Pinot More

When my husband goes off to visit his Mother, I cook the stuff that I like to eat. He tells me that I can cook these things when he is home, but I want him to enjoy what I make, so I save these dishes for a night like tonight! I wanted to do something different with lamb. And I wanted to use some of the wine we have sitting around the house!

Ingredients
1 cup of Pinot Noir (I used 2010 Chateau Davell Delores Pinot Noir, Mendocino), plus 1/2 cup reserved
1/8 cup of extra virgin olive oil
8 fresh rosemary stems, leaves removed and chopped
8 cloves of garlic, minced
fresh ground salt and pepper, about 1/2 tsp of each
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 rack of lamb
1 TBS local honey

Marinade ingredients

Put the wine, olive oil, rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper plus the balsamic vinegar into a bowl and mix it well. Place the lamb and the marinade in a zip lock bag, and shake it up.

Marinating lamb

Let this sit in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. One hour before you are ready to cook, take the lamb out of the refrigerator. After an hour, turn the oven on to 350 degrees. While the oven heats, place your lamb in a roasting pan.

Lamb ready for the oven

Reserve the marinade. Bake until the temperature of the meat reaches 135 degrees. Remove from the oven, cover and let sit. While this is resting, place the reserved marinade into a sauce pan, and add the honey. Heat to boiling. Reduce this to half. Check the flavor as you go. If needed use the reserved wine.

Pinot reduction

When reduce to half, turn down to warm. Slice up the resting lamb into chops.

Lamb cut into chops

Plate the meat, dress with some fresh rosemary, and drizzle the sauce over the meat.

Dinner is served!

And, dinner is served! Let me know how you like this recipe!