Lotus Blossom Lamb Chops

I've always been pretty iffy when it comes to lamb. I had a roommate who used to make the best ever lamb burgers for me, and that was awesome, but other than that I've never really had lamb that was anything to write home about.

Apparently Eleanor never did either, because there's only one lamb recipe in The Box, and it's buried in a collection entitled “Far Eastern Fling” that must have come from a bottle of soy sauce or something (and it's illustrated). But I promised to make all the recipes in The Box, so when I found out that February is Lamb Lovers Month (and, not coincidentally, the start of the Year of the Sheep in China), I figured now was as good a time as any to tackle lamb for the first time.

It doesn't hurt that Edinburgh was just hit with a cold snap worse than the whole rest of the winter has been so far... or that said cold snap aligned perfectly with Judson's busiest work week of the year. So when I got the “BUSIEST. DAY. EVER.” text one evening last week, I figured it was time to cook up some lamb chops, mix up a Moscow Mule, and relax by the fire...
But since neither of the two fireplaces in our flat are functional, we relaxed by the radiator with a thick tartan wool blanket.

The best thing about this recipe is how crazily specific it is. Some of the recipes in the box are so vague that they are literally just a list of ingredients (are these even recipes, or just grocery lists? I guess I'll find out when I get to them). And then there are recipes like this one, which explains how to marinate and cook the lamb, and then commands that it be served “with squash and fruit salad.”

Since The Rules state that I have to follow the recipes to the letter, I served these lamb chops with curry-roasted butternut squash and a sad “fruit salad” that was really just blueberries, a sliced banana, and a chopped up apple in a bowl with some lemon juice. Nevertheless, it was delicious.

Turns out lamb isn't exceedingly difficult, gamey, or pungent like I had always thought. If you've always been on the fence about lamb but have never cooked it yourself, give this recipe a try. The chops are tender, savoury, and the flavour has a great depth that doesn't override the natural flavour of the lamb. All this time I thought I didn't like lamb and it turns out I just don't like the spices it's usually paired with, or the sauces that usually drown it. I never take charge of cooking meat because it makes me nervous and sort of wigs we out, but even I could handle this one. There's no trimming the meat, hacking through bones, or any of the other weird stuff that goes along with most meat-based main courses, and since you likely already have some of the marinade ingredients in your cabinet, it's also cheap (squash and fruit salad optional).

The Verdict: 

4 Spoons out of five. It's delicious, affordable, and unique-- plus, if you're anything like us, lamb is a great change of pace from the usual suspects of chicken or veggies as a main dish. Skip the squash and fruit salad, and you'll be good to go. 

THE RECIPE:

Honey & Soy-Glazed Lamb Chops

The Ingredients:

½ c soy sauce
¼ c honey
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tsp pepper
4-6 lamb chops

Optional sides: squash, fruit salad, Moscow Mules for two

THE DIRECTIONS:

Combine soy sauce, honey, vinegar, and pepper, mixing thoroughly to dissolve the honey as much as possible.
Place marinade and lamb chops in a large bag or container with a lid and refrigerate for at least an hour.
When ready to cook, preheat oven to 375F/190C.
Drain marinade, give chops another generous grind of pepper, and roast for 10 minutes or until cooked through but still tender.

Chocolate Drop Cookies, or, Homemade Oreos

I'm starting to hear Eleanor in my head when I cook her recipes. But Eleanor, although awesome, was not a kindly, mild-mannered grandmother. She was brash and opinionated (but fiercely loyal), and so far that's exactly how I'm hearing her in my head. While baking these cookies I could hear her gravelly smoker's voice almost like she was in the room with me, snapping at me in a thick New York accent while she lit a cigarette: “put the cookies farther apart, what are you, stupid!?”

But... I live in Scotland, I have a tiny oven (so tiny the cookware we brought from America when we moved here doesn't even fit in the oven), even tinier cookie sheets, and I didn't want to be stuck in the kitchen all afternoon cooking them only 3 at a time, so I disobeyed Eleanor's orders and crammed the batter in medium-sized balls as close as I could on each of my two cookie sheets.

Bad idea. The moral of this story is that your grandmother DOES know best, even if she's a figment of your imagination and lives only in your head. Little did I know how much these dumb cookies would expand.

After the first tray came out of the oven and the cookies had expanded so much that the tray looked like a pan of brownies, I came to my senses and started scooping smaller balls. The next batch came out fine, so it was no big deal in the end, especially once I tasted the cookies. These are exactly what I imagine a homemade Oreo would taste like (aka delicious). The chopped nuts give them a delicate crisp texture without being overly crumbly or dry, and because they are made with melted chocolate instead of cocoa powder, they have an actual chocolatey-ness to them that I always think is missing in chocolate cookies. The texture is the perfect balance of chewy and crispy, and because they're fairly thin, you can eat as many as you want without feeling guilty!... or maybe that last part is just me. I'm already fantasising about making them this summer to use as the base of homemade ice cream sandwiches-- yum!

The Verdict:

3 Spoons out of five. They're delicious, but they spread so much while they cook that in my (admittedly tiny European) oven, I had to cook them three or four at a time. Even using two sheets, that meant 4 batches for the 30-ish cookies I got, which is kind of a pain. Also, have I mentioned how much I hate melting chocolate? I'd still make them again, though-- especially once ice cream season rolls around.

The recipe:

Chocolate Drop Cookies

The Ingredients:

3 oz baking chocolate (if you have American-style baking chocolate, this is 3 squares)
1 cup sugar
½ cup butter, melted
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 ½ cups sifted flour
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
½ cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup finely chopped nuts of your choice (I used a mix of blanched almonds and brazil nuts)
12 sliced brazil nuts

THE DIRECTIONS:

Grease two cookie sheets and preheat oven to 350F/176C.
Melt chocolate by putting in a small bowl and microwaving for 10-sec intervals until smooth, stirring well after each interval.
Set aside to let cool.
Mix together sugar, melted butter, and egg in a medium-sized mixing bowl.
Add flour, baking soda, and salt, alternately adding milk after each ingredient.
Stir in melted chocolate, vanilla, and chopped nuts, stirring well to ensure uniform texture and consistency.
Using the smallest spoon you have, drop 1-inch balls of batter onto prepared cookie sheets, at least 2-3 inches apart.*
Press a slice of brazil nut into the top of each cookie and bake for 12 minutes or until edges are slightly darker than middles of each cookie.
Let stand on cookie sheet for 1-2 minutes before moving to cooling rack.

*Per my experience, you seriously do not want these bigger than 1 inch. I used a slightly rounded teaspoon to scoop the batter with after the first batch expanded to cover the entire cookie sheet and my cookies were “normal” cookie sized-- about 3 inches across.

Makes 24-30  

Spinach Salad with Bacon Vinaigrette

When I started this project, I separated the recipes into categories in hopes that I wouldn't get to the end of the project and somehow have ended up with nothing but 35 recipes for salad left.

There should have been no worries there. Of the dozen or so recipes behind the “salad” divider I created in the recipe box, only about three are lettuce-based. The rest? Mayonnaise, jello, or water chestnut based.* After my first week of cooking recipes from the box and accidentally choosing a lot of meat-centric dishes, I decided it was time for a salad. I chose one of the few veggie-based salads in the box, but it still has bacon in it, so healthy is relative.

Did you hear me? I said it has bacon in it, so here're your dinner plans for the evening. You can thank me later. Not only was this the easiest recipe I've made yet, but it was also the first one I've had help in cooking, which made it even better.

*sidenote here: water chestnuts? Really? My grandmother was a woman who had to put a note next to “garbanzo beans” on one recipe to remind herself to “look in the bean aisle for something that looks like hazelnuts” but she cooked regularly with water chestnuts??

The Verdict:

4 Spoons out of five. This is delicious, (relatively) healthy, and if you garnish it the way we did, it has the perfect mix of sweet, salty, bitter, and crunchy that I think every salad needs to be really interesting. However, the bacon vinaigrette only makes enough for a couple spoonfuls per salad, and we had to add a little oil and vinegar to keep the whole thing from being too dry. It's still being added to our rotation, though!

The Recipe:

Spinach Salad with Bacon Vinaigrette

THE INGREDIENTS:

2 heads little gem lettuce, 2 endives, or 3 handfuls of spinach, washed and well-drained
2-3 slices of bacon or 4 oz. lardons, cut into small pieces**
2 tbsp sugar
4-6 green onions, sliced
2-3 tbsp white wine vinegar, diluted with 1 tbsp water
Black pepper

A Blair Addition: Serve with sliced grapes, almonds, and radishes to bulk it up and add more sustenance. Also, I suspect it would be pretty great with a slice of goat cheese and a piece of garlic-rubbed toast.

**British bacon is nothing like American bacon and tastes way more like ham. If you live here in the UK and are making this salad, use lardons or pancetta as the grease from the pork is a necessary component of the dressing.

THE DIRECTIONS:

Dry the greens as much as possible and place them on two dinner plates.
Fry the lardons, pancetta, or bacon in a skillet until cooked through but still slightly tender.
Remove the pork from the pan with a slotted spoon and place on a paper towel to drain.
Turn heat to low and sprinkle sugar and onions on top of the bacon grease in the pan, scraping brown bits from the bottom all the while.
After onions have wilted and begun to caramelise, deglaze the pan by pouring the vinegar water into the pan and scraping up all the bits. (Watch your face during this step-- the vinegar will become steam and it doesn't feel great in your nose or eyes)
Pour the onions and the liquid from the pan directly onto each plate of greens. Greens will wilt slightly as you finish preparing the salads.
Sprinkle half the bacon onto each salad and give each plate a good grind of black pepper.
Garnish as desired (see above for the garnishes we chose) and enjoy!

Serves 2