Pre-Easter Dinner

We had a semi-nontraditional Easter this year (no Easter bunny, temperatures below 40) so to make it feel more home-y I wanted to make a traditional Easter dinner. We were doing things all Sunday, so it fell to Saturday night. Now I don't really know what a traditional Easter dinner is. I feel like lamb is normally involved, and my family does not have a traditional anything without wine, so I went with lamb shoulder braised in wine, which also allowed me to use my super cool dutch oven that I got for Christmas. Here's the recipe:

2 cuts lamb shoulder
2 large cloves garlic
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp orange zest
1 tsp marjoram
2 bay leaves
2 cups red wine (plus 1 for sipping!)
3 pearl onions, peeled and halved
1 russet potato, chopped into 1 in square pieces
1/2 head cauliflower
baby carrots - however many you want to eat
salt, pepper & olive oil

First up, brown the lamb. Just 4 mins a side on med-high heat over 2 tbs olive oil. It already smelled great:

Then you get onto the dutch oven. Another 2 TBS olive oil then add in the garlic and onions for a few. Next drop in the lamb, can of tomatoes, zest, marjoram, bay leaves and 1 cup wine. Simmer it for about 5 minutes then pop it into the oven covered at 375 for 30 minutes.

the lamb looks green because of the marjoram

While that was going on I chopped up the veggies.

Take it back out after the 30 and toss the veggies, minus the cauliflower, into the dutch oven and its another 30 minutes at 375. Sip on the extra cup of wine, possibly read some crappy entertainment blogs. Then pour the last cup of wine into the pot and add in the cauliflower.

30 more minutes, maybe some more bad entertainment blogs and you are done! The lamb was super moist and flavorful with lots of layers. The potatoes and onions  I liked a lot, but I think next time I'd do the carrots and cauliflower separately, for some reason they picked up the orange flavor a little too much.

It took over 2 hours, but it was a great dish. It tasted really homey and warm on a cold-ish Denver day. I'll definitely be making this one again. Happy early and late Easter!