Herb Roasted Leg of Lamb

Delicious lamb leg roast seasoned with herbs and spices.  Makes a great holiday, or romantic, dinner.

I don't care much about Valentines day (except the cute stuffed animal my dad sends every year).   This year I'm more excited about Friday The 13th.  Yep that's today.

I love Friday the 13th's.  I'm a big horror movie fan so Friday the 13th is all about Jason Voorhees.  If I can find any of the movies (I wish I owned them all) it's marathon time.  If not any horror movie will do.  What could go better with a slasher movie marathon than a bloody leg (of lamb).  It's really not that bloody it's about medium rare and oh so good.  This could easily be a romantic dinner too if that's your thing.  But I say turn out the lights and fire up the scary movies.

This was my first time cooking leg of lamb so I googled for instructions.  I found many and used a little bit of all to make this roast.  Most of the recipes I found said to bake in a roasting pan.  I don't have one so I just put it in my largest/deepest baking pan with potatoes and carrots lining the bottom (an easy and delicious side dish).  One of the recipes I really liked suggested broiling the roast on both sides to sear it but the broiler on my oven doesn't work so I just roasted it at a high temperature to start then lowered the heat for the rest of the cooking.

Herb Roasted Leg of Lamb

Ingredients:

1 5 pound semi-boneless leg of lamb
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp rosemary
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp coarse ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 450F

Remove lamb from fridge at least 1 hour before you plan to roast it.

Chop some potatoes and carrots into bite sized pieces, toss in olive oil and spices of choosing (salt, pepper, garlic, thyme).  Place in bottom of your largest baking pan (I used a glass 9x13).

Rinse the lamb and pat dry.  Then, rub all over with the spice mix and place in baking pan on top of the veggies.

Bake in a preheated oven at 450F for 15 minutes.  Then lower the temperature to 325F and continue baking for about 1 hour and 45 minutes or until the roast reaches 130F for medium rare.

Let rest for 15 minutes before slicing and serving.  Serves a lot. 8 or 10 maybe.  We ate it plain a few nights, then I made some other dishes with it.

Serve with those roasted potatoes and carrots, mint jelly if you have it, or I served it with tzatziki.

Enjoy (stay tuned to see what else I made with the lamb).

For ways to use leftovers check out:  Greek Nachos, Lamb Salad, and Lamb & Guinness Shepherds Pie

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Veal Roast

Slow cooked veal chuck roast with sweet onions and a mushroom gravy.

This is my very first veal roast.  Some friends were moving and cleaning out their freezer and I got a veal roast.  I can not claim credit for this dinner because my husband is the one who prepared it while I was away for the day.  He slow cooked it with beef broth, wine and sweet onions in the crock pot for 5 hours.  For our first veal roast it turned out great.  It was tender, flavorful, and amazing.  I would definitely make this again (if veal wasn't so expensive) it would make a great dinner for a special occasion.  With 5 pounds of roast we had plenty to eat for a few days and we even froze half.

Ingredients:

5 lb veal shoulder roast (boneless and tied)
Salt and Pepper, to taste
2 Tbsp butter
1 Maui onion (sweet onion), large diced
1 cup beef broth
1 tsp thyme
1 pinch rosemary
5 oz white wine
1 cup dried mushroom slices, reconstituted
1/2 cup flour
2 Tbsp butter

Rub the veal roast generously with salt and pepper.  Sear on all sides in 2 Tbsp butter then place the roast in Crockpot/slowcooker.

Brown onions then add to crockpot.  Also add beef broth, thyme, rosemary, and white wine.  Cover and cook on low for about 5 hours.

Remove roast from cooking liquid, place in a pan and cover with foil to rest.  To the cooking liquid (in the crock pot) add the reconstituted mushrooms (we used shitake, but any would be good also fresh mushrooms would work too, just saute them first) and cook on high for 30 minutes.

In a skillet, melt 2 Tbsp butter and add the flour, stirring for a minute or to to make a roux.  Add the mushrooms and broth to the roux and simmer until gravey is desired thickness.

Serve veal sliced with gravy drizzled on top.  We served the veal with mashed potatoes and peas.  Another meal with the veal was an open faced sandwich.  Enjoy.

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