Let's talk about my Easter Lamb for a bit

Since y'all know, you read all this mess in reverse order of how it is written. You will find out as you go on, that I have spent my morning in the muck and mire of the current state of politics . ( my morning walk with Koda was pretty mucky and mirey as well we are SOGGY up this way...)

So, lets do a little palette cleansing here and talk about the lamb we had for Easter. Right off the bat, it was pricey! I just don't spend this much money on cuts of meat, AND it was one of the cheaper ones in the bin at Wegmans. ( larger photo here ) It was a simi boned whole leg of New Zealand lamb, never frozen. Now it was feeding six people , and I bet David would have liked it if I had gone for a bigger one, as he would have had more leftover lamb....
I am a tad impatient. Really, shock, I know. ADD was invented for me, as I am distracted by all things shiny. So, it is rare for me to have the patience to marinade things for a long time. I have learned my lesson and have come to the light about this. Marinading is a good thing . Although I still have trouble with the phrase " over night ". How do recipe writers know what time you go to bed or wake up?

So, around ten-o'clock Saturday night, I put into this big blue plastic bowl:

• one cup of olive oil
• one large onion sliced very thinly
• 7 or 8 cloves of garlic that I smashed pretty well
• half a cup of lemon juice and some zest ( you could just put in the squeezed lemons..)
• tablespoonish of mustard seeds
• a lot of fresh rosemary, that I smashed up with the garlic ( two tablespoons? it was half of the bunch I bought..)
• a couple of tablespoons of dried thyme
• a good amount of old bay
• A LOT of parsley
• salt and pepper on the meat

Plopped the meat in there and rolled it around for a while, getting everything coated , THEN placed it all in a tight zip lock. I think this may be the key, use a baggie that us almost the same size as the meat, sort of keeps it all right on top of it....

10:30 the next morning, I took it out wiped it off only, did not rinse it, added a little more salt and pepper ( lots of pepper ) and put it in a preheated 450 degree oven for 20 min ( I set a timer! ) and then cranked the oven down to 350 for one hour. If I had it to do over , I would have pulled it at 50 min, giving a little bit more very rare meat that some folks like. It rested for a good long time, as I had my first Bellini at like 11:00, and then moved on to drink all the white wine on the East Coast. Which could be why there are not photos of the entire roast when it came out of the oven, but it was lovely, all that olive oil soaked meat gets a really good dark crunchy crust on it...

David carved with an electric knife which really is the way to go, this is about ... 3/4's of the lamb? with a really good roasted bone for lamb stock, if you are so inclined. I just roasted these whole garlic heads along with the lemon Greek potatoes in the bottom oven. It really did turn out well, and I will follow this every time ( once a year ) I do make a whole leg of lamb. It was most tasty.!