So I went out on a bit of a limb for dinner last night. We feasted on artichoke, lamb with Greek mint yogurt, roasted baby potatoes, cranberry wine, and a slice of cherry pie. The potatoes and cherry pie aren’t a culinary stretch by any means seeing as a well-trained donkey could probably make them, and for me, a steamed artichoke wasn’t a stretch either. I used to devour eat them regularly – leaves, heart, stem and all. Ted did not partake in the eating of the artichoke, which is totally okay because I didn’t have to (nor did I really intend to) share the goodness. He asked what the green spiky thing was, scrunched up his nose, and then proceeded to make up some little rhyming jingle about how green spiny things are for me and not him. I tell the man daily that I have no idea why he doesn’t do commercial jingles for a living. He comes up with the dumbest, funniest jingles, alternate names and slogans for companies (that was a Friend Olympics, if you caught it!). It’s a true talent.
Anyhow, I’ve never cooked lamb before, and to be honest I don’t know of many 24-year-old’s who cook lamb for dinner just to cook lamb for dinner. In my book, lamb is for Christmas, Easter, a Mother’s Day Sunday Brunch at the Menger Hotel, or, you know, for fancy people (“Charles! Fetch the lamb with the plum wine and mint reduction sauce and whipped champagne potatoes, please! Just a little something I whipped up between organizing my case of diamonds and stiletto shopping for Fluffykins. Cigar, anyone?”) But I think for my first time cooking lamb, it turned out pretty great – flavorful, juicy, and tender – and the yogurt mint sauce was weird on its own, but complimented the lamb really well. I’ll stamp it a success.
We’re experiencing another day of cold, wet, gloomy rain. But I’m happy with it because at least it’s warm enough to rain instead of snow for once. From the snippets I’ve heard on the TV and radio, the nasty weather should set in again tomorrow. I’m not sure if they mean snow or ice, but either way I’ll be tucked away inside our warm and cozy 56 degree house dreaming about all the awesome things we can enjoy now that we’ve busted open our new Cincinnati Entertainment coupon book (thanks mom & dad!). I can tell this book and I are going to be good friends already. There’s coupons for Kroger, Culver’s, ice cream, laser tag, bowling, the roller arena, movies, mini-golf, themed hotel suites, the symphony and pops orchestras, hockey games, Cincinnati Shakespeare, shopping and so much more. Most are buy one get one free, which works out just excellently when there are two people! Some are four admissions for the price of two, which just means we need visitors. HINT. And for those of you who have been following along, the guest room upstairs is the warmest room in the house, we’ve finally cleaned up all the carpet stains, I’m hanging some wall art, and there’s even a TV in there – so now there’s no excuse for a lack of visitors.
The dishwasher repair dude just stopped by and fixed the the hunk-o’-junk with a new part in like 0.8 seconds. If you remember the old tenants and their mini-beasts took home the Stroke of Genius award for clogging it with plastic candy wrappers. It’ll be so nice to not have to wash and dry 25 pieces of silverware by hand anymore – that’s a time suck if I’ve ever experienced one. I’m also going to be planting my little indoor herb garden of basil, cilantro, dill, and parsley today. I figure if the seeds take and flourish, this is a wise investment considering I use fresh herbs in all my cooking so I buy herbs nearly every time I go to the grocery store anyway. In about 3 weeks or so I should see some sproutlings. However, I can’t seem to find mint seeds and spring is coming. Spring & summer=mojitos and mojitos=fresh mint. And what else would I use to garnish the lemon lavender cupcakes that I’m anxious to make? You can see my dilemma.
