On The Weber: Roast Lamb and Warm Butternut and Cranberry Couscous

For me, being a Mom of three kids means that I like to keep things simple.

Yes, there’s a place for meals where you have to go and search for the list of 20 ingredients just for the sauce, but more often there’s a need for meals to be something that you can whip up from the things your find in your fridge.  It’s no secret that the only time that I really plan in advance is when I am doing an event of some kind – having dinner guests or throwing a party or that kind of thing.

My every day meal making planning pretty much boils down to this:

Morning before leaving for work:  *Opens fridge*  

“What the heck is that smell? Oh, wow, those tomatoes have been sitting there so long I think one is actually moving. OK, so we have chives, garlic and butternut.  Hmmm. What to do, what to do?”

*Drives to works thinking of everything except for supper*

*Works all day without giving supper another thought*

*Gets home only to repeat step number one and after fending off a rogue tomato attack, I then head off to the shop to buy the remaining ingredients one needs to make a full meal.  My punishment being that I need to take all three kids with me, but do I ever learn?  NOPE!*

Seth often jokes that I complain about cooking so much but it’s one of the things that I do the least of.  So as punishment for his honest words (that are maybe too honest so they piss me off), we’ve been using our Weber all the time which means that HE has to cook instead – insert evil laugh here.

Over the weekend we had a chilled family day at home and wanted to try out the roast feature of our Weber® Q3200 Gas Grill braai.  We let the lamb roast for a couple of hours while the kids were playing in the garden (making their own nature walk diaries), Seth was fixing odd bits and pieces of the house and I was drinking wine and reading a book.  It was pretty much an ideal day!

At first I was really worried about doing a roast on the the gas Weber, mostly because I was concerned that it would just burn through gas (literally and figuratively).  As it turns out, on the lowest setting it still reaches the 180 degree you need to cook your meat.

Here’s what we did:

Here’s how we did it:

ROAST LEG OF LAMB

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 leg of lamb (ours was quite small)
• 1 glass of red wine
• 2 blocks of stock in 500ml water
• 1 heaped teaspoon crushed garlic
• herbs (I used Italian Herbs and spices)
• 1 teaspoon oil
• seasoning

METHOD: I cannot stand dry meat, so it was important to me that we kept in as much moisture as we could.  So in a baking try combine the wine, stock and garlic.  Then place the lamb in the centre in the Weber Roasting tray and put this in the middle of your baking tray.  Wrap that baby up with tinfoil and pop it into the Weber on 180% for about an hour and 20 minutes depending on the size.

When thoroughly cooked, remove from the heat, wrap in the tinfoil and let it rest for 15 minutes.  Then slice up and serve.

 

Here’s how we did it:

ROAST BUTTERNUT, FETA AND CRANBERRY COUSCOUS

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup wholewheat couscous
• 1 butternut (or bag of butternut)
• 1 block feta (125g)
• 1 handful unsweetened dried cranberries (chopped)
• 3 spring onions (sliced)
• 1 handful French chives (finely chopped)
• pinch of salt
• pepper to taste
• oil for roasting

(serves 5)

METHOD:  Dice your butternut into small, bite size cubes and pop them into a small baking tray.  Drizzle with oil and put it into the Weber on 180 degrees.  Make sure you mix them up every 10 minutes or so to avoid the bottom burning.  Do this for 30 minutes or until the butternut is soft.

While your butternut is cooking, place your cup of couscous, sliced spring onions, chives, salt and pepper into a bowl.  Add a cup of boiling water to the bowl and cover with cling wrap for 10 minutes.  Once the 10 minutes are up, lightly stir the couscous with a fork to fluff it up and evenly distribute the herbs.

Once the butternut is ready, add it to the couscous along with the diced feta and chopped cranberries – serve immediately, it’s better when it’s hot!

This is a recipe that even our kids eat without too much fuss!

ENJOY!

 

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