Archive for the 'lamb' Category
Ta da! (Honestly – I didn’t even arrange the rosemary in this photo – it just came out that way.)
I’m really – for sure this time – bringing back Sunday Dinner.
I don’t mean that in the sense of reintroducing it to the world – I know this is something people commonly do – and yes, we’ve been eating dinner on Sunday nights for quite some time, but the tradition of bringing the extended family around the table for something that might even require actual napkins (as opposed to the omnipresent roll of paper towels) is something we’ve fallen out of the habit of. Not that it ever was a big thing in the childhood of my memory – throughout our twenties and most of our thirties we’d go to Mike’s parents house for Old Shoe Cooked in Beer, which we’ll just say didn’t foster the grandest memories. I’ve always wondered what it might have been like to marry into a big, food-loving Italian family who (in my fantasies) cooked through the middle of each Sunday to put on an early feast. Sort of like the afternoon equivalent of brunch. Mike and I used to say, back when we had a teeny apartment and no room, that we’d do this someday when we had a house. And finally – more reason than ever with my sister across the street – we’re instigating it.
I love the warm, chaotic bustle of a late Sunday afternoon and the collective sigh that follows as everyone disperses to finish their homework and get ready for the week. Even the overflowing sinkload of dishes doesn’t deter me.
Dinner tonight was leg of lamb – done almost effortlessly in the slow cooker.
Wait, I missed a part.
I’ll preface this by saying that I’m not particularly computer-savvy. I don’t do Google analytics and track search engine keywords nor do I know much about SEO techniques. But when I do take a peek at my stats, down at the bottom of the page (if I manage to scroll down there) there is a list of search terms that were inputted and resulted in someone finding Dinner with Julie. EVERY TIME I’ve looked at this list, “leg of lamb slow cooker” is there. Every single time. So either a lot of people want to know just how to cook a leg of lamb in a slow cooker, or I’m one of few who have written about it on this here world-wide inter-web. So it has been rattling around the back of my mind to do it again sometime.
The prep couldn’t have been much simpler. At around 11 this morning, as we were about to leave for the park, I remembered that I had it and it needed to start sooner rather than later if we were to eat at a reasonable time. It’s size wouldn’t allow me to brown it (the bone put it at an angle in the pan) and so I turned on the barbecue and quickly seared it (to add flavour) while chopping some Yukon Gold potatoes into the bottom of the slow cooker. I tossed the lamb on top of its potato bed, threw in a bunch of garlic cloves, pressed another few and rubbed it on the lamb, tossed in some rosemary and a glug of wine, set it on low and went out. (Note: The bone stuck out, keeping the lid from closing, so I covered the lot in foil to keep the heat in, then draped a dishtowel over it to weigh it down and make sure no steam pushed through.)
While we were out I found a beautiful bunch of rainbow chard from Hotchkiss Farms at Blush Lane, and so we also had roasted chick peas with garlic and chard – a perfect pairing for lamb. (I’ve become lazier about this dish the more I make it – I sauté the chick peas with a few cloves of garlic in a hot pan with plenty of canola oil until they darken and get crispy – throw in the chopped chard and some water or stock, lid it for about 10 minutes to cook the chard through, then take the lid off and make sure any moisture has cooked off, add salt, and it’s done.)
The lamb was fantastic. Perfectly cooked after 6 hours (not even, I think) – it fell off the bone but still had some tooth to it. The potatoes were intense, having absorbed all those lamby juices, and could have been easily roughly mashed (YUM) but we scooped them out, all deep golden and studded with softened cloves of garlic, and ate them alongside what was essentially pulled lamb. My mom and sister doused theirs in mint sauce. I want the leftovers wrapped in soft flatbread with tzatziki. For breakfast, maybe.
Leg of Lamb in the Slow Cooker with Garlic and Rosemary
olive or canola oil, for cooking
1 bone-in leg of lamb
4-5 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, chopped into chunks
1 head garlic, peeled
salt
a few sprigs of rosemary
about a wineglass full of red wine
Rub the oil all over the lamb and either brown it in a hot pan or throw it on the grill to get some colour. Meanwhile, toss all the potatoes and about half the garlic cloves into the bottom of your slow cooker.
Put the lamb on top of the potatoes, squish a few more cloves of garlic and rub it over the surface, then sprinkle with salt. Toss in a few sprigs of rosemary and pour some wine in around the potatoes, cover (if the bone sticks out, cover the lid with foil to seal in the heat) and cook on low for 6-8 hours. Carve the lamb and serve with the potatoes, finished with a squeeze of lemon, if you like. Serves 6-10.
March 14 2010 | lamb and slow cooker | 24 Comments »
Really, we have to stop meeting like this.
I was a very bad omnivore today. Breakfast was a cheesecake brownie (on the upside, it was from Brûlée) eaten with great guilt on the sidewalk in front of the gym I used to actually go to while waiting to cross the street. Honestly, why can so many calories be ingested in so little time? Then Mike brought me an ice cap, and later, fueled by panic and adrenaline over a looming deadline, I ate three chocolate chip cookies all warm and gooey from the oven. (They were for an event. Quality control is very important.)
Dinner was a Moroccan meal, the theme chosen by the highest bidders on me at an event to raise money for Brown Bagging for Calgary Kids. (Yes, I was auctioned off – tonight we coined the term “charity whore”.) I couldn’t have been sold to nicer people – they had nice friends, even, and made nice pomegranate martinis. I made a lot of things. Baba ghanouj, muhammara and fresh naan, Moroccan spiced olives, Spanikopita triangles, a Moroccan Vegetable Stew with Harissa Yogurt Sauce, spiced carrot salad, lentil-barley salad, grilled lemon chicken satay and a couscous salad I’ll definitely make again (except that oops – I just realized I forgot the cilantro); the couscous itself was quickly stirred into a simmering mixture of chicken stock, ginger, garlic, cumin, turmeric and cinnamon, along with a handful of raisins, then lidded and left to absorb all that flavour, fluffed with a fork and tossed with peppers, pea pods, cucumber, olive oil and lemon. Yum.
And lamb popsicles – a couple racks of lamb cut into chops, then doused in olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and bashed rosemary overnight and tossed on the grill for just a couple minutes per side. Dessert was my usual mini pavlova and spiced nut tartlets I made by using a butter tart recipe and adding chopped dates, walnuts, almonds and cashews and a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg to the filling. And a pistachio honey cake that tasted a little too much like a sweet, gummy sponge, although everyone else seemed to like it.
No wonder I’m so bagged. And now it’s quarter to one AM, and I have to be up in around 6 hours to do some more whoring around.
I’m going to be lazy – one last bag of Pike Place Roast coffee and a $25 Starbucks card is up for grabs this week. (One of my very favourite things to get, come to think of it – fresh beans and free coffee!) Starbucks is very first on my agenda tomorrow morning. (Congrats to Aimee, who got a copy of Big Bad Bantam Rooster last week, and Carolyn who won some goodies for her no-knead bread idea, and Nancy who got a copy of the new Grazing.) Lets go back to posting what we had for dinner last night. (Unless you want to tackle one of W’s questions of the day: What do rhinos think?)
One Year Ago: Pizza and Chocolate Sorbet
June 12 2009 | lamb and on the grill | 54 Comments »
Tomorrow night, I get to play chef at an outdoor barbecue in Glenmore Park. In preparation, one of the hosts dropped off some lamb for me to prepare. Some beautiful 4H lamb. Thirty-eight pounds of lamb. An entire lamb, more or less. Minus the identifiable bits.
It’s all cubed for kebabs, but since there will only be 20 in attendance there’s a little surplus here to play with. I thought I’d grind some up in the food processor and make lamb meatballs as a starter. Rather than do my usual feta-oregano-currants-mint medley, the bottle of tandoori spice mix I just picked up (from a friend who just started his own spice company) caught my eye, and I shook a good dose of that over the meat instead, with a few cloves of garlic and a glug of olive oil, and then pulsed it to grind the lot.
And so just to make sure it was edible, since it is technically for company, I shaped some of the meat into patties, making them a little concave in the middle so that they don’t come out all domed, and grilled them as I would any burger. The tzatziki on top ensured we would all have garlic burps for at least the next 24 hours.
Except for W, who ate frozen blueberries and leftover cold and leathery quesadillas.
(With black beans squished in with the cheese. Sucker!)
P.S.: Good News! The Hillhurst-Sunnyside Farmers’ Market is open again, every Wednesday between 3:30-7:30 until Thanksgiving! Yahoo!
P.P.S: My sister is shaving her head (bald) tomorrow for the Kids Cancer Care Foundation of Alberta. (She is a grade 6 teacher, and letting her students do the shaving.) I was just re-reading her email about it, and think it’s worth sharing:
I had the honour, recently, of visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. As I walked through the museum, I reflected on the importance of bearing witness – on the value of seeing and knowing and empathizing, and of carrying that knowledge with me as I complete my life’s work. Leaving the museum, I was profoundly grateful never to have experienced those horrors in my own life – to have come so far without having suffered the tragedies experienced by others. Of the great many powerful images, personal accounts and words of wisdom I saw that day, one quote really resonated with me. Just at the end of the museum, there was the famous quote from Martin Niemöller which said – First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — ?
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out — ?
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — ?
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.
Every year, the school where I teach hosts a charity head-shaving event to raise funds for cancer research and to send kids with cancer to camp. Every year I watch with pride as our brave young students step up to do their part to make a difference. I’ve never participated because my life has never been touched by cancer –
I am not a mother of a child with cancer;
I am not the daughter of a parent with cancer;
I am not the sister of a woman with cancer;
I am not the teacher of a student with cancer.
There has never been any particular reason for me to stand up to support those whose lives have been struck by the tragedy of this disease. This year, I looked at the opportunity to participate with a different perspective – I may not be a mother of a child with cancer, but I am a mother. I am a daughter. I am a sister and I am a teacher, and when I see the images and read the accounts of people battling this terrible disease, I know the wisdom of the saying, ‘There but for the grace of God go I’.
This year I am giving my hair in thanks – an act of gratitude for being so lucky as to have my children healthy and whole, my parents well, my sisters strong and my students thriving. It is my way of bearing witness to the suffering of others and to stand up, in some small way, to make things a little better. Just because I can. How fortunate am I?
One Year Ago: Roasted Chicken and Potatoes
June 03 2009 | lamb and on the grill | 18 Comments »
Remember that lamb I did in the slow cooker? I put the last chunk in a yogurt container and poured all the lovely juices over top, and stuck it in the fridge. (Among a literal forest of yogurt containers filled with leftover lentils and sourdough starter.)
It gelled, as meaty juices do, with all the fat evenly hardened on the surface. I plucked it off, chopped the meat and squished the lot into a small baking dish, then sprinkled it with frozen peas (they’ll cook when I bake the pie). This all occurred yesterday, as I was making the lentil-sweet potato thing; while I was at it I boiled up some surplus diced sweet potato, mashed it and spread it over the meat and peas. It felt a little evil-genius, only in a good way. Two dinners in one go.
So tonight all that needed to be done was to pop it in the oven to warm through. I have to admit, it was a little runny. I should have sprinkled the lamb chunks with some flour. But a slotted spoon solved that problem, and it was nonetheless delicious.
W and I spent the time we might have otherwise spent cooking (he’s quite the keener in the kitchen) planting tomato, rosemary and basil seeds to get a head start on our garden. So now all our prime eating space is taken up by a) the old computer (don’t ask), and b) a miniature potted garden. Or more accurately, a bunch of tubs of dirt with Popsicle sticks stuck in, which may or may not actually sprout into anything.
One Year Ago: Roast Ham, Baked Mac & Cheese, Bean Salad, Orange Mashed Sweet Potatoes, Roasted Asparagus, and Strawberry Shortcakes
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April 09 2009 | lamb | 9 Comments »
Stay with me here – I realize the photo is not going to sell you on this one. It is the result of artificial light, a camera about to die, and lamb sausages braised in red wine until they resembled, well, I don’t want to disgust you further. I had read a traditional recipe for Saucisses aux Lentilles du Puy (Sausages with French Green Lentils) in my winter issue of Saveur, and thought it might translate well to lamb sausage and red wine. Aesthetics aside, it was quite delicious. Next time I might add garlic to the pot, or simmer the lentils in stock in place of the water. Or lacking wine (which, to be honest, I couldn’t much taste), brown the sausages and then tuck them into the simmering lentils to finish cooking.
Wine-Braised Lamb Sausages with Lentils
2-4 slices bacon, chopped
1 Tbsp. butter or oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
12 oz. dry green, green Puy or brown lentils (about 2 1/2 cups)
2 bay leaves
a few sprigs of fresh thyme (or a bit of crumbled dried thyme)
4-8 sausages – I used lamb, but try Italian or any other kind you like
canola or olive oil
1 cup red or white wine
In a large saucepan or skillet, cook the bacon until it renders most of its fat; add the butter, onion, celery and carrot and cook for about 10 minutes, until the vegetables are soft. Add the lentils, bay leaves, thyme and 5 1/2 cups of water; bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer, cover and cook for about an hour.
After an hour, heat another skillet and brown the sausages in a drizzle of oil; add the wine and a cup of water, cover and cook for 10 minutes, flipping once or twice. Tuck the sausages down into the lentils and cook for a few more minutes, drizzling any wine left in the pan over the lentils. Season with salt and pepper and serve hot. Serves 4-8.
For Christmas gift-giving purposes within my family this year the grown-ups drew names to buy for the kids (7 of each) and we agreed to only give homemade gifts between families. Not surprisingly, everything that exchanged hands was edible. (Save for my sister’s ingenious idea to have her kids read stories on CD for the littler ones.)
My youngest sister (both their names begin with A, so I’ll forgo that descriptive) makes fantastic chocolate chip cookies, of the thin, chewy, buttery sort. Her gift bag included a Ziploc baggie of frozen dough scoops (she also has one of those wee ice cream scoops that make perfect cookies) that we could just place on a cookie sheet and put in the oven to bake right from frozen. I baked a dozen, since I have friends coming by tomorrow. Deep down I knew there would be none left. I’d like to say Mike ate most of them; he didn’t.
I asked for the recipe and it’s a Martha. The butter-sugar-flour ratio explains it: MORE butter than flour! (Shortbread is generally 1 part butter to 2 parts flour. Toll House cookies and the chocolate chip cookie recipe on the back of the Chipits bag are 1 cup butter to 2 1/4-2 1/2 cups flour. These are 4 cups butter to 3 1/2 cups flour.) They have more sugar than flour too – I kind of wish I hadn’t seen this formula. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.
Lexi’s Favorite Chocolate-Chip Cookies
From Martha Stewart Living
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups packed light-brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 375F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, and set aside. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed until smooth. Add the sugars, and beat until combined and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla until well blended.
Add flour mixture, and beat on low speed until combined. Add the chocolate chips, and mix until combined.
Drop 2 to 3 tablespoons of batter at a time onto baking sheets, about 2 to 3 inches apart. I usually fit 6 cookies per sheet. Bake until golden brown, about 8 minutes, rotating halfway through. Remove the cookies and the parchment paper from the baking sheets, and let cool on a rack. Makes thirty 4-inch cookies.
From A: *I usually make extra dough and freeze balls of it on a cookie sheet, then transfer them to a zipoc baggie. I cook them from frozen for a few extra minutes, or eat the dough as-is…
December 29 2008 | cookies & squares and lamb | 11 Comments »
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