A Cinderella Story - Part 1

This will be the first of what will become known as a “Cinderella Dish”.   Cinderella is a lamb that we bought from Gay and Kory Heindselman’s niece, who raised Cinderella as a county fair project.  For those of you unfamiliar with rural communities in which there are county fairs, I think I need to briefly explain. 

County fairs revolve around kids, family, and education.  Every spring, kids raise either a calf, piglet, or lamb with the idea of bringing the animal to market at the county fair in September.  These kids will often bottle feed these animals, and work with them for the better part of a year before they show them off to members of the community who then purchase them with the proceeds going directly to the kids who raised them.  Several youth have paid for their college education with money they earned from selling animals at the market stock sell. 

For the past several years Jacque and I have been buying a lamb at the market stock sell, or indirectly from a youth who raised the lamb, to show at the county fair.  We have one criteria - the lamb has to come from Gay and Kory’s “ranch”.  Gay and Kory raise great - great in these terms defined as tasty and tender - lambs!  This year their niece was too young to sell a lamb in the market stock sell. Instead, she showed it at the county fair, and we bought it directly from her there. 

One last comment on Cinderella’s history: By buying farm direct meat, we know what it was fed, how it was raised, and exactly where it came from.  The kids who raise these animals know that they are being raised with the intent of ending up on someone’s dinner table, and they benefit from that. Welcome to the real world.

Jacque had picked out a package of lamb chops for us tonight.  Since this was our first meal from Cinderella, I wanted to keep it fairly simple. I decided to toss them in a combination of soy sauce, olive oil, and Montreal Steak Seasoning.  Because of the saltiness of the soy sauce and the Montreal Steak Seasoning, I did not marinate them. 

I opted to broil them on the second rack setting in the oven; this was a mistake/ trade off.  I was fearful that the lamb chops were not fully defrosted, and I was trying to reduce the chances of my smoke alarm going off - a common occurrence when I cook.  As a result of this choice I did not get the coloration I like. They also lacked a little bit of the crispiness broiling normally gives to the fat and on the bone. 

I finished them with a drizzle of store bought tzatziki sauce.  Keeping stuff like tzatziki sauce in your fridge gives you a lot of last minute options to just add a little finish to a meal. 

On the side I prepared quinoa with mushrooms sautéed in diluted beef broth. I am a big fan of using broth when I make rice or quinoa; it adds a nice flavor and is a real easy way to dress up.  I added chopped mushrooms and a less than half a tablespoon of olive oil to the quinoa before I set to simmer.

Our vegetable tonight was cauliflower.  I simply steamed, (actually in this case over-steamed), the cauliflower and then tossed in some pesto sauce I had left over and a little Parmesan cheese.

Our salad tonight was a chopped spinach salad, with tomatoes, cucumber, and radish, all in a Blue Cheese Vinaigrette.  I finished this with a handful of sliced almonds and grapes cut in half.

We enjoyed tonight’s dinner with the last half of a bottle of Wapato Point Cellars 2010 Red Delicious.  When I asked Jacque for her opinion of the wine, the first comment out of her mouth was, “A little harsh.”  After looking at the bottle, it is “table wine”.

On a scale from 1-10, I am going to rate tonight’s meal somewhere around 6½… Jacque says I am too tough on myself.