Delightful Dinners

My grandmother gifted me with a lot of great cookbooks this Christmas and I've been anxious to try them. It's easy for meals to get bland on a diet as restricted as mine tends to be. That said, I love everything about this recipe and I've never been a lamb person. It has a pot roast feel to it and the carrots turn out caramelized. Dave liked it so much he requested that it be added to the regular rotation.



Herb-Crusted Lamb Roast with Vegetables

Ingredients

6 large carrots, peeled and cut into 3/4 pieces on the diagonal

Olive Oil

2 tbsp GF Dijon mustard

2 tsp parsley

1 tsp thyme

1 tsp sage

3 garlic cloves, crushed

10 1/2 oz pieces of lamb rump or many lamb roasts, trimmed (I used lamb shoulder)

4-5 new potatoes

1 bag frozen peas

Preheat the oven to 400degrees. Place the carrots in a large roasting pan, drizzle just enough olive oil over them to layer the bottom of the pan and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cook in the oven for 30 minutes, or until golden and soft.

Place the mustard, parsley, thyme, sage and two of the crushed garlic cloves in a bowl. Mix well to combine and add the lamb pieces. Thoroughly coat with the mixture and add to the carrots in the roasting pan. Cook an additional 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook the new potatoes in a large saucepan of boiling water for 12 minutes, or until tender. Drain.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, add the peas with the remaining garlic clove. Add a little pad of butter as well as salt and pepper to taste.

Light Summer Dinner

Tonight Mama made such an easy, tasty meal that I felt I absolutely had to share it. Summer squash (both yellow and zucchini) has got to be my favorite form of the versatile veggie.

Ingredients

• 3 zucchini
• 3 yellow squash
• 1/2 med white onion
• 1 tomato
• basil
• salt
• 1 tsp arrowroot
• 1 lb of de-veined, uncooked shrimp
• 1 bag of success rice (or rice of choice)

Pour just enough oil in the bottom of your sauce pan to coat (olive or canola work fine, though we used olive) because you don't want your veggies drowning. Likewise you don't want any angry oil surging up at your face due to any residual moisture from rinsing your veggies.

Slice the zucchini, squash and onion to toss into the pan along with the oil. There you can let it sit while you add a little salt to taste and a liberal basil. We didn't actually measure this part but just added until it felt right. Use your common sense. If you are fond of Basil feel free to add what you feel is a good portion. Because this sort of meal was about being quick and simple we used a dry form of the herb. You want to keep your eye on those veggies while you're dicing your tomato. Before you add it to the mix make sure that the squash and zucchini are nicely browned (not burned).

It's about this time that you should be adding your bag o' rice to the pot of boiling water so that it'll come out at the same time. Or if you have a rice cooker or some other method/rice of choice feel free to go with that. We decided on plain ol' white rice: a tasty, under appreciated staple.

Now go ahead and add that tomato.

In a little cup or bowl put about a tsp of arrowroot and then add a little bit of water to mix it in nicely. This is going to thicken up water that's cooking out of your veggies. For those of you who make roux out of cornstarch, this is the same thing except corn free. Pour it over your vegetables. Keep in mind that you do not want the things in your pan drowning. Just add enough so that they're simmering nicely and not sticking to the bottom.

Add your shrimp to the mix and cook until pink. And there you go! Put this over your rice and you'll have enough to feed four people easily with possible left overs for later.

Enjoy!