Twas the Saturday Before Christmas

Snow and wind flurrying about. It looked so gentle from the window. It was not so gentle.

While most planned for their Saturday hibernation with bread, milk and toilet paper, I planned with lamb chops, fingerlings, carrots, cremini and cipollini.

There's not much that one can do, but wait for it, the snow, to be over.

Roberto waited, rather impatiently, by trudging over to Di Pasquale's for a fresh baguette, some sangweech fixings and...well, I can't say what else, else I might spoil a certain Christmas surprise.

I waited by bringing butter to room temperature and rallying other ingredients for chocolate chip cookies.

Upon Roberto's return we made our lunch and set about to hibernate. Under layers of flannel and fleece we each found a sofa spot and promptly fell asleep.

At just half past five we started our prep. Roberto with the lamb, I with the veg.

We chose a simple, I thought, rustic approach. A marinade of shallot, garlic, white wine, parsley, rosemary, salt and pepper for the lamb. Some of the garlic chopped to a fine mince, other cloves just left whole. The rosemary, entire sprigs.

The vegetables, cremini quartered, carrots and fingerlings cut to equal size, whole cipollini. All coated with extra virgin olive oil, parsley, rosemary (again, whole sprigs), salt and pepper.

Everything set to roast, in their respective pans, in a hot 400° oven until done. We just kept an eye on things, like one does when they don't use recipe.

Yes, the vegetables, they were roasted to perfection. The lamb, finished off in the broiler, was succulent. The perfect hearty, stick to your ribs meal. With some nice bread and a little red wine. No pasta. Can you imagine?

Now, don't be fooled by our presentation. Our plates, emptied, we went for seconds.

Followed up with pistachios, espresso and chocolate chip cookies.

As you can see, we're really hoping for less snow in the future.

A lot less.