Notes From Zone 4

It seemed sort of necessary to have leg of lamb for Christmas dinner today. There was only four of us, but our lambs are very small, so we defrosted two legs and cooked them up. I rubbed olive oil all over them, then stone ground mustard, freshly ground pepper, kosher salt, and minced garlic. I cooked it at 450°F for 20 minutes, then turned it down to 300°F and cooked it for another hour. I added a bit of frozen lamb stock to the pan after it was done, and made some gravy with all of the drippings. Man was that good.

I’ll make more lamb stock with the bones left over from this meal, even though Deez has decided that living on a sheep farm is a very good thing! We gave each pup some bone after dinner, because who couldn’t spoil these dogs? It still amazes me how they devour the bones. When they are done, there is nothing left at all.

We got an email the other day from an artist in Iceland, who said we should be sure to smoke a leg of lamb for the traditional Christmas dinner. I want to try that, but I think we might want to wait until summer, with our homemade smoker and all. I’m not sure we could get it hot enough when it’s 20°F outside.