Family Affair

One of the nicest things about growing up (and having my siblings grow up) is that we are able to have collaboratively prepared meals. It makes the whole cooking and eating experience so much more rewarding to have the family function as a culinary team. Hovering over the cutting board is a good place to learn from each other, both about food and about each others lives. This is one of the rare group activities that we all enjoy together.

For dinner we had a rack of lamb, roasted green beans and quartered new potatoes. We kept the seasonings pretty simple to highlight the delicious ingredients. I made an olive oil rub for the lamb with dried rosemary, fresh ground pepper, salt, and minced garlic. Rob carefully applied the mixture all over the lamb. The meat was then finished by our father aka they "jedi master" of the grill. It turned out deliciously, but next time he thinks he would put tin foil over the ribs and to stick with his instincts on the touch. Part of being the jedi master is to constantly be fine tuning your technique!

Jack's job was to cut the green beans. He treated each green bean as an individual, cutting them one by one into small pieces. These were roasted at 450 degrees topped with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Dad also took on the potatoes. He shook them in a bag with salt, pepper, rosemary, Italian seasoning, Cajun seasoning, and vegetable oil to get them evenly coated. These were then baked at 450 for a good 40 minutes until they were soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. It makes for a very texturally stimulating side dish!

We finished the meal off with some ice cream from Jeni's, a local Ohio chain that was recently written up by Bon Appetit magazine for having some of this country's best ice cream. Now I have some real Ohio pride! What I love about Jeni's is that they support a collection of local farmers for the cream and other ingredients. The flavors are inspired by seasonal ingredients and are unlike flavors found anywhere else. Dad had lemon blueberry yogurt, Rob had Salty Caramel, Jack had Lime Cardamom, and I had Wildberry Lavender. I plan to visit some of the dairies that serve Jeni's and post in more detail on the sustainable and delicious practices that they uphold.