Lamb Chops with Dijon Mustard-Herb Crust

Before the days of Pinterest (and still today) I collected recipes.  I love getting magazines like Southern Living, Better Homes & Gardens, Martha Stewart Living, etc and flipping through for home decor inspiration and recipes.  I have a giant 4" binder of recipes that I've torn out of magazines over the years.  I made a dinner the other night based on a recipe that I tore out of Cooking Light magazine in 2006.  Recipes never go bad.

With our wedding behind us our evenings are much more relaxed and we don't have the Big Event ahead of us.  Even on nights we didn't do any wedding planning or projects I was always thinking about things that needed to be done.  Not having something to plan is much more relaxing!  With all my new found free time I decided to try a few new recipes this week.  First on my list was Lamb Chops.

From Everyday Food magazine in 2009, I had a recipe torn out for Lamb Chops with Dijon Mustard-Herb Crust.  I found the recipe on Martha's website, click here for the link and directions.

Source: MarthaStewart.com

Side note:  As much as I love having recipes online where I can find them in a recipe box or on Pinterest, having them on the counter in a page protector is so much easier than having to make sure the ipad screen stays lit.  I can spill on it, pick it up with dirty fingers and move it around the kitchen so much easier than an electronic device.

This was my first time cooking Lamb Chops, shopping for them too, so I was a little nervous.  Stephen was working on his NFL Fantasy Football Draft, so I was alone in the kitchen.  The Lamb Chops in the picture above are very different than the ones I found at Publix.  Ours were much larger and all the meat and fat were on the bones.  I made sure I bought 6-7 oz of meat for each of us to make sure we'd have enough.

The recipe is super simple and I had everything except the Lamb Chops on hand in the house.  I love meals that only require one extra item from the store.  I didn't measure the herbs, garlic or Parmesan cheese exactly, but I was close.  The more I cook and try new recipes the more comfortable I'm getting with estimating measurements.  And for this recipe I used Coconut Oil instead of Vegetable Oil in the pan.  Gotta keep it healthy!

Stephen looked up the final "done" temperature of lamb so I would know if it was cooked, I was aiming for 145 degrees.  Based on this website, Great Grub, 145 is cooked to Medium with a warm pink center.   Some of our meat got to that temp, others was still in the rare range, around 130 degrees.  The pink center made me a little nervous, but it was delicious!!  And now that it has been 12 hours, I can proudly say that the rare meat didn't make us sick.  Phew.  Because our meat was a little larger than what the recipes called for I had to cook for about 7 minutes each side until it was cooked to the right temperature.

The Lamb Chops were so good Stephen and I were talking about them this morning.  I'll definitely be adding them to a more normal rotation in the house.  Definitely something for us to look for when we hit up the Farmers Market next time.  If you've never cooked Lamb Chops this recipe is super easy, quick and delicious.  I served a side of Asparagus (cooked with salt & pepper, olive oil and baked at 350 for 10 minutes) with the chops for our complete meal.

I'm always so happy when I try something new and it works, especially when it was so easy!