Tramtastic barbequed fillet of lamb.

You may be wondering what trams and a bbq fillet of lamb have in common. Well, last night,  I heard the great news that the new tram routes in Nottingham were officially live (taking passengers - not frying them) today. These new routes will give me an alternative travel system to getting to work at Tesco Extra in Beeston. The benefit to me will be getting into Nottingham after work quicker by tram and enabling me to get home via my second bus journey. It could save me a whole half hour each day in travelling time and no frustrations on the traffic route via the Queen's Medical Centre. This part of my travelling day almost always gets partially gridlocked and if there is a serious accident around Nottingham then it can take me almost two hours to get home. Considering that, as the crow flies, my home in Ruddington is only five miles from Beeston (work place) then that is a lot of time I could be dedicating to these blog posts and not sitting on stationary busses.

On the first part of my tram journey we passed the Lakeside venue at the Nottingham University and the tram was greeted by two performance artists and Shona from the theatre at Lakeside! On the way back the journey was made even more pleasant by the acoustic talents of a local singer/guitarist who jumped on at Beeston and leaped off at NG2.

#tramtastic times

So, having enjoyed travelling on the entirety of the new NET tram system routes I am finally home and have opened a bottle of chilled Prosecco and decided to bbq a butterflied fillet of lamb previously destined to be cooked traditionally in the oven. Even the dark rain clouds that threatened to rain off my bbq have gone away and as I type the lamb is smelling utterly divine as it cooks and spits on the mini bbq by my rosemary bushes.

 

"Here's to the success of the new tram lines in Nottingham!"

As I type the lamb is not yet done but here are some pictures of the process so far. Later in the day I will add some more. My original intention was to cook the fillet whole in foil covered with charcoal in an old biscuit tin given to me by my work colleague Alan. Although I started the bbq off with the depth of hot coals in the tin later on I decided to spread out the heat in order to cook the meat uniformly.

To be continued....

The continuation.....

After finishing the first part of my blog post I decided to make use of the hot coals and smoke some mackerel fillets. I may use the finished result in a kedgeree. Towards the end of the cooking the rain had got quite fierce and I finished the fish off situated on my front door mat. Luckily I have no household smoke alarm otherwise I think all hell would have been let loose! The mackerel fillets came from my freezer and defrosted quite quickly in a large bowl of cold water.

Leaving the mackerel wrapped up in foil to cook on the bbq I headed off in a mist of rain on my bike to the nearest tram to me (Wilford Industrial Estate stop) in order to take a few photographs of the trams.

On returning I sorted out the mackerel (taking the pictures above) and boiled some new British (buttered) Charlotte potatoes and fresh cabbage leaves to go with the barbequed lamb. By this time the lamb was cold but the slightly burnt taste of the lamb fillet (with mint sauce) went particularly well with the potatoes and greens.