We found ourselves with guests coming late on Labor Day, and nothing to cook. So, we went to a local grocer and bought a pre-marinated boneless leg of lamb; I usually find pre-marinated meats way too salted, but this was really good (Bianchini, San Carlos). With time an issue, we started the meat in the oven at 325ºf, for 35 minutes (fat side up), while the grill prepped.

Then- a few minutes (seven?) over the hot coals, fate side up; moved the meat off the high heat to a cooler part of the grill for about 2o mins (I have a thing for flipping meat as infrequently as possible); then, fat side down over the hot coals for about five minutes, and then another twenty on a cool part of the grill.

We let the meat rest for about 20 mins.

The results were fantastic; the meat had medium-well done pieces at each end, and pink/red medium-rare in the middle, with a seared crust all around.

…And then some:

We had leftovers- always the goal. Thursday evening, we were heading home, too tired for a cooking commitment, and remembered the lamb. We had some leftover meat/tomato sauce (the recipe is posted here: “Meat and Tomato Pasta Sauce”, under pasta), and re-heated it, with the following: we ground-up the lamb in the Cuisinart, harvested a couple of tomatoes (the only ones ready that night were cherries, but still great), added some red wine, a squeeze of tomato paste, and some pepper- we ate it over wide egg-noodle pasta, garnished with fresh chopped Italian parsley. Damn.

So, we had a fantastic, healthy, fresh dinner, for a couple of dollars, and it took about a half an hour- could have been faster, but…