Abe Lincoln

Happy President's Day...or for many of you folks in California, happy second week of President's Day! I hope that you all had a nice long weekend. We have been busy and happy here...D rode his bike in the pouring rain for 4 hours on Saturday, I ran for 3 hours in the freezing cold on Sunday and Z got to go to both a baby shower and a bowling birthday party. Phew! I would have been ready for the weekend to have been over this morning, but with one more day to go we had to find something special to do. We were supposed to go to a playdate with 2 of his best friends but we couldn't make it. Z was a trooper but he still really wanted to do something special and different...I suggested all sorts of activities, including baking. He jumped at that one and quickly declared that he wanted to, and I quote: "make Abraham Lincoln's head from a muffin". How can any parent say no to that idea? Therefore, without further ado I give you Abraham Lincoln's head made out of muffins!

(I admit that while he was the mastermind of the whole concoction, I was the brawn behind the brains for most of the execution. He helped cut out the hat and shoulders, smooth the frosting, draw the mouth and he placed the eyes and collar.)

I did also cooked a little bit for the family tonight. Last week we got a few amazing pieces of meat from our new meat CSA, including two small lamb chops. Tonight was their night to be the star of the dinner show. We don't eat much meat around here, and I grew up eating absolutely no beef at all, but I did grow up eating lamb once a week so I was excited to cook it.

I used the little lamb chops as the stars of a Greek Lamb Salad and they proved both easy to prepare and absolutely delicious. The recipe is as follows:

-Trim the lamb of any excess fat.
-Rub the lamb with a paste of minced fresh rosemary, minced garlic, sea salt and olive oil.
-Make sure to cover both sides of each chop thoroughly with the paste.
-Let the chops marinate for about an hour.
-While the lamb is marinating, preheat the broiler to high heat and line a broiling pan with foil. Put a broiler rack over the foil.
-Broil the lamb about 3 inches from the heat for 4 to 5 minutes each side. This will produce medium rare meat.
-When you carve the lamb just scrape the crusty paste off of the top; the meat beneath will be infused with the flavors of garlic and rosemary but will be moist throughout. The paste also seriously cuts down on the amount of clean up that you have to do by trapping the juices inside the meat. Bonus!

The salad that we served the lamb on top of included the following:

-spinach
-roasted peppers (from TJ's, in a jar)
-cherry tomatoes
-crumbled goat cheese
-leftover roasted beets, sliced thin
-kalamata olives
-garbanzo beans
-balsamic vinagrette

We also had whole wheat pitas and tzatziki so that we could make sandwiches if they were desired. D made a couple of pita sandwiches but I found that I preferred the salad on its own. The whole meal (other than marinating the meat) took me about 35 minutes to make and it was light and fresh. We can't wait to get more of that lamb!