Lamb Chops with Lemon

Growing up lamb was something I enjoyed on special occasions.  Every once in awhile we would go out to dinner and I would order myself a nice little rack of lamb, but we never really had it at home.  My mom wasn't the type to do a roast leg of lamb for Easter or anything.  The same goes for duck.  I had this thing for duck a l'orange but I only ever had the chance to occasionally eat it at restaurants.  Now that I am an adult planning my own meals, both duck and lamb have remained indulgences that we make at home a few times a year.  It is partially due to expense and partially to availability - you can certainly find duck breasts and lamb chops at a nicer grocery store like Fairway or Whole Foods (although not at your average D'Agostinos), but they are going to set you back a nice chunk of change.  Actually, I discovered about a year ago that CostCo is a wonderful source of reasonably priced lamb and picked up a boneless leg of lamb, with which we made Moroccan kebobs, Xinjiang kebobs, Mongolian lamb, and souvlaki.  Unfortunately, CostCo doesn't carry duck so I guess that duck is just going to have to remain special occasion fare.

We have been saving these lamb chops for awhile, but I decided it was finally time to break them out and enjoy.  The lamb chops were nice and with a little more salt these would have been really nice.  But we forgot to add the s&p to the olive oil, lemon juice and lemon zest mixture.  Oops.  Even without the salt, they were incredibly tender and tasty.  The combination of herbs, shallots and lemon was lovely, but a little additional seasoning would really have made them sing.  But given how tasty they were even without the salt, I think I will make them again in the future.  Only I will read the recipe a little more thoroughly next time...

Recipe after the jump!

Baked Eggs with Yogurt and Chile

This recipe was one that immediately drew me once I opened up Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London's Ottolenghi by Yotam Ottolenghi.  I can't express to you how much I love baked eggs.  It has gotten to the point where certain individuals (and I am not going to name names here, but you know who you are) make fun of my obsession with baked eggs.  I can't help it.  They are uber yummy.  Plus I am on a Middle Eastern kick of sorts right now so I am drawn towards anything with that flavor profile. 

I have to say that these eggs were very interesting, although not the most successful baked eggs we have ever made.  I liked the addition of the yogurt sauce and the addition of the chilis, but I'm not sure how I felt about the arugula.  I think in the future I would potentially use a different green (maybe spinach).  My biggest complaint was that it never quite felt like it came together at the level that I wanted it to.  It smelled great and looked delicious, but it was good (verging on, but not quite making it to, very good).  The bottom line is that it wasn't amazing and I wanted it to blow my mind.  I guess my expectations were set a little too high here...  We didn't use the sage or the amount of butter that the recipe called for, but we added some scallions and I think the butter level in our dish was more than sufficient.  If I had added more butter I worry that it would have felt heavy and/or greasy.  And sage sounded like an odd ingredient to me.  When I think sage I think Thanksgiving - stuffing, turkey, butternut squash.  I don't think arugula, eggs and Greek yogurt.  But maybe that's my bad.  It's entirely possible that if we had made the dish exactly as written that it would have been the mind blowing experience I was looking for.  Instead I had to settle for good. 

Recipe after the jump!

Eggplant with Buttermilk Sauce

First and foremost, I wanted to say how excited I was when we bought Yotam Ottolenghi's new-ish vegetarian cookbook, Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London's Ottolenghi.  All of the recipes in there looked so interesting and the pictures were so beautiful, but I kept picking it up and putting it down because we already have so many freaking cookbooks.  I just didn't want to buy another.  But I am really excited that I finally caved.  Second, my pictures of this dish look awful compared to the pictures in the cookbook.  Just look at the cover of Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi and you can't help but be impressed by how utterly gorgeous his food (and the pictures of his food) is.  And then you look at my picture.  And the eggplant kind of looks like a... well I'm not going to say it because it's not at all appetizing.  But my pictures are nowhere near as pretty.   

Since this recipe is the picture on the front cover of the book and therefore a large part of the reason that I bought the book, I thought it was a fitting first dish for us to make.  And if this dish is representative of the other recipes in the cookbook, I am infinitely glad that we did.  Of the two of us, I thought that I would be a bigger fan of this dish but it turned out that Alex was.  He said that love was too strong of a word, but he "enjoyed" the dish and described it as having an interesting blend of flavors - the buttermilk/yogurt sauce was kind of tangy and the pomegranate gave it a nice sweetness without the whole thing being too sweet.  I would agree with all of his comments, but add that the fresh thyme was a really nice herbal (slightly floral) addition.  The eggplant itself was almost creamy and with the pop of the pomegranate seeds you ended up with a nice textural contrast as well.  My one complaint is that some bites of the dish just weren't as well seasoned as others, but you run into that problem with most roasted vegetables.  I know we make that comment/criticism of a lot of roasted squash recipes.  The layer of eggplant at the top that really absorbed the evoo and buttermilk sauce was delicious.  The layer that you scraped off the bottom (even after the addition of more buttermilk sauce) was less so.  All things considered it was a really interesting dish.  It was not my favorite dish that we have ever made, but the recipe is definitely worth trying.

Recipe after the jump!

Grilled Romaine and Halloumi Cheese with Mint Vinaigrette

This recipe wins the award for being the most interesting recipe that Alex and I have made this month.  If we had both an outdoor space to entertain (it could be a rooftop or a backyard - I'm not picky) and a grill, I would love to serve this to friends and family at a backyard BBQ of sorts.  I say "of sorts" because I'm not planning on serving hamburgers, hot dogs and pasta salad here.  I'm talking a backyard get together with fun (and tasty) food.  Anyway, I thought the dish was different enough to be a lot of fun, but not labor-intensive.  It also was familiar enough that I think it would appeal to both picky eaters and adventurous ones.  And it was really tasty.  I love halloumi - it is a salty, firm little cheese that fries or grills up really well.  There is a Druze restaurant near my apartment that makes a wonderful little salad with fried cubes of Halloumi.  They are essentially the best croutons ever.  The only problem is that as the cheese cools it hardens back up and gets a little gummy.  So you are going to want to eat this salad fairly quickly.  But if you take that into account and eat quickly, you will thoroughly enjoy the salad.  The grilled onions are nice and sweet and the grilled romaine is delicious.  The combination of the sweetness of the onions, the zesty dressing and the freshness of the mint worked brilliantly together.

Recipe after the jump!

Greek-Spiced Baked Shrimp

I know that I periodically say that we need to make more Mediterranean food.  I'm not sure why we don't, but when I am menu planning my default is generally Asian, followed by American.  After that I probably start thinking about Italian.  Those defaults are reflected in our cookbook collection.  We have a ton of Asian cookbooks, a decent number of American and Italian cookbooks, and then a smattering of Indian, seafood, etc.  We don't own a single Mediterranean cookbook (if you don't include Italian as Mediterranean).  I guess I should start looking around for a good Mediterranean cookbook to add to our collection.  If anyone has any recommendations, please let me know.

This recipe was one I found online awhile ago.  I believe it was around the time I posted my last resolution to cook Mediterranean food more often.  What I liked best about the dish was the tomato sauce.  It had good flavor and sweetness from the spices and the onions, but wasn't cloying at all.  I really liked the addition of cinnamon and allspice, which gave the sauce a warmth/richness.  We don't typically use cinnamon and allspice in savory dishes (except for say beef rendang), but this dish might inspire me to do it more often.  What I liked least about the dish was that the shrimp itself didn't pick up a huge amount of flavor from the tomato sace - maybe that's why all of the reviews on Epicurious said to marinate the shrimp first.  Oops.  We didn't have time.  When you had bites of shrimp with the tomato sauce on top it was really nice, but when you just had the shrimp by itself it was kind of boring.  We served the shrimp with salad, warm pita and crusty bread (I ate the pita and Alex ate the crusty bread).  I loved dipping the bread through the tomato sauce, so you are definitely going to want to serve something carb-laden on the side to soak up the sauce.

Recipe after the jump!

Mint-Marinated Shrimp with Tabbouleh, Tomatoes and Feta

Somehow this week has turned into a Mediterranean fiesta.  Can you even say that?  Who knows.  I am saying it anyway.  But thus far this week I have posted Grilled Branzino with Ladolemono and Lamb Souvlaki Sandwiches with Tzatziki Sauce.  Including this dish, this is more Mediterranean food than I think we have ever made in such a short span.  Look at us mixing things up!  I'm fairly proud of myself - make that ourselves since Alex helped me cook the souvlaki and the branzino.  But I get to take most of the credit for picking out/making up the recipes.  This recipe was one that I stumbled across last week while looking for some new shrimp recipes.  We make a lot of shrimp (we probably cook almost as much shrimp as we do chicken) and I am always interested in finding new healthy, shrimp recipes.  This particular recipe appealed to me because it was a different flavor profile from our usual dishes and involved a new ingredient that I had never cooked with before - bulgur.  I know that bulgur is traditionally used for tabbouleh (or tabouli or however you spell it), but when I have made tabbouleh in the past we have used other grains like quinoa.  But it's always fun to try new things.  And now that I have bulgur I have to figure out other uses for it, which is even more fun!

Alex particularly enjoyed this dish.  I thought it was nice and fresh.  I particularly liked the tabbouleh salad, although I thought the shrimp didn't absorb quite as much lemon flavor as I would have liked.  That might be due to the fact that we only marinated the shrimp for 15 minutes, rather than the 30 that the recipe specified, but I just don't know if marinating the pre-cooked shrimp for an extra 15 minutes would really have resulted in much additional flavor.  But roasting the shrimp definitely intensified the flavors of the shrimp themselves, which I think is a good thing.  Actually, I think it would be a fabulous cold picnic dish.  I feel like I say that fairly often, but this dish really would be.  It would be just as good served cold as it would room temperature and it's a wonderful alternative to pasta salad or chicken salad.

Recipe after the jump!

Lamb Souvlaki Sandwiches with Tzatziki Sauce

I periodically tell Alex that we need to make more Mediterranean food.  Asian cuisine is our go-to, and failing that we end up making "American" food or Italian food.  Rarely do we make Mediterranean food, which is something that I really want to change for a number of reasons.  First, I love Mediterranean flavors - lemon, oregano, olive oil, olives, garlic, tart yogurts, etc.  The flavors are so simple and yet so satisfying and delicious.  I also love how healthy the diet is overall.  And while lamb isn't exactly as healthy as say, tofu, it is an indulgence that I enjoy from time-to-time and is totally fine when eaten in moderation.  I might try the recipe with chicken or pork in the future, as healthier alternatives to lamb, but we used lamb this time because I picked up some leg of lamb the other day with souvlaki in mind as the end goal.  I actually picked up several pounds of leg of lamb because there are several lamb recipes that I have been wanting to make, but haven't gotten around to because leg of lamb tends to be pretty pricey in NYC.

Since lamb (and all red meat with the potential exception of bison) isn't exactly super healthy, Alex and I made a resolution about a month ago to only eat it at restaurants or on the weekend.  No cooking red meat during the week.  But we broke our resolution this time because we had guests coming for the weekend and I really wanted to make my souvlaki.  Oops.  In order to lighten this sandwich up, we used multigrain flatbreads and added chopped up baby spinach, tomatoes and onions.  We also used nonfat Greek yogurt to make the tzatziki, rather than the whole-fat variety.  I find that when you make tzatziki with nonfat yogurt instead of whole-fat, it is a little thinner and less creamy.  Since we were using the tzatziki as the sauce for our sandwich and not a dip that was supposed to stand alone it was absolutely fine that it was a little thinner.  The end result was that the dish wasn't as heavy (or detrimental to your health) as it could have been, while still retaining a lot of flavor.  The rosemary and garlic in the marinade made the apartment smell delicious while we pan-roasted the lamb, and marinating the lamb overnight gave it really nice flavor.  I'm glad I stuck to my guns on this one because it was a really nice and satisfying meal.  Maybe I will try it out with pork next time, but then again, maybe not...

Recipe after the jump!

Grilled Branzino with Ladolemono and Sauteed Spinach with Garlic

I was craving a really fresh and light meal for dinner tonight.  While I was at Fairway trying to figure out dinner I was immediately drawn to the whole branzino.  So I had the fishmonger clean and scale two branzinos for me and brought them home.  My original plan was to stuff the branzino with herbs and lemon slices, and then serve drizzled with some really nice evoo and lemon juice (kind of like this Whole-Roasted Rainbow Trout we made about a year ago).  Then I remembered this recipe from my Bon Appetit and decided to make that instead.  For the record, I don't know if they have new writers at Bon Appetit or what, but they had really fantastic issues all summer long.  I haven't made any of the recipes from the September through November issues, but I really need to because we made a number of very successful meals with recipes from the June through August issues!  This branzino was yet another successful dish.  I was worried that the fish wouldn't have enough flavor, but branzino is such a mild fish that it really worked.  The ladolemono (essentially a lemon vinaigrette made with equal parts lemon juice and evoo) and dried Greek oregano gave it more than enough flavor.  It had a lot of zing and freshness from the lemon, countered by the buttery evoo and the fragrant oregano.  And then the fish was very moist and perfectly cooked.  This recipe was definitely a keeper and I can't wait to try it with an actual grill to get that extra element of flavor.  We served the branzino with a very simple sauteed spinach with garlic and lemon juice - fresh and healthy, but flavorful.

Recipes after the jump!