I am so late in this post. The last few days have been crazy hectic for me. So, I had to just prioritize everything and unfortunately blogging had to be postponed, but for a good reason.

I am going to share a little secret with you. I and Jill Mant another fellow blogger, now being  a friend who has a beautiful blog called SaucyCooks, are planning a culinary trip to Athens for everyone who wants to participate. I am currently trying to schedule the itinerary for this trip, which will include cooking classes with a very famous Greek chef, wine tasting in Greek vineyards, visit to an olive press and tasting of unique Greek products, products that you have never tasted and probably won’t be able to taste outside Greece. Also, it will include Athens site-seeing and lunches and dinners to selected restaurants with Greek cuisine, traditional and contemporary.

So, as you can understand I was and still am quite busy here, as I want for everything to be perfectly organized and everyone to have a fabulous time here.

Having all this on my shoulders, I asked Jill if she could make a guest post for me and she jumped in to it without second thought. So, I am passing the ball to her to tell you what she made and how she made it! By the way, she couldn’t have chosen a better dish, since I have absolutely no post on lamb. My husband is not a fan, so I don’t cook it at home.

When Katerina wrote to ask me to do her “a favor” I have to admit to taking a deep breath. You see she and I have been partnering on putting together a fairy tale culinary trip to Greece for food bloggers this September and since she lives there, she has been doing most of the “heavy lifting”.

I have sat back in my home in Colorado taking the helm as back seat driver with suggestions such as “Find a high profile Greek Chef”, “Let’s make sure that we offer breathtaking photo opportunities”, “We need to help our guests become immersed in the culture of Greece”, “Don’t you think we have to visit vineyards and do wine tasting”, “How can we give them a taste of a Greek’s Greece?”, etc.

And she has responded with everything I could imagine and more! We will be taking cooking lessons from a very famous Greek Chef, one that has a TV show in the Greek TV and take beautiful photos of local vineyards, etc.

If you think you may want to join us email me at [email protected] or Katerina at [email protected] and we’ll keep you posted.

Anyhoo, I digress, which if you follow my blog, I often do!! I received Katerina’s email the morning after I had made the most killer marinated and grilled rack of lamb with roasted garlic and broccoli for dinner. This of course made Katerina’s request super easy, as I already had the recipe and the photos!

Our weather has been so bizarre for the past month or so, alternating between lovely sunny days with temperatures which make you think that summer is here, to cold, gray and rainy ones, that when we have a few days like we have had this week you just have to be outside.

This is the perfect meal for these kinds of days. Very little preparation requiring you to be in the kitchen and no indoor cooking that demands any more attention than checking to insure that it does not burn. I am assuming that you have an outdoor grill, but if for some crazy reason you do not, you can always roast your meat in the oven with your vegetable.

I marinated and grilled a rack of lamb, but could have just as easily substituted chicken or pork, if you are not a lamb lover. Whatever you choose as your protein, make sure you marinade for at least five hours, but feel free to make this the evening before and grill it when you get home the next night.

The broccoli was delicious roasted with olive oil, lots of slivered garlic and a generous amount of sea salt. I keep a spray pump full of extra virgin olive oil and turned the broccoli over after the first spray, to make sure that all the broccoli flowerets and stems were well coated. If you are like George W. and don’t care for broccoli I think you are insane, but you can easily substitute asparagus which is abundant this time of year or even cleaned and halved Brussel sprouts.

I also chose to reduce the marinade on the stove after I had removed the lamb and had it on the grill. This made a delicious sauce for the meat and if you want to prepare a starch such as a potato, rice or even quinoa you’ll be very glad to have something to soak up the delectable flavors. The meat came off the grill succulent and bursting with unami. This is a marinade that I promise you will want to make again and again and again. I know I will.

 

Rack of Lamb & Marinade

Ingredients

1 or 2 Lamb Racks, depending on number of diners

¼ cup Worcestershire Sauce

¼ cup Mirin

½ cup Soy Sauce

2 in piece of fresh Ginger, sliced thin and then pounded with a mallet to smash it

2 Tablespoons Ketchup

8-10 cloves Garlic, finely chopped

4-5 Shallots, finely chopped

½ cup Honey

½ cup Pama (Pomegranate Liquor)

2 Tablespoons fresh squeezed Lemon Juice

2 Tablespoons Chili Paste

 

Preparation

Place lamb rack(s) in a large plastic bag with a zipper top.

Combine all other ingredients in a bowl and whisk until well blended.

Pour the marinade over the meat, remove air from bag, and place in the refrigerator in such a way as to insure that most of the meat is covered in the marinade.

Marinade for a minimum of 5 hours. You can marinade for 24 hours if you would like.

Turn occasionally to insure that all the meat is covered.

When ready to cook, preheat grill on high, or if oven roasting preheat oven to 400F/200C.

Grill or roast for about 20 minutes for rare or until it is done to your taste.

 

Garlic Roasted Broccoli

Ingredients

1 large head of Broccoli, trimmed and cut into medium sized stalks

Extra Virgin Olive Oil Spray

4-5 cloves Garlic, sliced thin

Sea Salt or Kosher Salt to taste

 

Preparation

Preheat oven to 400F/200C.

Place Broccoli on a rimmed baking sheet or roasting pan.

Spray generously with olive oil, making sure to coat each stalk in its entirety.

Stick slices of garlic under and in the broccoli flowerets and under and on top of stalks.

Sprinkle generously with salt.

Roast for about 20 minutes, checking after 15 to insure that the flowerets don’t begin to burn.

 

A few words about me

After 27 years in media, I left to pursue my two passions: writing and cooking. While I can not speak for Margo, my blogging partner, for me SaucyCooks is the place where I can share the recipes I create and wax philosophically about my life.

What I love about food is the community and the memories which revolve around it. Whether it is the way friends gather in your kitchen and chatter with you while you cook, the intimate sharing with my husband over a lovingly prepared dinner for two or the amazing conversations that occur when dining at my daughter Jenna’s house with my four grandchildren, we are creating memories.

I love the way my daughter Chelsea, who prepares amazing and beautiful meals for me when I visit her in San Francisco, sends me recipes for things she has made that she knows I will love. When my son Jordan visits from Oakland and turns my kitchen into my private vegan cooking school we are building a bridge that bonds us.

Oh, I love everything about food and cooking, from wandering through Farmers Markets, to perusing the many ethnic markets scattered through most communities to buying ridiculously large quantities of food stuffs at Costco and then going home and figuring out 101 ways to use them.

I love the meditative qualities that surround cooking; the melodic chopping, the soothing sounds of sizzling pots and pans and the way solitary cooking takes me to “my zone”.