First Harvest: Mint

I was excited to have my first harvest meal of the year: Mint Marinated Lamb Kebabs.

I am one of those dummies that palnted mint years ago that wasn't properly contained (look to make sure the pot doesn't have drainage holes!!), and as a reuslt, I have been pulling it out of vegetable beds, paths, and flower beds for the last decade and a half.

It is one of the first plants back to life in the spring, and I pull it up with as many roots as I can get. I know there are more roots, and I will see more mint. Later in the year, it sneaks under other plants, and I may not notice it when the leaves are still nice and tender, so the "harvests" from weeding can't be used. But in spring, the mint is fresh, green, and tender, and oh-so-good. I planted some of it is a pot - always optimistic that it won't escape this time - so I can have fresh, tender mint for cooking later in the year, then took the roots off the rest and chopped it up for the marinade.

So if you have mint invading your beds, please try the marinade. It is wonderful on lamb, the natural mint combination (I used lamb from Evermore Farms, which is wonderful), but could be used on beef or buffalo as well.  I used about a pound and a half of meat, trimmed of fat. Here is the approximate mix:

Juice of one lemon (throw in some of the peel, too)
2 Tablespoons Honey
Big handful of fresh, minced mint (perhaps a cup)
4 cloves of minced garlic

Cut the meat into large chunks - 2 to 3 inch on each side. Put the marinade ingredients (mixed) and the meat in a Ziploc gallon bag or (slightly safer) in a lidded glass container and marinate in the refrigerator for no less than one hour or more than overnight. Take the meat out of the marinade, and put on metal skewers, leaving some room in between the chunks for most even cooking. Grill. Eat. Enjoy plain or with a sauce of equal amounts of greek yogurt and tahini.

Yum. One great weed.

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