Wednesday, June 11, 2008

With a nice mint sauce

We had 2 of our lambs "processed" in March......for our freezer. It's a real nice benefit of raising your own sheep. Some people don't want to think about where their food really comes from - I know I was that way. I even had a hard time eating eggs from our chickens at one time. I got over it because, really, I want to be more aware of where my food originates. And it isn't in the meat or produce section of the grocery store.
Now that I'm becoming more aware of FOOD, I'm much more inclined to buy produce and meat from local farmers. The produce hasn't traveled 1500 miles to get to my table. Plus with the meat, you know the animals haven't been raised in feedlots and in horrible, uncaring conditions. And now that we've taken the BIG step of actually eating an animal that we cared for, we've entered, just a tiny bit, into a way of life that is probably not too unlike that of our recent ancestors. I'm still getting my head and heart around it. But I feel good about giving these sheep a very good and peaceful life. And I'm grateful to them for their sacrifice at the end. (We have figured out that we can't name anyone who will eventually be put in the freezer though. )
A few of my friends think I'm heartless and I even had one person plug her ears with her fingers when I talked about the leg of lamb we grilled the night before. She was eating a beef taco salad at the time......
Another asked when we were going to murder our next lamb............oh well.
So it's another strange journey and life lesson I'm dragging Andre through. He wasn't happy about bringing the sheep to the butcher. But a few months passed and we finally took out a leg of lamb from the freezer, marinated it for 2 days and grilled it. I made a GREAT mint sauce to go with and it was all very good.
Mint Sauce
1/2 cup Malt Vinegar
1/2 cup chopped mint leaves
2 teaspoons brown sugar. (add more to taste)
Heat the vinegar and brown sugar until the sugar melts. Cool a bit and then add the mint leaves. Let sit for an hour or so. Serve with lamb.

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