Lamb, full circle

It arrived in a leather suitcase, on Trudeau International Airport’s baggage claim. It was heavy and cold. It came off the rolling carpet and onto the floor with a thump.

The suitcase was full of lamb! Ground lamb, leg of lamb, lamb chops, lamb garlic sausage, lamb breakfast sausage, and a few delicious misfits: some goose and venison. My dad brought the suitcase, a gift from the farm.

He spent the weekend with me, in Montreal, and I took him to some of my favorites parts of the city. We had a lovely weekend, we walked a lot, stopping every few hours to eat or have coffee. It was a vacation in my own city, and it reminded me of trips to Winnipeg with my dad when I was a little girl. Endless ice cream and hamburgers, treats the whole way. Things have not changed.

But back to the suitcase: I’ve only made a small dent in my now-meat packed freezer, and already, I can feel my red blood cells dancing.

On Friday, we fried some garlic sausage with some perogis. There was some left over garlic sausage, and this caused a kind of chain reaction.

On Saturday, we left the sausage in the fridge, and my dad made a chili with the ground lamb.

On Sunday, we made a delicious leg roast, with maple syrup and rosemary. (Earlier that day, we went back to the market, and my dad bought four litres of maple syrup. It went into the emptied leather suitcase, Winnipeg bound.) We had some friends over that night, so we served some leftover chili as a starter.

With the bone from the roast came a noodle soup on Monday night (inspired by Mark Bittman ). It was packed with vegetables and Friday's garlic sausage.

Those leftover noodles became a chow mein (well, sort of) with a sauce made from Monday’s broth.

The leftover sauce inspired egg foo yung (again, sort of).

By then, my string of leftovers was broken, so I had to dip into the freezer again for some breakfast sausage.