to the shop showing the receipt. They should fall over themselves appeasing you. It's a serious business selling out of date food.

It's probably fine if it's vacuum packed in plastic, but I agree with Floral.

I agree it is probably fine, but I don't gamble with meat. Return to store with receipt. I have learned to look, even at Publix which is usually very good. Over Christmas, I was looking at fresh ham hocks and theirs was out of date by a week.

Now they freeze meat as it goes out of date, so that has stopped me from buying their ribs, sausage, etc. They could froze it out of date and there is no way of telling.

March 6th?. How did that happen if it was sold past the use-by date?. Always check dates before purchase at the market but s**t happens. ---or was it frozen?

If something comes into my home unexpected...freeze it immediately, and then research.

Lamb is a nice lean protein. We make Kofta, and with the same mix make mini meatballs for the freezer...use in soups and noodle bowls.

So fun to reach into other cultures and spices...

Kofta...

They get short handed and over worked.

yes, I will return it tomorrow morning! It was the last item I grabbed while shopping and I took it from a shelf that was above my eye level. It was supposed to be a package of fresh ground beef from the "grass fed beef" section. I saw the word GROUND and just put it into my cart, assuming I had the right thing. I've never in my life seen ground lamb in this store, so it's all very weird. I will now carefully check all packaging again... for a while anyway... lol!

I agree that I would take it back to the store. Old is not good.

At the beginning of COVID there was a run on anything beef; all you could get was ground lamb. I used the ground lamb in everything that I would use beef for.

Back to the store, for sure.

Plllog, I was curious about your tajine recipe. Fine couscous is an unusual choice. It's usually medium that's served with tajine. Do you prepare your fine couscous then put it IN the tajine with the meat and veg?

Tajine is a good choice for lamb. I'd make it into meatballs. It's a shame your was out of date.

Apology. We have two general kinds of cous cous easily available here, the North African, which I called ”fine”, and Israeli, which are the eighth inch balls. I was taught to make the NA kind when I was young, and they were just like the boxed kind that are easy to buy. I don't know what grade they'd be. As to the rest, that's why I said ”ish”, as in tagine-ish. There is a type of tajine dish I learned from a Morrocan woman which has cous cous, or rice or other small grain in it, and ground meat, as described, and is more like a Mexican sopa, a “dry“ soup, than a stew, but made in a tajine, which is why the -ish.

Couscous is pasta so it would be very soggy in a tajine. Are you thinking of bulgour?

Nope. Cous cous. As I said, I've been taught to make it from scratch, rubbing the flour between the heels of the hands. I've made this dish. It's really good.

But, PM, probably not a good dish to share if it's not setting well with Islay,

Not at all, Plllog. I'm learning all the time. The only couscous I've eaten is the Algerian version where the grains are never cooked in the sauce, but steamed apart. Also, I've only known tajine to be served with bread. It's all new to me!

This better explains what I mean. https://marocmama.com/culture-point-tajine-and-couscous/

Ah! Understood. Nothing like a rant (the link). :) It depends on where and when. Both tajine and cous cous have Berber origins, I think. I looked in Wikipedia to confirm this, though what it said was confounding, but I found the answer I really needed. Cous cous with tajine is a Jewish Moroccan thing (I learned from a Jewish Moroccan), though I know other Moroccans also do it sometimes, contrary to the ranter’s outrage.

Fascinating. As I said before, I only know algerien tajine and couscous. It's been another interesting learning experience. Tunisian tajine doesn't really appeal. European food is still very influenced by old colonies. So us brits live off Indian food and we eat a lot of chinese food. In France, It's vietnamese and algerien. Before coming here, I'd never eaten couscous at all. And why not eat tajine with couscous? It seems very sensible. I don't bother steaming it, just pour hot water over it and leave it for 20 minutes. (equal volumes). We eat a lot of taboulé in the summer.

The traditional steaming is done over the pot of soup or stew that's going with it, so the least bit of flavor isn't unnecessarily lost. Plus, it conserves cooking fuel/space. If those aren't your aims, no need to follow. What you say about the colonies makes perfect sense. And since people come here from everywhere, it makes sense that what dominates locally is mostly tied to who clumped in a particular spot.

Ground lamb? Moussaka!!

Agree with moussaka…or pastitsio. Just hold the cinnamon for me!

I've been coming across past sell-by stuff lately, too. Not a lot but more than I had. Must check all dates!

As for what to do with ground lamb, moussaka works for me if I have the time. I liked chloebud's meatballs, too, that's quicker. Sleevendog, in all my years of buying ground lamb I've never come across any that's lean. Seems at least as fatty as 80/20 chuck. Not that that's a bad thing!

Edit - I'm seeing ground lamb on sale at WF, appears to be 14% fat. Not bad. Might pick up a few pounds.