Leg of lamb

When cooking with wine, one is advised to cook with something you'd drink! Since I don't drink wine and Greg had never bought a bottle before (neither of us are wine connoisseurs), Greg called Lindz and asked what kind we should get. Having watched plenty of Julia Child (when she was older), she recommended this brand. It was the only one I recognized so we went with it. Greg's very first purchased bottle of wine! It cooked down very well in the sauce.

Our list of ingredients: Leg of lamb, lemon juice, garlic, rosemary, chives, onion, parsley, chicken broth, red wine and couscous


Rubbing on the garlic, rosemary, lemony goodness! (Salt and pepper as well)


Caramelizing in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes before turning it down to 325 degrees and cooking for 60 more minutes or until internal temp is 130.


Creating a sauce from the pan drippings! This is where the red wine, broth, onion, parsley, chives and rosemary come into play. Reduce til desired consistency. (Took about half an hour for us.) We strained ours at the end.


Lamb resting so the juices don't run when cutting. (Yes, that is a pampered chef cutting board you spy!)


Greg slicing away at his masterpiece.


He wishes it was more pink, but it was left in the oven a little longer than he wanted. I thought it was great, but I know how I can be hard on myself when baking/cooking. Not bad for the first time!

Side dish of couscous to which we added toasted pine nuts.

I tried to get a nice picture of it all together, but no luck. I'll need to keep practicing with presentation. The dish itself is a success and we will have lamb for several more meals. Next task is to come up with flavorful recipes for leftovers!

Mascarpone Frosting

This is a recipe for one of the best frostings ever. That is saying a lot as I am not a fan of frosting, my least favorite being cream cheese frosting. I usually have cream cheese in savory applications so my brain has never been able to wrap around the idea of cream cheese being sweet.

Mascarpone is an 'Italian sweet cream cheese.' According to the container, it has 1/2 the calories of butter.

Ingredients
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1/2 cup mascarpone cheese

2 cups powdered sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla

1. Mix together butter and mascarpone.
2. Add powdered sugar. (The powdered sugar I added was just shy of 2 cups.)
3. Add salt, lemon juice and vanilla.
4. Texture of the frosting isn't smooth, so once everything is incorporated, it is ready to go.

I came across this recipe thanks to my friend Rachel. She sent me a link for a poppy seed cake with mascarpone frosting. The cake itself turned out fine, though I fear I over-cooked it just a tad. I decided to make cupcakes instead of cake rounds (easier for me to transport) and wasn't sure of the time needed. It is a buttery batter that compliments the sweet frosting nicely. It was topped with freshly sliced strawberries to cut the richness of the dessert.

The finished cupcakes were eaten before I realized I hadn't taken a picture. But believe me, they looked cute and were quite yummy.