Diet Coke in a sauce?

The hubby and I have been turkey'd out of it this year having subjected ourselves to 2 Mammy dinners and being packed back up to Dublin with a 50lb bird in the boot by the Mammy in law. So when last night it came time for dinner, the first we would cook for ourselves in so many weeks, we decided we wanted something as FAR away from turkey and a whiff of Christmas as possible. So to the cookbook we went, well to the online cookbook we went.

With our freezer filled to the gills with lamb (both legs of and lamb chops, [don't worry the over-sized bird is nicely chilled in my mother's freezer]) we decided it would be the meat of choice and went in search of an appetizing sauce. Our first attempt at a cream and mango based sauce quickly got poured down the sink and it was then we stumbled upon a recipe whose main ingredient was a can of Diet Coke.

I see you now with your peaked interest and raised eyebrows and hear you asked yourselves, can these people be mad?! We questioned our own faculties and I am sure that somewhere on God's Green Earth Gordon Ramsey swore that little bit harder, when the cooking God's delivered the news to him of our Diet Coke based sauce plan. None the less, we ventured forth to the kitchen once more and timidly took the Coke from the fridge.

To the can of coke we added about the same again in tomato ketchup (please don't cringe just yet), some tomato puree, a few dashes of bloody mary mix (our own addition), some crushed sea salt, chilli, cracked black pepper and garlic and brought to the boil. We stood dubiously over the hob contemplating whether or not to chuck it out too but slowly an amazing aroma wafted up through our nostrils and our taste buds begin to tingle and mouths water.

We poured our Diet Coke sauce over our oven cooked chops and seasoned with some fresh parsley and sat down to the table to taste our masterpiece. The explosion of flavour hit us and we hungrily licked our plates clean... the sauce was so delicious that we're having the same again tonight!