Figgy Lamb

Yeah, that's right, I'm stepping up my culinary game and this is a damn sexy dish. Sure, I could hold myself back and make some quinoa and kale dish that could get a million pins on Pinterest, or I could make a bucket of bacon and get a million views on reddit, but why would I restrain myself when there's dishes like this to be made. This is a cooking blog and dammit I'm going to cook dishes that blow other blogs out of the water. Oh, and of course, this blog is for making jokes about nature's scrotums (figs).

Well I guess I should describe what makes up this piece of art. If you don't think food is art then you're probably Guy Fieri. These are lamb chops cooked in a fig and orange sauce on a bed of micro greens with a fig vinaigrette and on the side, baked carrots and purple potatoes with a cheese sauce. While you're reading this post just try to forget that time you ate a chicken nugget off the floor and just pretend you're a foodie.

Here's a fun fact about figs: if you want start a fruit fly farm just leave a plate of figs out overnight and soon you'll have enough fruit flies in your kitchen to be a fully functional and licensed fruit fly rancher. Your farm subsidies should get to you in 6-8 weeks. Also, you can sell the fruit fly milk at your local farmer's market.

Fig & Orange Lamb Chops

• 1/5 lbs Lamb Chops
• 1 tablespoon Butter
• 1/4 cup Port
• 2 Fresh Figs quartered
• 1 Orange
• cut 3 1in. zests
• juiced

1. In a small sauce pan add the port, orange zest, juice and figs. Cook on high, covered for 10 minutes. 
2. Place the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat, cook the butter until it starts to brown slightly. Add the lamb chops. Cook each side for roughly 30 seconds. Remove the chops from the pan and place them in a oven-proof pan along with the port and fig mixture.
3. Bake at 375° for 25 minutes.

Fig Vinaigrette

• 1 fresh Fig diced
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil

1. In a bowl mix all the ingredients together. To fully emulsify the dressing and pulverize the fig I recommend using a hand blender if you have one, or you can just throw it in a blender or food processor.

Baked Carrots and Purple Fingerlings

• 3 Carrots 
• 4 Purple Fingerling Potatoes
• 1 tablespoon Olive oil
• Salt & Pepper to taste

1. Toss the cut up vegetables in a mixing bowl with the olive oil, salt and pepper. Feel free to add a dash of cumin. Place in a oven proof cooking vessel and cook at 375° for 20 minutes. Half way through the cooking time flip the vegetables to avoid sticking.

Cheese Sauce

• 1/2 cup Cream
• 1/4 grated Manchego Cheese
• 1 tablespoon Butter
• A whisper of Whiskey

1. In a small skillet melt the butter over medium heat. Add the cream and cheese. Stir until melted. Once the cheese is melted stir in the whiskey. 
2. Add to anything you want to make taste better, including that beverage you're drinking right now. 

It's time for the moral of the post: don't hold yourself back. It does more harm than good. Also don't stress about the small things, if you have a loose structure to your project (or life), things will fall into place. This loose structure thing also applies to engineers - don't worry about the details, your plan for that highway overpass is good enough. 

Figgy photos by Katy Weaver

Grilled Lamb

When start your life you have no idea who will enter it or who will leave it. Honestly when you start off life as a baby the only things you're thinking about are; "I'm hungry," "There's no way I'm cleaning up the mess I just made in my diaper," and "I'm only going to retain, at the very most, blurry shapes from this period of my life, so why am I having such complex thoughts?" The point I'm eventually going to make is that sometimes in life you meet cool people and on rarer occasions you get to work with those people. 

That's what happened with this post. See that fancy looking ice cream up above? Well it just so happened Katy's good friend Michelle has a dessert blog, called More Chocolate! So, we decided it would be a great idea to work on a post together. 

We figured since it is summer that it's only natural that we should grill something. I decided to grill up some lamb and Michelle grilled up some peaches to go with her homemade vanilla ice cream, which you can find on her blog here. 

Grilled Lamb Chops with Peach Balsamic Sauce

Serves 3-4 people

• 1 rack of lamb or 8 chops

Marinade:

• 1/4 cup Balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 cup Port
• 1 Lemon juiced
•  Fresh Thyme
• 1 teaspoon Olive Oil
• 1/2 cup Water
• 1/2 teaspoon Kosher Salt

1. Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. If you purchased a rack of lamb because that's all the store had, slice the rack into chops. Add the chops to the marinade and let sit for 30 minutes in the fridge.
2. Fire up that grill. Once it's hot enough grill the chops for 3-5 minutes depending on the heat of your grill, then flip and cook the other side for 2 minutes or just long enough to get some grill marks on it. Plate and serve with this other stuff that's featured below, and not just because I took the time to write all of it out.

Peach Balsamic Sauce

• Balsamic Vinegar
• Peaches Peeled and diced
• Lemon Juice
• Lemon Zest
• Port
• Salt
• Pepper
• Flour

1. In a small sauce pan add everything listed except the flour and heat over high until it reaches a boil. Once the sauce reaches a boiling point reduce the heat to medium and let simmer for 20 minutes. Use a hand blender to pulverize those peach pieces into a sauce like consistency.
2. Stir in the flour and let the sauce thicken. Serve over the grilled lamb or really anything you want - lamb, burgers, ice cream, Cheetos.

Purple Cauliflower Basil Purée

• 1 head Purple Cauliflower
• 3 Tablespoons Greek Yogurt
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• 1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
• 5 large Fresh Basil Leaves shredded

1. Break the cauliflower head into pieces and remove the large steam. Steam the cauliflower for 7 minutes or until it's slightly soft. 
2. Drain the purple Kool-Aid-like water from the pan and add the yogurt, oil, salt and basil to the cauliflower. Use a food processor or a hand blender to blend into a paste-like consistency. Serve as a side.

Grilled Onion

• 1 large Onion peeled and halved
• 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
• 2 pinches of Salt

1. Drizzle oil over onion.
2. Sprinkle salt over onion.
3. Grill for 15 min on side of grill where the coals aren't too hot.
4. Slice thinly.

All wood engraving depicting images of my food by Katy Weaver. And don't forget to check out Michelle's post for dessert!