Dijon-Garlic-Rosemary Rubbed Lamb Roast and a wicked Rhubarb Mojito

Sitting in the kitchen sorting through recipes and prepping foods for entertaining friends and family is a way I love spending my quiet time. This year, both ham and lamb recipes are spread across the table top as I work through simple and quick as well as recipes that take a bit more prep and time.

When I was young, Easter dinner was a marvelous feast created by many hands. Friends and family brought their own specialty dishes and my grandmother spent the day in the kitchen cooking a spread of her own that included ham, deviled eggs, potatoes and a cake covered in coconut. She brought out her canned bread and butter pickles and not a single gathering of the clans would have been complete without the black olive “finger-trees”.

Today, life moves quicker and gatherings are spread much further out across the calendar with fewer family members in attendance. Breaking bread with relations that live within a two-hour radius, is an annual occurrence, if that. With time being such a precious commodity, spending less time in the kitchen and more time visiting during the holidays is the option I have chosen.

The first item on the docket is a cocktail, seasonal of course, then a recipe for lamb and for the finale, a delightful cake covered in coconut. The remaining dinner and dessert items will be dishes friends and family bring. Thank you, Grandma, for the wonderful memories you gave to us all.

Rhubarb Mojito by Decorator’s Notebook. One of my favorite childhood memories is walking barefoot through the dry, chalky dust, munching on a stalk of rhubarb from the garden.  My sister and I would spend sun-kissed days nibbling on the tart treat and the little girl who made screwed-up face first, lost the game. When those rhubarb stalks were turning into desserts with the addition of sugar, our faces held smiles instead of sour puckers.

April through September is prime rhubarb growing season and each time I see a recipe it brings to mind those long-gone hot summer days.  It’s a versatile ingredient that can be used in meals, desserts and oh yes, cocktails. Sipping on a Mojito while sorting through recipes seems like a great way to spend the afternoon. Recipe link at bottom of post.

Coconut-Vanilla Bean Cake with Coconut Meringue Buttercream Frosting by Brown Eyed Baker. As you have probably surmised, this cake was chosen solely for Easter memories, as it simply doesn’t feel like Easter dinner, or spring for that matter, without a coconut cake. Brown Eyed Baker had the perfect recipe. Link at bottom of post.

I do not recall my grandmother ever cooking or roasting lamb, ham was the meat of choice as I recall (I could be wrong), however my earlier post today included a recipe for Ham, Boneless Ham with Brown Sugar Pineapple Glaze to be exact, and I did not wish to duplicate.

“A sheep in its first year is called a lamb; and its meat is also called lamb. The meat of a juvenile sheep older than one year is hogget; outside North America this was also a term for the living animal, but this meaning is now largely obsolete. The meat of an adult sheep is mutton, a term only used for meat, not living animals.

Lamb is the most expensive of the three types, and in recent decades sheep-meat is increasingly only retailed as “lamb”, sometimes stretching the accepted distinctions given above. The stronger tasting mutton is now hard to find in many areas.” Thank you Wikipedia

Decorator’s Notebook’s Rhubarb Mojito

Brown Eyed Baker’s Coconut-Vanilla Bean Cake

Lamb recipe courtesy of Ronco