Hmm, Hmm, Hmm!  Jamie, your recipe's were superb!  Easter Sunday dinner was great, it took Camille and I 3 hours and, our guests really enjoyed the meal.  Thank you everyone, for voting this week, the winning dishes were Warm salad of crispy smoked bacon and new potatoes (we substituted the Jerusalem artichokes) Jamie said that we could; along with Roast leg of lamb with eggplant and onions.

Shopping for the ingredients on Saturday went as smooth as can be, we had to settle for a frozen leg of lamb that we defrosted (I know J, but lamb in Canada is sooooo expensive), and as for the butter (Boston) lettuce...for some unknown reason this week one Boston lettuce was $3.49 and Jamie asked for three - so Cam and I agreed let's not use Boston lettuce.  Instead we used some lovely packed Italian lettuce and then debated whether we use the radicchio instead of the treviso (Jamie gave us a choice), so being the savvy shoppers we opted for the radicchio (it was cheaper).  I know, you are all thinking boy she is really cheap always going on about the cost of the ingredients but, I would just like to say I am conscious about how much I spend not cheap...

OK, so Cam and I cooked on Easter Sunday and it took 3 hours.  As the salad was a warm salad the bacon, potatoes and onions had to be fried once our guest had arrived. So, we started with preparing the salad leaves, boiling the potatoes and chopping the radicchio.  Once all the leaves were prepared we started with the lamb.  I love the way Jamie advised us how to cook the lamb.  Camille rubbed salt, pepper and olive oil on the lamb and we placed in the oven for half an hour on a hight heat 425.  The fat from the lamb was poured out and then we added the eggplant and onions to the lamb and sprinkled the lamb with fresh rosemary.  I was getting a little anxious trying to add garlic to everything but, Cam calmed me down and advised that the garlic will be added to the tomato sauce.  PHEW!  So, onto the tomato sauce, fry the garlic and parsley stalks add the tin tomatoes with a swig of red wine vinegar and we left the sauce to simmer for 20 minutes. The lamb was taken out and rested for 15 minutes, we added the red sauce to the eggplant and onions in the baking tray, let simmer and then added to the lamb.  Served we warm crusty bread (as per J suggestion), some lovely wine (not for the kids), and wow!  Easter Sunday dinner was just fab.

What Camille learnt...
1. What was radicchio and treviso (although we didn't use the treviso she learnt this while we were shopping), and so did I
2. That on the eggplant there was a label that had 'Rene' (our surname) so we had to buy those ones
3. How to make warm salad of crispy smoked bacon and new potatoes
4. How to make roast leg of lamb with eggplant and onions
And, Shhh!  It appears we have created a monster in Jake (not really a monster), he cooked dinner on Monday from Jamie's Dinners cookbook and it was really good.  He does make me nervous however, he is so exact and NOT flexible, I guess this may come in more time in the kitchen.
See you next week,
Camille and Alison (possibly Jake)

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