Saturday, June 4, 2011

Sunday # Easter... Whatever Sunday # that was.

Hey, remember how like, over a month ago, I said I'd made lamb and was gonna talk about it soon?
Yeah... I sorta remember that too.

So - lamb!

I cooked it on Easter cause that's what you do sometimes.

Or, if you're just in it to traumatize your children,
any other day of the week.


So yes. I started by pulling this leg-o-lamb I'd purchased with taxtime riches out of the freezer. Or, rather, I had Mark do that cause I was still half-comafied.

We didn't do this until Sunday morning, if I remember right.

Anyway, when I was sure that was thawed I started making the pasty stuff you rub all over your lamb to make it tasty.

Let's see.. I used... rosemary, thyme and something else. Oregano? Sure. That.

That all gets chopped up on your board like so:

So.
What you see on top is a big sprinkle of kosher salt. I then took the knife and tried to grind it all around with the flat of it. Yeah... that didn't work out so well. Plus I was worried about cutting myself or ruining my knife. Hey! I bet this was a job for one of those big 'ole mortar/pestle things. Or maybe a food processor. One of those.

All of the green stuff got scraped into a bowl with a good blob of course ground mustard, ALL OF THE GARLIC and... something else is in there too. Lemon juice? Olive oil?

I dunno... what do you think?

See, I made this well over a month ago and even if I based any of it off of a recipe, I don't know what that recipe was, so I don't remember exactly what was in there. Hmm.

Let me tell you though, that mustard was awesome. Later on I was making myself a lamb sandwich and felt that more of this mustard would make it extra awesome.

When I went to get the mustard slather out of the jar I discovered my spoon wouldn't fit! What was I to do! Get a knife? No!

Being fantastically lazy I tipped the jar to it's side and tap,tap, tapped it on the counter until the mustard slid forward and the mustard was mine!

That was the plan anyway. It practice, it went something like "tap, tap, tap, KERSMASH" and that was the end of the awesome lumpy mustard.

Plus there was glass all over the counter, possibly on my sandwich. I ate it anyway because I'm mighty and uncowardly and have no concern for my innards. Which are mighty!
Okay, I threw the bread away, but everything else was still secure in their little baggies. I'm don't have to be afraid when little baggies are there to protect me!


Just like with hobo sex, am I right?
No? Too much?

Uhhh. Oh yeah, lamb.

So, after you mix up your mustard/herb slather you get to slathering.

...and that's the last pic of that I have for a while, because I was busy going "oh no!" over my still-frozen-in-most-of-the-middle lamb.

but look, potatoes!


Those are potatoes, with dots of butter on the bottom half of a broiler pan.

Then the top part of the pan goes on, and then you put the lamb there and then you put it in the oven!

That's all I got. I don't remember how the rest of it went, how long it went in - nothin'.

I do remember how it turned out though.

The lamb was okay, but the potatoes...

"Mashed" was the right answer.

Many Sundays back I made chicken and potatoes using the broiler pan method. I was very excited to try lamb this way because OMG CRISPY LAMB FLAVORED POTATOES!

These were lamb-grease flavored. I guess I should have seen that coming. I dumped off the liquid you see in the pic and made gravy. That was awesome.

I also made glazed carrots. I'd told Mark to pick up a veggie when he went to the store earlier that day. He cam back with four carrots.

All the carrots.

So we cracked open a can of green beans. I did nothing to fancy them up. 'Cause fuck fancy, that's why. Really, after frozen lamb, grease float taters, and 1 carrot per person, I was ready to sit down and get that Sunday over with.

Sit!

I think we were all ready to get it over with.


Sad taters aside, this dinner was pretty good. But hello, it was lamb. I'm pretty sure I could eat that every day and not be sorry.
And really, the potatoes weren't so bad either, just not what I was hoping for. There was really no need to have all the flavors of lamb on the potatoes when you have lamb right there. And anyway, if you do want everything to taste like lamb, that's what gravy is for.

See the bread in that pic? I think that bread was from the Wednesday before. It was mostly dried out and sad by then, but looked pretty as part of the meal. Plus, it soaked up gravy like a champ!

I love you, lamb!


Of course, not everyone feels that way:
Seen here: Genuine disgust.

Max is usually hamming it up one some level when we take a close up of him and his meal. I suppose that the pooched lips seen here are an example of that (I think what he was going for here was "grimmace." Sorry Max, I don't think 9 year olds have enough life experience to pull that one off.)

He crammed in enough for dessert though:
Chocolate and strawberries:
Worth gagging on maggots for ~ Max

Except that above caption is a lie, because unless they've been boiled with pectin and sugar and jarred, strawberries are disgusting!
If I hadn't seen him sliced out of me I would swear he was some other mutant's kid.

I don't know how to end this. How 'bout another Simpson's reference?

Suck it up Lisa, no animal is too cute to not eat.

3 comments:

  1. I married into a "lamb on Easter" family. What they learned from a now-ex family member of English extraction is that mint sauce is essential. I weep for your grainy mustard. Did you know I'm a mustard fiend? There are 6 kinds in my fridge right now and at least one more languishing in the basement pantry. No wonder there's no room for actual food.

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  2. Mmm... mustard. Sorry to hear about the jar.

    Never could get behind lamb, though. Always tasted sorta... not like pork, which is a wonderful, magical animal.

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  3. Hmmm- is it because lamb was forced on you at the same time as lentils?

    Jeri - last year we did the mint sauce, I could see how that could become an essential thing.
    I recall you being a mustard fiend. Mmm, mustard.

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