Lamb with White Bean and Garlic Puree

stike

Pics are really scattershot here. None of the lamb cooking, for example. Ah well. Had guests over, and sat out back on a day that started around 90 something degrees but ended up much cooler. Had afire even (more for light than heat, though).

Scene of the dinner. Haven't been out here as much as we like this year, rained through June. Hollyhocks are already at their top, last blooms ready to fall. This is the only spot they'll grow.



Shot of the Oregano in flower. Not as good as woodoggies... Used the oregano and its flowers in an olive oil vinaigrette for some more eggplant (no pic )



marinated a boneless leg of lamb in some dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar, and other stuff i doan zackly amemba... here's the "art" shot. hahaha onions were for the bean puree (next pic). That dish is one of the vintage pyrex dishes my wife liberated from her mom's back-of-the-cupboard



made a puree of some whit cannelini beans, fresh sage from the garden, garlic bulb (roasted in the egg), healthy dose (lit. and fig.) of olive oil, and sauteed red onion, salt, pepper, balsamic v.



didn't really take many pics once the guests arrived. kind of odd to be telling them "hold on while i photograph your food"

snuck a pic of the food on the ostensible reason that i was taken a pic of one of our guests. he had no clue. i would crop him out but it would cut off the top of the wine bottle (kidding, P.B.)



served it with mixed greens dressed with a quick and not-too-bad homemade dijon dressing. (thanks to A.B. for the taste test), grilled asparagus, and a cold grilled eggplant "salad" dressed with the vinaigrette.

almost forgot dessert. grilled some halved peaches and pluots, served over vanilla ice cream with a little raspberry sauce my wife made up while i was grilling. here's a decent shot before i realized i'd forgotten the raspberry drizzle.



i think it's a better photo than this next one, but i did want to go back and shoot one with the raspberry sauce because it was really tasty stuff and my wife had gone through the trouble of making it.



lost in speed chess to my 9 year old (four minute game, two minutes each), enjoyed some great wine. tricked them into bringing two bottles. never tell your guests what you are serving, that way they need to bring a red and a white. hahaa one was a white bordeaux, the other a really great rose', which we had with the lamb. also downed a few glasses of sangria in the run-up to dinner. a lazy, perfect, thrown together summer saturday in august.

Big'un

Looks like a great time. Curious, what's a "pluots"?

stike

looked like a plum, but according to one of our guests (foodies, both) it is a cross between a plum and apricot, which is exactly what it tasted like, and which described the texture to a "t"

Zippylip

the pictures are culinary magazine quality, particularly the shot of the vintage pyrex w/chopped onions, the the final dessert shot is just ridiculous.

on another note, I hadn't considered the temperature of ribs & you were right. Normally I rub & re-wrap my ribs & refrigerate overnight, so when I put them on the egg, they go directly from the fridge to the preheated smoking egg. Yesterday for reasons I cannot explain, I lit the chimney, came in & mustarded & rubbed the ribs, left them on the kitchen counter for about an hour while I was outside f'n with the egg to burn off the diesel black smoke & stabilize the temp, so by the time the ribs went on they were probably closer to room temp than fridge temp.

putting the ring (or lack of ring) aside for a moment, I also had barely any smoke flavor either, is this attributable to the same oversight?

Beli

Mi amigo stike

those last two shots are prize winners......wowwwwwwwwwwww just beautiful........& delicious I should say..............Felicidades!!!

"Sparky"

That looks delicious Jeff :woohoo: Great pics man,especially the third,fourth,and last two :ohmy: :P

stike

shouldn't be. the smoke ring is the result of a chemical reaction, and when the meat hits 140, it stops forming. if the meat goes on warm, it has that much less time to hang out forming the ring.

but it doesn't reflect how much smoke is on the meat. you could have zero smoke ring, but smoke that thing for the rest of the cook and it sure would be smokey tasting. maybe just not enough smoke?

thanks for the props on the pics.

this post and the last one (color:purple) ge/got a lot of traffic, but not many replies. thanks for taking the time!

J

stike

thank you , sir!

are you entirely back to normal after your scare on the machine in the ravine?!?!

hope you are well

stike

thanks muchly. kinda been taking the time lately to try for better photos.

Bacchus

Very Nice