The Critical Mom's Shoulder of Lamb

This is a great fall-and-winter dish.  You can experiment with vegetables, but the main flavors are:

garlic, garlic, and garlic

and

rosemary--fresh rosemary.  

The shoulder of lamb should be fresh, bloody, and gigantic--the about as big as, say, MY shoulder and part of my arm.  Once you've got it out of the fridge, pre-heat the oven to 180º C or 356º F.

 Put the lamb on a plastic cutting board and cut inch-long slits all over the top of it.  Into this you wish shove slices of fresh garlic, and after that bits of fresh, and freshly-washed rosemary.  We have rosemary growing in a window-box right outside our kitchen door; it beats dry packaged rosemary, which you may use if desperate.

Start with four carrots:  peel them, cut off the ends, and throw the peel and ends to the guinea pigs, the children, or the pet of your choice.

Slice the carrots into inch-thick disks and boil them until they are a little big soft.  Set aside.

Take one or two medium-size zucchini.  Wash and slice into disks.  Make a pile of them in your baking dish about the size and shape of your shoulder of lamb.  Drain the carrots and add.  Sprinkle with garlic powder or (my favorite) the MultiCulti herbs that you can buy at Oil&Vinegar (see recent post about fish for a link).

Set the shoulder of lamb over the carrot-zucchini mix.   Then sprinkle garlic salt all over it.  You may wish to rub a little olive oil over the whole thing, but it is not necessary for you to do so.  Slice around ten baby tomatoes and glom them on to the lamb; the garlic salt ought to offer some traction so that they actually stick to it.   Wash and slice several red bell peppers--large slices that you can drape over the tomatoes--or cover any area not covered by tomatoes.  Then add around five ounces of red wine.  You can also add the wine before the tomatoes and peppers, though it's possible doing so will render the lamb slippery again.

Put the whole thing in the oven--take a fork and put the tomato and pepper slices that have slid off back on.

Close oven door.  Let the lamb bake for about two hours and a half.

Serve with a glass of red wine.  

Alternative:  boil some potatoes and add them in with the lamb.

Enjoy!