However inclusive you try to make a blogging event, there’s always one moron that’s going to be totally confused by it. In the case of this month’s  ‘Waiter, Waiter’ event, that was me.

The theme for this round of the event is ‘’Waiter, Waiter, there’s Something in My Easter Basket.” I am good at ignoring public holidays. I managed an excellent job with Christmas this year and my efforts were only thwarted by my parents who found it totally unacceptable that I would be spending the with only the internet for company. I find Easter much easier to ignore. Apart from the shutting of shops (and College) on Easter Sunday, I go about my life as usual. I’m even tutoring on Easter Monday. Unfortunately, that meant that when Johanna, the Passionate Cook, announced the theme for the March edition of ‘Waiter, Waiter’ I was totally stuck.

For a moment I thought I could do something on Sri Lankan New Year, which often happens a week after Easter, but this year due to the quirks of the lunar calendar, it isn’t happening until early May. Bah! That was no help.

It wasn’t until Johanna came by my site and commented on my rosey lamb dish that I had any source of inspiration. So, you earthlings eat new season lamb at Easter, do you? Fair enough. I eat lamb whenever Goon decides he wants it. But this was as good a time as any to do some herb and spice crusting.

Just a couple of days later, Goon decided he had a craving for lamb. I had a lavender and herb crusted canon type thing in mind for the event, so I sent Goon out to find a butcher with some good quality lamb in stock.

When Goon arrived home he was not carrying a boned loin of lamb as I’d expected, but two whole rib racks. I’d never cooked these before but I knew Goon had a thing about them. He’d seen them in the shops and thought they looked cool.There had been many shopping trips where I had to stop him picking them up ad hiding them amongst the other items in our trolley. Of course, the moment he started craving lamb and went shopping unsupervised, they were the first things he thought to pick up.

The only thing that bothered me about these was the price tag on them. £7 per rack. Well… at least it looked like a lot of meat. I was anticipating a fair bit would be left for lunch tomorrow.

Typically, after spending all that time feeling smug and thinking that I was being clever making my roast lavender lamb, it turns out that the French have been doing it for years, particularly around Provence. The recipe I used was fairly similar to the traditional one. I’m sure this will work with any roasting joint of lamb so long as the roasting times have been altered accordingly.

First of all, coat your lamb joints in a bit of dijon mustard.

Then take abouit two tablespoons of fresh thyme leaves and about 15 rosemary leaves and chop them finely. Then get a level tablespoon each of coriander seed  and dried lavender and grind these. Mix the herbs and spices and pat the mixture all over the meat.

Oh, and if you’re going to take a photo, it’s best to do it BEFORE the meat goes in the oven. Otherwise it looks a bit strange like this

Completely ignoring the rubbish Tesco cooking instructions, I cooked my lamb for 25 minutes at 200C and then rested it for 15. It turned out quite a nice medium rare. Goon’s was properly rare. I tried to convince him to swap but he growled at me and kept a tight grip on his plate.

We had our lamb racks with a side of butterbeans crushed with garlic, cream and thyme and steamed purple sprouting broccoli. I didn’t think this dish needed a sauce but I suppose that if I was going to make anything, it would have been a light red wine reduction. I was impressed by the flavour of the herb crust. The lavender was very prominent and was complemented nicely by the herbs.

I couldn’t believe how quick this was to make! The whole thing was done in 40 minutes and probably eaten in ten. Given the amount of meat we had, there was suprisingly little leftovers. It seems that when Goon said he was craving meat he REALLY meant it.

So there is my fairly late entry to this month’s ‘Waiter, Waiter,’ hosted  by Johanna. Thank goodness she came by the site or I’d never have thought of anything to enter!