Change of Plans and Pesto Dip

Today's dinner for the guys started off with great plans: caprese salad appetizer, scotch eggs and salad, watermelon for dessert...

But after covering a shift yesterday instead of having the day off, I was trying to combine Monday's cleaning and Tuesday's cooking. And really? I didn't want to get out of pajama pants and ratty old super-comfy t-shirt that was good enough to clean the house, but not good enough for public... at least, not until I was ready for friends to come over for dinner. Thus was born the Mission: Don't Leave the House, but still make a tasty dinner.

So instead of scotch eggs (I need to get another dozen eggs to make those), I put the boneless leg of lamb in the crockpot, as per this recipe:
https://www.ruled.me/succulent-slow-cooked-lamb/

(I had already thawed it because I forgot I was working an extra shift yesterday, and had planned to make it for Monday's dinner.) Minor changes: subbed local mesquite honey from the gun shop for the maple syrup, doubled the mustard, doubled the garlic, and swapped dried rosemary for 3 fresh sprigs straight off the bush in the backyard. And used an entire sprig of my Growing-Very-Well-Thank-You mint, which I have yet again failed to kill. Call it doubling the number of leaves called for. Then again, I think the lamb was closer to 4 pounds than 2, so it all worked out.

...No, if you want to make it yourself, you don't have to get mesquite honey from the gun shop. It just feels wrong to pop into the gun shop and leave without something in hand, but I'm really not going through my .22WMR or 9mm fast enough to justify clearing more space to hold it. They had local honey from someone's hive on sale at the counter, so I walked out with a bottle of honey instead of yet more ammo. It's all consumables, right?

The salad fixings from last week's grocery run got tossed yesterday, so to heck with low carb, time for a filler starch. I have some Yukon gold potatoes left over from making stew, but not enough to make a big pot of smashed potatoes... so those got scrubbed, stabbed, and went into the microwave to become baked potatoes.

And I was going to do a caprese salad for appetizer, but my husband objected. Besides, I'd have to leave the house to get tomatoes. Well, the basil is still trying to bolt and run riot, so it needs harvesting anyway... clearly I needed to make something with pesto!

So I made a pesto dip:

3 cups basil leaves, stripped off their stems and packed in the food processor,
1/2 cup pine nuts
1/3 cup feta
1/3 cup parmesan pecorino mix (really any hard-grating Italian cheese. I had this in my fridge.)
 1/4 cup olive oil
1 pinch kosher salt
1 block cream cheese

Mix everything but the cream cheese in the food processor. Scrape into bowl. Mix with cream cheese. Stick in fridge until ready to serve.

And served it with celery sticks, green pepper slices, and three stray slices of sourdough bread I'd found in the deep freezer and thawed.

As for dessert... I was planning on watermelon. I actually had the watermelon. But then the urge for chocolate struck. So I made a 8x8 pan of brownies from scratch, and pulled it out of the oven right as the lamb was carved and starting to be served. They were still warm by the time we got to dessert.

Cooked 'em 35 minutes because I got distracted, did not frost, and they were awesome. Only change: subbed raw cane sugar for the refined stuff, and added a glug of pusser's rum for flavour along with the vanilla.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/10549/best-brownies/

Mission: don't leave the house. Accomplished!

Only minor issues: forgot to make a steamer bag of veggies for the table. Not to worry, people cleaned out all the celery sticks and the pesto until there were no more celery sticks.

Also, when cooking for 6? This meal's only leftovers was the pesto dip that had no celery sticks left to scoop it up and eat it.They liked it... and I guess I have to go get the eggs tomorrow, so I can make scotch eggs to take to work!