I'll never forget one night when the Kid was about 4 and we were having Tilapia for dinner. She loved the stuff and we grilled it quite a bit that summer along with some roasted veggies. One of these nights, while we were eating it out on the patio, husband said, "Can you pass the fish?" She said, "Daddy, its not fish, its tilapia." It was also the summer that she loved the movies Finding Nemo and Cars and I guess we had just never really had that talk with her that "tilapia" was Nemo's cousin and as they say, "what you don't know, can't hurt you" (or create drama that your mama has to deal with.)
Remembering this story last week, I was feeling a bit nervous about how I was going to tell her what was for dinner that night, Roast Lamb (pg. 200). Now we've had a few other lamb recipes but somehow the fact that lamb was in it just never came up. I guess I also hesitate a little at the thought of eating the cute little fuzzy baby sheep and maybe a bit of this thinking that she'll "freak out" is really just me projecting some of my own feelings onto her.
What happened next is quite surprising. I have this cool cookbook stand and I've gotten in the habit of opening the Food Revolution book to the page of the next recipe and sitting it on the counter. The Kid spotted what we were having and kept saying it over and over again. "Mom, when will the lamb be ready?" "Mom, what does lamb taste like?" Each time she did I corrected her and said, "Let's just call it roast, please?" So maybe she doesn't have as much trouble with this as I do. The "Roast" was prepared like all of the others in this chapter and it turned out so, so good. Kid LOVED it (shocking right?), she even had a second helping. Husband loved it too. To go with it, I made Mint Sauce (pg.210) and Baked French Potatoes (pg. 224). The Mint Sauce was fine but mine seemed to turn out a bit more watery than Jamie's. The Baked French Potatoes were surprisingly tasty and reminded us of french onion soup.
I'm shocked at how much my family loved this dinner. I definitely underestimated the Roast Lamb. I think I was also reminded of an important parenting lesson, don't make your "stuff" into their "stuff."
Recipes cooked: 146
Recipes left: 27
Days left: 13
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this sounds intimidating, from a time standpoint. Roughly how long did it take you to prepare this meal?
ReplyDeleteGetting the lamb ready to go in the oven was easy. Then it needed to cook for 1 1/2 hours. While it was cooking I made the potatoes and they cooked with the roast for the last half of the cooking time. The mint sauce just took a minute to chop up in the food processor. Its definitely a weekend meal but it wasn't anymore time consuming than a roast chicken.
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