Hot lunch used to be gross. At least, I thought so. My mom packed my lunch in a proper eighties plastic lunch box, complete with matching thermos filled with milk. Hot lunch meant grubby paper punch cards and pizza that the lunch ladies cut with a pair of scissors. I saw it with my own eyes and was never the same. I liked Land O Lakes American cheese sandwiches on Wonder bread with yellow mustard and a healthy swipe of the Hellman’s. In my first grade class you had to watch out for zaftig Mrs. Greenlaw, perpetually on a diet, who would not think twice about stealing a six year old’s snack. Cold lunch, hot dinner was how I rolled for most of my life. Until recently, when I moved to Maine and continue to work from home. A hot lunch is both a luxury and a necessity when the February weather is precipitation’s equivalent of a sniss. Today I ingeniously repurposed the remainder of last night’s Oscar snacks – mini aromatic lamb meatballs – into a juicy slider of a lamburger. Imagine that!

Lamb Burgers For Lunch
Adapted from a recipe by Nigella Lawson

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground lamb
• 1/4 cup diced green onion
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons panko bread crumb
• salt
• pepper
• Green Sauce (recipe follows)

Method:

Mix all ingredients with your hands in a large bowl, cover with plastic and let sit in the refrigerator for an hour. In a lightly oiled hot skillet over medium heat, smash 1/4 lbs of the mixture and cook about three minutes a side. Serve with:

Green Sauce

Combine and whirl in a food processor:

• 3 tablespoons Greek yogurt
• 2 jalapenos, seeds removed
• 2 garlic cloves
• handful of mint
• handful of cilantro
• handful of spinach
• salt

I used my leftover focaccia dough to make a puffy flatbread, which I cooked at 450 for 20 minutes until golden. The sauce was both spicy and fresh and the burger juicy with just a hint of curry. This is a super simple, beautiful hot lunch on a rainy/snowy/sleety Monday at noon.