Cooking with coffee?! Who would have thought it? Apparently, a number of people. This may not be news to you readers but it was certainly news to me. A employee of mine brought to my attention several recipes that use coffee as a main ingredient. Now, I had seen all kinds of dessert recipes that called for coffee, but never an entreé recipe. I thought, surely, this was a new invention in both the cooking and coffee worlds. I was so excited that I went home and called my mom to tell her about it. Much to my surprise, my own mother (whom we all believe to be tragically un-hip) was way ahead of me. She, too, contributed to my coffee cooking collection. Here it is!

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix dry ingredients together and evenly coat the racks of lamb. In a large, oven-proof sauté pan, heat vegetable oil on high until lightly smoking. Carefully sear lamb on both sides quickly. Remove pan from stove and place in oven. Bake until lamb reaches 120°F. Remove from oven, let sit for 5 minutes. Cut, serve, and enjoy!

*In the above recipe I substituted lamb with chicken breast (180°F) and it was delicious!

In a saucepan cook onion, celery and carrots in butter over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, coffee, water, tomato paste, sugar, salt, and hot sauce. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 - 25 minutes. Cool slightly. Blend half the mixture at a time in the blender until smooth. Return all into saucepan and stir in 1/4 cup of the whipping cream just until hot. The remaining whipping cream can be whipped and placed on top of the soup for garnish.

www.kraftfoods.com is the best resource I found for more coffee cooking recipes. Coffee Crusted Lamb Chops recipe provided courtesy of Ryan Puckett and Whole Foods Market. Tomato Jo Soup recipe provided by Jeanine Coley. Happy coffee cooking!