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Are you as excited as we are for the release of The Hunger Games in theaters this Friday? As if we needed to be any more pumped up, last week we received The Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook. The trilogy does a great job of making us crave things like bread, goat cheese, and especially Katniss's favorite lamb stew. Naturally, the lamb stew with dried plums was the first thing I attempted out of the cookbook.


Although dried fruit in meaty stews is something I'm familiar with, I'm not a huge fan, and the recipe out of this book actually scared me a little bit. To be completely honest, I wasn't thrilled with the result. There are a few changes I would make if I were to prepare this stew again: When the recipe says to deglaze the pan with water, I would use red wine instead to develop the flavors of the stew more. I would also reduce the amount of dried plums used by half. The flavor was overpowering, in my opinion; I would have preferred it to be a little more toned down. I also ended up adding an extra two teaspoons of salt to the recipe because it was far too sweet for my taste buds. I didn't find the ginger ale addition necessary, so next time I would leave this out.

If you're a huge fan of Katniss (or if you just love lamb stew with dried fruit), find the original recipe when you keep reading.