Home sweet home -- roasted leg of lamb, salad with persimmon and shaved fennel, Israeli couscous with apricot, and eggnog cookies!

I'm home! Actually I've been back to New Haven for almost a week. Had several groups of people over for lunch/dinner already but did not take any photos because of the jet lag...But but but, last night we had another dear friend over for dinner and the there were pictures! Yay! (I know I know, I still need to complete my entries on the silk road trip, the Taiwan trip and the Cambodia trip. It'll just take a while, I promise.)

To start, we had a spinach salad, with shaved fennel, and persimmon. I rediscovered this wonderful fruit during my recent trip to Taiwan. When I was little, I often had the fruit very ripe, just sucking out the meat and leave the skin. Persimmon meant soft, squishy and sweet. In Taiwan, I tried several varieties of this fruit, and realized that you could actually eat the skin, and that the fruit can be firm and have a nice texture! Of course I have to add this to the salad, together with another of my favorite, fennel, which is just so versatile. It can be eaten raw or roasted. And the frond can be used in as an herb, so fragrant. Back home my parents used to mix the chopped up frond with ground pork and make dumplings!

The main dish last night was a semi-boneless leg of lamb, roasted with garlic and spice, medium rare yet on the rare end.

On the western China trip, we had lamb almost every single day. It was good in the beginning, but quickly became repetitive as most of the dishes were just packed with cumin. And, everything was well done, even the skewers were a bit chewy. Last night we decided to aim for tender and juicy. The leg of lamb from the grocery store was originally 5 lbs. I took off some meat (after watching a bunch of youtube videos) and left about 2 lbs on the bone. The roasting time was adjusted accordingly. The meat came out even better than expected -- meaty and juicy, packed with flavors.

Meat and veggies could be a complete meal, but I have learned that meals aren't complete without some grains or other forms of starch. (At least my nutritionist recommended it.) To accompany the lamb roast, we had some whole wheat Israeli couscous. The only couscous I had experience with was the regular small couscous with toasted pine nuts and raisins, and I thought as long as we had dried fruit and nuts with it, the Israeli couscous would taste awesome as well.

By this time we were already super stuffed. But there happen to be some eggnog cookie dough sitting in the fridge. It was supposed to be rolled out and made into cutout cookies, but due to laziness, I decided to just test it in the drop cookie style. They turned out to be delicious -- the outside turned out crunchy, yet the inside remained moist and a bit cake like. Our guest described as "like pot". That may be an exaggeration, but the average consumption was 4 cookies per person, AFTER we each had two servings of everything else!

So which recipe are you interested in? I will update the post with a recipe of your choice :p