Quick & Easy - Gordon Ramsay's Sunday Lunch

Not quite as exciting as the last one, but serviceable. Sunday Lunch is divided into meal sections. Each section has a full meal including dessert. Quick & Easy consists of:

Vine tomato & bread salad
Italian sausage with lentil
Lemon posset

We went to the farmers market for heirloom tomatos which worked out really nicely. The sausages came from Frabonis. The salad was great and we'll definitely do it again - heirloom tomatos, sliced red onions, lime juice, olive oil, parsley and bite size pieces of torn bread. I used a sourdough which I toasted because it was supposed to be stale bread.

There were a LOT of lentils. I cut the recipe in half and we still have enough leftover for four people. They were good, nothing really to rave about, but they did work nicely with the sausage. And Lili liked them - I think that was the only part she ate.

The lemon posset was a little too heavy for summer - or for any time really - a teeny little bite was nice, but overall the cream was way too much. These were just boiled double cream, sugar and lemon juice. I'm not sure how you would thin it down. Bill put it in the iSi whipper which helped a bit - maybe I'll try making ice cream out of it next time.

Tonight is Skate Grenobloise from Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles cookbook, but I probably won't write that one up because I do it all the time.

Mediterranean flavors - Sunday Lunch by Gordon Ramsay

O.k., Gordon Ramsay rocks my world, and Lili loves him too - she sings along with the F word these and "reads" his cookbooks. This was just a perfect meal. It's from Sunday Lunch, which I don't believe has been released in the US yet, I have the UK version, so you have to convert a little on measurements and degrees. I bought it on ebay, for some asinine reason, you can't get UK cookbooks on Amazon US. So, I have no link, but really, it's a great book, google it!

Sunday Lunch features entire meals - starter, main, veg, starch and dessert. The starter for this one was scallops with a cauliflower puree. We skipped this because, well, we live in SC Wisconsin. Scallops here taste like dust - some restaurants can seem to get good ones, but everything I've ever tried from a local grocery store or even a nice seafood shop is just icky.

The main is an herb crusted rack of lamb. I couldn't get a rack, so I made do with individual chops from Columbus Discovery Farm (unfortunately they don't have a website - I do have an e-mail address and they're at the Sun Prairie Farmers Market on Saturdays). The herb crust is a sort of gremolata, parsley, cilantro, thyme, rosemary, bread crumbs and parmesan - there was about half a batch left over after making the chops, but I'm sure I can find something to use it on, it was wonderful.

The potatos are layered with sauteed onions and garlic and cooked in a seasoned chicken broth. The veg was zucchini and cherry tomatoes (I used baby romas) sauteed with a bit of balsamic and olive oil. Dessert was a bread pudding with raisins and dried cranberries, apricot glaze and Cointreau - really simple and very good. Definitely a keeper.