As promised, I wanted to share with you the recipes from yesterday’s post, starting with the most amazing lamb roast ever. This is a Jamie Oliver recipe so I’m not going to completely repost it from his site, but just walk you through the steps to show you how incredibly easy it is.

His recipe calls for a lamb shoulder but I haven’t been able to find that cut anywhere so I ended up going with a portion from the upper leg. If you can’t find lamb, a large cut of beef or pork would work just fine.

Start by patting the roast dry with some paper towels and trimming most of the excess fat, but leaving a little here and there to keep it moist while it roasts. Cut long deep slices across the meat horizontally and then vertically, making a grid in the flesh. Salt and pepper the crap out of it, making sure to get the seasonings into the grooves you’ve just cut, and then rub it all over with a thin coating of olive oil. Lay over about 8 to 10 whole sprigs of rosemary.

Next up, peel and entire head of garlic. No, for real.

I find it’s easiest to break it into cloves with my hands and then bash each clove with the butt of my knife to loosen them from the peels. They slip out pretty effortlessly if you’ve done a good job of beating them into submission.

Next, tuck the cloves into the slices all over the lamb and just chuck any extras into the roasting pan.

At this point, Jamie would instruct you to turn your oven on “full whack,” which I think is a very charming thing to say and which for me means to turn my oven up to 500 degrees.

Cover your roasting dish with a sheet or two of aluminum foil and poke holes all over. When the oven has finished heating up to a fiery inferno, put in the roast and immediately turn the temperature down to 325 degrees. Let him bake for at least 3 hours and up to 4 if your roast is bigger than mine. Your house is going to smell amazing.

When it’s ready to come out, it’ll look like this…

It’ll be swimming in delicious lamb fat and juices and the meat will be pulling away from the bone. Discard the rosemary and get ready to shred it.

You can either pick out all the cloves of garlic and use them separately, or you can shred them right into the meat. They are so soft that they’re barely holding together at this point. I love roasted garlic with an intense passion so I like to eat them whole as if they were a side dish.

Just transfer the roast to a cutting board and, using a fork to hold it still, pull off chunks of meat with a pair of sturdy tongs. It should come off pretty easily though you may have to pick at it a bit around the bone.

This roast is excellent by itself, but it was even more special with the miso shiitake gravy that I’ll be sharing with you tomorrow.

It’s a real show stopper of a recipe and it really only takes 10 minutes or so to put together before the oven does all the rest. You can even prep it a day ahead of time and stash it in the fridge until it’s time to start cooking.

I hope you try it next time you need to impress a guest!

What is your favorite roasted dish?

December 21, 2011 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 6 comments

Hello all.

Not too many interesting things have been going on around here lately. We’ve been busy finishing up the very last of our Christmas shopping and just enjoying some time off of work together. Jeff is cashing in his remaining vacation time so he doesn’t go back to work until January!

We did manage to squeeze in one more social event before the holiday. This past weekend we had our friends John and Emily over for a little dinner party. I love to cook fancy elaborate food but rarely have an occasion to, so it was nice to be able to cook something special for a change.

On the menu:

• Roasted lamb leg with rosemary and whole garlic
• Buttermilk mashed potatoes
• Miso shiitake gravy
• Honey soy glazed carrots
• Apple butter cake with cinnamon cider buttercream

Yeah, it was as good as it sounds.

The lamb roast is a Jamie Oliver recipe that I’ve made several times before, and it’s been a hit every time.

I used an entire head of garlic and a ton of rosemary. I’ll share the recipe tomorrow!

I used some of the pan drippings and a few of those cloves of garlic to make the most amazing shiitake mushroom gravy ever.

Again, I’ll give you this recipe soon because it’s just insane, and you don’t need to use lamb drippings either when butter will work just fine.

The honey soy glazed carrots were soft and and lightly salty-sweet.

This recipe is super easy. Just 2 lbs. of carrots with a generous swish of soy sauce and a squirt or two of honey. They bake at 400 degrees for an hour covered in aluminum foil to hold in the moisture and keep the honey from burning.

And here’s a plate of everything…

I ended up pureeing the miso shiitake gravy for a better consistency. It was so good paired with the creamy potatoes and fragrant roasted lamb. I ate a few of those roasted garlic cloves by themselves too. I could seriously make a meal out of just roasted garlic and a good loaf of bread.

Dinner was served with a glass of Cardhu 12 year, a sweet and honey-like Scotch that suited the flavors of the dinner perfectly. Never mind that it’s in a Jack glass. I can’t even drink that stuff anymore, too sweet!

And the jewel of the evening…cake!

I have so many cake recipes bookmarked and I never have an occasion to make one. I modified this recipe to create this apple butter cake with cinnamon cider frosting. It had a damp banana bread texture and the frosting was smooth and not-too-sweet.

I’ll share my changes to the original recipe with you soon!

I know for a fact that John and Emily loved the food, and I really enjoyed getting to make it for them. We were all feeling sleepy afterwards from stuffing ourselves and having a few too many whiskeys.

I had so much fun preparing this meal that I’m already scheming for future dinner parties. Recipes to come……!

December 20, 2011 Alayna Discussion 5 comments

This past weekend our friends, John and Emily, threw a whiskey and waffles party in an effort to use up some of the many opened bottles they had of both whiskey and maple syrup. Genius!

This here was our little contribution, a bottle of Old Pogue bourbon whiskey.

It’s extremely mellow and sippable with the sweet flavor of caramel and very little burn. Definitely my new favorite bourbon!

And because I can’t go to a party and not cook something, I decided to use some of the bourbon to make bourbon baked apples to pair with the waffles we’d be enjoying.

I peeled and cored 5 large fuji apples and generously sprinkled them with cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and ginger. Then I topped them with a spoonful of brown sugar and 2 spoonfuls of the bourbon. Those got all stirred up.

I broke up a tablespoon of butter and dotted it all over the top, then baked them at 375 degrees for about an hour, stirring every 20 minutes.

And this is what came out:

I spooned two more spoonfuls of bourbon over the warm apples and stirred it up to let them soak up all the delicious bourbon sauce. I wanted them to be very soft, almost falling apart, so that they’d make a luscious topping for the waffles.

I was having fun in the kitchen so I decided to make some maple cinnamon whipped cream too. Just a half pint of heavy whipping cream, sprinkle of sugar and cinnamon, and maple syrup until it tasted maple-y enough. I whipped it with a stand mixer using the beater attachment and it was fluffy and delicious in about 5 minutes.

When we got to John’s house, he made us a few signature cocktails to go with our brunch. I had a maple Old Fashioned using the Old Pogue bourbon and some maple syrup that was matured in bourbon barrels.

Mmmm….bourbony!

And here’s the delicious brunch we all feasted on:

Crunchy bacon and buttery waffles that were crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Absolutely amazing paired with the maple cinnamon whipped cream, soft baked apples, and one of the many maple syrups we had to choose from.

After everyone got to eat, we moved the party outside for a whiskey tasting hour!

That’s about half of what was actually available.

We all compared a newly opened bottle of Glenfiddich with one that had been open for about 3 months to try to guess which was which in a blind taste test. I think I was the only person to get it wrong. Doesn’t matter, still got to try lots of new whiskeys.

I think we managed to polish off at least two of the opened bottles we were trying to get rid of, so I’d say the party was a success. And, I didn’t feel like death the next morning either. Double win!

Below is the recipe for those amazing bourbon baked apples. If you’re not into booze with breakfast you could absolutely leave out the bourbon, but I’d try replacing it with juice or cider to maintain the same moisture levels.

Bourbon baked apples

These meltingly soft baked apples are baked in a sweet bourbon sauce and make a delicious topping for pancakes and waffles.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes

Ingredients

• 5 large fuji apples
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• a big pinch each of nutmeg, clove, and ginger
• 1 tbsp. brown sugar
• 4 tbsp. bourbon
• 1 tbsp. butter

Cooking Directions

1. Peel, core, and chop apples. Place in a small baking dish.
2. Sprinkle on spices, sugar, and bourbon. Toss to combine.
3. Break up the butter with your fingers and dot all over the top.
4. Bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour, stirring every 20 minutes.
5. When apples are cooked, you can spoon over extra bourbon if you want the flavor to stand out more or serve as is.

Favorite waffle topping?

December 13, 2011 Alayna Discussion 17 comments