Lamb Chops with Pistachio Tapenade
Recently I’ve been having some trouble sleeping. I have no problem falling asleep, in fact, often I’m ready to drop my head into my dinner, but I have been waking up in the middle of the night, but despite feeling exhausted, I am unable to fall back asleep. I’ve ramped up work in lab and also re-established some routine of physical exercise (so much for not making resolutions for the New Year?), and then battled a mild cold, but it hasn’t left much time or energy to clean the apartment or run some much needed errands (I only have one elastic hair tie left in my possession and am running dangerously low on clean underwear), or post about recent deliciousness on my Tumblr! This has contributed to my inability to fall back asleep when I wake in the middle of the night/ungodly early in the morning because I can’t stop worrying about all the things left undone at lab and at home… and an unplanned wedding (eek).
So here I am… it’s 3 am, I have failed for the last hour to fall back asleep, and since I don’t think my neighbors (or Andreas) would appreciate me vacuuming the apartment (even though it is in desperate need) at this hour, instead, I will take advantage of the extra time to share these fabulous lamb chops and catch up on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills!
I didn’t always like lamb chops, but have slowly acquired a love for them (as I have for coffee and tofu), though this love has certainly been accelerated by living with and loving a lamb-loving Greek. Some may complain that lamb is too “game-y”- to which I would argue makes it almost tastier than beef (I say “almost” because I could never choose between lamb and beef if I could only bring one meat to eat for the rest of my life on a desert island) because it’s distinct and tastes like.. well, an animal. But even if you think that lamb is not your favorite type of meat, this recipe is not just for lamb but also for a tasty pistachio and olive tapenade. Roasted pistachios, briney green olives, capers, fresh parsley and oregano, and lemon makes a unique, fresh-tasting and light tapenade. The lamb chops are seared first to get nice and caramelized, then finished in the oven topped with the briney and nutty mixture to make a truly mouth-watering combination. Man, I think I just made myself hungry.
The recipe makes more than enough tapenade for more than one rack of lamb, which you can then enjoy the next day in a toasted sandwich! Or on a second rack of lamb…
Potato Salad with Smoked Salmon
Oh potato salad… the ever-present side-dish at summer BBQs… people either love you or hate you. You can be so misunderstood due to poor preparation- mushy overcooked potatoes, weird and uncomplimentary additions (apple chunks or marshmallows- you laugh, but I have personally witnessed this at family get-togethers… Asians get “creative” with their interpretation of American foods), or, most commonly, a greater than 50% mayonnaise content. I really can think of nothing LESS appetizing than potatoes all slathered up in a warm off-white congealed goo on a hot summer day.
Not to say that I don’t like potato salad… in fact, I kind of love potato salad. I have fond memories of buying Mom’s Best Potato Salad from the deli counter at the grocery store on the way home from middle school. My best friend Tracy and I would buy ourselves a half pound, walk the rest of the way to my house, and snack on a rich and cooling potato salad, rich in mayo and mustard, while we watched General Hospital or swooned over Keanu Reeves in Speed on VHS (“Pop quiz, hotshot. There’s a bomb on a bus. Once the bus goes 50 miles an hour, the bomb is armed. If it drops below 50, it blows up. What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO??”). It’s just that now in the infinite wisdom granted to me by age, I prefer not to ingest large quantities of the semi-solid emulsion of eggs and oil that stays good for YEARS.
Enter my secret weapon ingredient, Greek yogurt. It’s creamy, it’s tangy, it’s rich (tasting), and it’s got bacteria (that’s good for you!). I substitute it for sour cream or buttermilk in baking, I put it on my tacos, I eat it with fruit and honey. It also works on potato salad, providing the cool and creamy backdrop that lets the ingredients of your salad (like the potatoes) shine.
I added smoked salmon to this potato salad because I think it works well with dill, capers, lemon and green onions, though if you are a ham and hard-boiled egg potato salad type of person, that would totally work too.
Oh potato salad… I think I will be seeing a lot more of you this summer.
