Mary Had A Little Lamb...

Dear friends and family, tonight, I feel as though I have committed a terrible crime against humanity. What you see above (if the title didn't give it away), are lamb chops. LAMB chops. Chops from a sweet, innocent, little lamb. I bought them yesterday, and had a very hard time bringing myself to do it. They're from a LAMB!!! Come on now, how adorable are lambs? And yes, I said lamb, not sheep, meaning it was just a baby!

I made the last recipe in the "Everyday Grills and Sautes" section of the "Everyday Entrees" chapter. And yes, it was Grilled Lamb Chops. I started by making a marinade of EVOO (yes, the real stuff), fresh rosemary, garlic, salt, and cayenne pepper. I put this all in my food chopper to form a paste, but lo and behold, the blade on my chopper don't quite hit the bottom of the barrel. And there wasn't much to the marinade. So really all the copper did was fling the ingredients around. Luckily, I had chopped most of the ingredients pretty well, so at that point I just said "screw it" and rubbed it on the chops and let them marinate.

As the chops marinated, I preheated the toaster oven and prepared some Brussels sprouts for a side dish. These grills and sautes recipes are never complete meals, and I never really know how they will turn out (let's face it, I'm no grill pro yet) so I'm always sure to roast some vegetables for the side. That way I know I won't starve.

I let the chops marinate for about half an hour (the very minimum suggested. I would have let them sit all day, but Tuesdays and Thursdays are my busy days, and I really didn't have time to do this at 6 a.m.). I then placed them on the smokin' hot George Foreman grill. According to the recipe, you need to sear the chops for two minutes on each side, then cook them for an additional three minutes per side to achieve a medium-rare doneness. I personally don't do medium-rare (I like my meat thoroughly dead), so I went for about five minutes per side.

I had no idea how these were supposed to look (or that they would contain so little meat, but it was a lamb after all), so I was a little freaked out at the abundance of red juice that resulted from cooking the chops and kept telling myself that it wasn't blood (cause it wasn't...right?).

It's obvious in the picture above that my marinade was hardly a paste. You can see some pretty full pieces of rosemary on those chops. This is probably why it tasted mostly like rosemary. I think I got a hint of lamb, it tasted like a mild steak, and it wasn't bad from what I could tell. It probably would have tasted better had it sit longer in the marinade, and if I had actually made a paste. I did eat the little bit of meat that was on there though. It was hardly a tuna situation. And of course, I ate every last Brussels sprout because they were roasted to perfection :)

And that is my crime story for the night. I've still got a guilty conscience about the whole thing. I think there was an episode of the Simpsons where Lisa couldn't eat meat because she kept seeing this lamb talk to her and make her feel guilty. I now know how she feels. But I'm not about to give up eating other meat.

I will be cooking again on Thursday so check back for some fun with veggies!!