Braised Organic Lamb & Beans

Oh, to eat organic, grass fed meat! It's amazing how you can really taste the difference from the normal, everyday variety. Unfortunately, with the way my husband can pack away the food (and if I had his routine of 5am gym time and 10+ hour work days I would too!), eating organic meat is cost prohibitive. I can only imagine how much I'll spend on groceries when our little guy is running around and eating full meals like his daddy...

Anyways, as the savvy shopper that I am, I've discovered that our local Wegmans tends to discount their meat selection on Wednesdays (as it nears the sell by date cutoff) so I'll pop over there every other week and check out the goodies. As long as you either eat the meat that evening or freeze it right away, you're good. I've amassed quite a selection of delicious organic fare this way. Another trick to discounted food if your grocery store doesn't have a set discount day is to check out the sell by dates of the food you're interested in and return to the store the day before it's set to expire. I did this with organic leg of lamb. There were a bunch of them, and what were the odds of all those legs being bought up when we weren't near a holiday? I came back a few days later and, sure enough, they were all marked down 50%. Woohoo!

I scored this butterflied leg of lamb for half off and found a tasty recipe from Wegmans for Braised Organic Lamb & Beans from which I've adapted this recipe.

Ingredients

• 2.5 - 3lbs lamb
• pan searing flour
• olive oil
• 8 oz. Mirepoix (diced carrots, celery and onions)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 cup white wine
• 28 oz. cut tomatoes with basil
• 3 x 15.5 oz. cans cannellini beans, drained
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced
• 1 cup chicken stock
• fresh rosemary
• fresh thyme
• salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 350F. Put a dutch oven on medium high on the stove top.

Dust your lamb with some pan searing flour. If you'll recall from my previous post, the flour will help dry off the meat and allow it to sear beautifully.

Now that your dutch oven is nice and warm, pour in a couple glugs of extra virgin olive oil and sear your meat.

It should only take a couple minutes per side.

After your lamb has seared, set it aside on a plate and gather your other items.

Add your mirepoix and bayleaf to the dutch oven you were using for your lamb.

Pour two cups of wine, one for the recipe and the other to drink while you cook :)

And while you're taking that little break to enjoy the fruits of a vineyard's labor, check out a sneaky little tip about cooking with wine here.

Ok, back to cooking. Pour in the cup of wine and lemon juice and deglaze the pan. That means the wine will pick up all those little browned bits of lamb and caramelized veggies. Cook the wine down for 5-10 minutes until the liquid has reduced by half. Doing this allows evaporation, leaving more flavor in the resulting liquid.

Now you can add the remaining ingredients - beans, tomatoes, and lemon zest (you did check out my nifty trick for lemon zest earlier, right?)

Now pop the lamb on top of that wonderful braising mixture you've just concocted and douse it with a cup of chicken broth.

Ah, beautiful! Bring up the heat a bit so it starts simmering (see those little bubbles forming on the surface?)

Now place it in your toasty oven and let it work it's magic for about 2 to 2.5 hours. You want the meat to pull apart when you stick a fork in it. When you're satisfied with the tenderness, mix in the rosemary, thyme and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Just look at that!

Gorgeous!