Glorious Grilled Lamb Chops

Glorious Grilled Lamb Chop. Yum.

As we always did at home growing up, I still tend to serve ham or lamb (or both, depending on the size of the crowd) for Easter. For one of the first times I can ever remember, this Easter it was just George, myself and the kids. We were traveling earlier in the week and had a few friends over for an Easter egg hunt and brunch on Saturday, so we decided to keep Sunday really simple and low-key, and it was wonderful!

Ingredients for lamb chop marinade.

We decided to go with grilled lamb chops for our entree. I haven't done lamb chops a lot, and I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with them. I did know that I didn't really want to run to the store, so I wanted to just go with what I had in the house. I looked at a few recipes, and didn't have everything for any of them, so I decided to take pieces of a few and put them together. 

In then end, I mixed up a little marinade/paste of:

• the juice from half a lemon 
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic 
• 4-5 tablespoons dijon mustard 
• 1-2 tablespoon anchovy paste 
• and a little olive oil

Seriously, so easy. And so good.

Can't wait to grill these up.

Some of it I just eyeballed until it looked like a consistency I'd like. I rubbed this onto two frenched racks of lamb chops (about 2 lbs total) and refrigerated for a few hours. 

I took the chops out and brought to room temperature before grilling.

We (George) played around a little with the grilling technique. Overall, he grilled the chops about 20 minutes total, mostly over indirect heat. (A little note: For medium lamb, I read that when touching, it should feel like the tip of your nose. It was perfectly cooked!) Before taking them off the grill, he seared them on each side for a beautiful color. They were fantastic.

Halfway through the meal, Holland and George asked me to please write down what I did so we could have these again. (Here you go, Holland and George.)

Perhaps the highest praise of all, however, was when my 7 year old animal lover (who was not happy that we were eating little lambs) reached for her second chop. "I really don't like the idea of eating baby lambs," she said, "but this is delicious."

And that, my friends, is the story of our glorious grilled Easter lamb chops.

Quick Spring Dinner Ideas

With Baseball, Art Shows, concerts, etc... in full swing I try to plan ahead and use the crock pot for meals that whenever someone gets home to eat there is dinner ready! For tonight I decided to try Shephard's Pie, as I had leftover Lamb from Easter. All I needed to do was make Mashed Potatoes and mix frozen veggies and gravy with the lamb. I will post later to let you know how it turned out! Thursday I will be doing

Beer Brisket (from Prevention Slow Cooker)

2 large onions

3-4 Lbs Beef Brisket, fat trimmed

1 bottle of beer

1/2 c chili sauce

2 tsp dried steak seasoning

Place onion in slow cooker, top with beef. Mix chili sauce, beer and steak seasoning. Pour over beef. Cook on low 10-12 hours. Thinly slice across grain. Use slotted spoon to remove onions and place on top of meat. Drizzle some cooking liquid over meat and serve on rolls!

Lamb Curry

Last week, a friend and I visited Trader Joe's and I purchased a Curry Simmer Sauce. OH YUM! Made a Lamb Curry the other night, adding in lamb tips, diced onions, potatoes, carrots, raisins and light coconut milk. (I think without the coconut milk it might have been a bit too spicy for the kids, but with it, they did great!)

It was so easy, and so tasty. I love that you could add in whatever you have at home and dinner can be ready in a few minutes (just make sure to cut the potatoes into a really small dice if you are trying to cook quickly so they get soft enough). Can't wait to try it another time with chick peas, spinach and cauliflower.

Does anyone have any other favorite Trader Joe sauces or marinades?