rosemary roasted rack of lamb with mint pesto

• rack of lamb
• fresh rosemary sprigs
• fresh mint, chopped fine
• fresh basil, chopped fine
• whole garlic cloves
• 1/2 lemon

Combine mint, basil, juice of half the lemon and a swirl of good quality olive oil in a large bowl, set aside. In large skillet over a high flame heat a couple of swirls of olive oil, brown each side of lamb for 2 minutes, transfer to oven safe dish. Cover lamb with fresh rosemary and garlic cloves and bake in oven at 325 degrees for 15 minutes or until cooked to desired doneness. Once cooked, discard rosemary and garlic, spoon pesto over lamb immediately as it comes out of the oven.

The dish: Okay, I lied. Not even a month ago I told you that I only eat lamb once a year, and here we have yet another preparation of it coming out of the red room. I promise that if it had not been Easter, this never would have happened. True to form, mint was in this recipe as well and it played quite nicely off the basil. This was the first time I ever tried cooking a rack of lamb and everyone thought it was great, so that was a relief. One glaring thing wrong with the dish is the absence of those little paper chef hat looking things they put on the lamb at fancy restaurants. If anyone has any idea of where to buy those things (or what they're called for that matter) please let me know. Just do me a favor and wait a while before telling me, because if I had them in my hands the temptation to do another rack of lamb would be too great and I can't bring it upon myself to lie so frequently.

lamb and pepper fried brown rice

• quart of cooked brown rice (take out works great)
• 2 yellow bell peppers, seeded and cut into bite sized pieces
• 2 orange bell peppers, seeded and cut into bite sized pieces
• 1 pound of leg of lamb, trimmed of fat and bone and cut into bite sized pieces
• fresh mint leaves, coarsely chopped
• wok oil
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• tablespoons soy sauce (I had some leftover ginger soy so I combined it with regular)
• 1 tablespoon mirin
• pinch of ground chili pepper

In a small bowl wisk together sesame oil, rice vinegar, soy sauce, mirin and chili pepper, set aside. Heat wok over highest flame you got for about 5 minutes. Add a swirl of wok oil and toss in the peppers stirring frequently, cook for about 3-5 minutes. Add another swirl of wok oil and add lamb, stirring frequently for about 5 minutes or until lamb appears fully cooked. Add another swirl of oil and add rice stirring mixture for additional 3 minutes, or longer if the rice was cold. Remove wok from heat and continue stirring for 2 minutes. Right before serving stir in mint and sauce into mixture.

The dish: My mother is a schoolteacher and as such growing up there was always a healthy emphasis placed upon reading. To this day I have a well worn library card and love to read books I would never want to own, but enjoy going through. The inspiration for this dish came from a book on Japanese pub cuisine (who knew such an animal existed), where it was done as more of a stir fry and without the same sauce and mint. The idea for the sauce came from mostly stuff I had lying around, you could omit a few things or just use a prepared wok sauce and be fine. Inspiration for the mint is also rooted in my upbringing; a few times a year my mom would make lamb chops and always serve them with mint jelly. I only eat lamb about once a year or so but have a hard time enjoying it without something mint, so I threw the fresh stuff in for good measure and it worked great, just be sure to add it at the last minute as the flavor quickly cooks off. In addition to learning, thrift was another virtue present in my childhood home and I'm proud to say that Hannaford has yellow and orange peppers on sale this week and I've already made two things using them, count on at least one more.