Grilled Lamb

When start your life you have no idea who will enter it or who will leave it. Honestly when you start off life as a baby the only things you're thinking about are; "I'm hungry," "There's no way I'm cleaning up the mess I just made in my diaper," and "I'm only going to retain, at the very most, blurry shapes from this period of my life, so why am I having such complex thoughts?" The point I'm eventually going to make is that sometimes in life you meet cool people and on rarer occasions you get to work with those people. 

That's what happened with this post. See that fancy looking ice cream up above? Well it just so happened Katy's good friend Michelle has a dessert blog, called More Chocolate! So, we decided it would be a great idea to work on a post together. 

We figured since it is summer that it's only natural that we should grill something. I decided to grill up some lamb and Michelle grilled up some peaches to go with her homemade vanilla ice cream, which you can find on her blog here. 

Grilled Lamb Chops with Peach Balsamic Sauce

Serves 3-4 people

• 1 rack of lamb or 8 chops

Marinade:

• 1/4 cup Balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 cup Port
• 1 Lemon juiced
•  Fresh Thyme
• 1 teaspoon Olive Oil
• 1/2 cup Water
• 1/2 teaspoon Kosher Salt

1. Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. If you purchased a rack of lamb because that's all the store had, slice the rack into chops. Add the chops to the marinade and let sit for 30 minutes in the fridge.
2. Fire up that grill. Once it's hot enough grill the chops for 3-5 minutes depending on the heat of your grill, then flip and cook the other side for 2 minutes or just long enough to get some grill marks on it. Plate and serve with this other stuff that's featured below, and not just because I took the time to write all of it out.

Peach Balsamic Sauce

• Balsamic Vinegar
• Peaches Peeled and diced
• Lemon Juice
• Lemon Zest
• Port
• Salt
• Pepper
• Flour

1. In a small sauce pan add everything listed except the flour and heat over high until it reaches a boil. Once the sauce reaches a boiling point reduce the heat to medium and let simmer for 20 minutes. Use a hand blender to pulverize those peach pieces into a sauce like consistency.
2. Stir in the flour and let the sauce thicken. Serve over the grilled lamb or really anything you want - lamb, burgers, ice cream, Cheetos.

Purple Cauliflower Basil Purée

• 1 head Purple Cauliflower
• 3 Tablespoons Greek Yogurt
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• 1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
• 5 large Fresh Basil Leaves shredded

1. Break the cauliflower head into pieces and remove the large steam. Steam the cauliflower for 7 minutes or until it's slightly soft. 
2. Drain the purple Kool-Aid-like water from the pan and add the yogurt, oil, salt and basil to the cauliflower. Use a food processor or a hand blender to blend into a paste-like consistency. Serve as a side.

Grilled Onion

• 1 large Onion peeled and halved
• 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
• 2 pinches of Salt

1. Drizzle oil over onion.
2. Sprinkle salt over onion.
3. Grill for 15 min on side of grill where the coals aren't too hot.
4. Slice thinly.

All wood engraving depicting images of my food by Katy Weaver. And don't forget to check out Michelle's post for dessert!