DUCK, DUCK....

A continuation from one of our other dinners when we focused on duck. I'll come back with some recipes, but for now I just had to get these pictures out there. They're mouthwatering even months later and I can't wait to make this again.

Main dish: Pan-Fried Duck Breast w/ Parsnip Puree
I loved this dish. We're turning into really big fans of parsnips. It's basically a sweeter potato if you haven't tried it yet. I definitely recommend it. The parsnip puree and the duck are a beautiful pairing. Again, the recipe we followed called for either veal ju or demi-glace, neither of which we had or made. So we picked another sauce we found and it ended up being a great combination.

Welcome Home to us: Seafood & Duck

(I'll admit, I wrote this in mid-November...)
Welcome home to us! We've been traveling and have been busy for the last few weekends. In bigger news though, I have new sister-in-law! Mr. K's brother got married last weekend during what was a miracle and sign from God when it comes to Mother Nature. If you're on the east coast, you know how much rain we were predicted to get over the weekend. Between my friend Ryan's wedding in Maryland, and our family wedding in NC, I was a bit nervous for Saturday. We set up the chairs for the outdoor ceremony on Saturday morning in the pouring rain, hoping that the clouds would clear for the 3:30 ceremony. Low and behold, the rain stopped around 11, and held off literally the rest of the day and evening, even for clean up after the reception. We couldn't believe it. The wedding was absolutely beautiful, the bride was stunning, groom grinning from ear to ear, guests dancing all night, and an awesome bubble send-off. I can't wait to see the pictures, they are bound to be nothing short of gorgeous. Congratulations John & Mandy!

Now on to our weekend at HOME.... We spent our Saturday morning at Home Depot, finally getting blinds!! Yes, we put in our order for blinds. We've been living with paper shades for about 18 months since we moved into our house. So we can't wait for those to come in and finally get installed. One step closer to feeling completely settled. A weekend home wouldn't  be complete without a trip to Home Goods, of course. We surprisingly didn't get much, but I am definitely making a trip back there soon to get my holiday fix. The store was officially taken over by Christmas stuff. It was crazy.

Let's move on to the yummy part of this post...
A tasting of seafood and duck. That pretty much sums it up.

First up: Oysters Rockefeller 
Heat oven to 375 degrees, throw oysters on cookie sheet, 3-4 minutes until they open. Pull out, shuck 'em, dress them with whatever you're feeling. In our case, we took our own spin on oysters rockefeller, with stuffing! Put them back in the oven for about 10 minutes. Watch closely. You're looking for the breading to brown, turn into a crust.

Prepping for parsnip puree - base of the main dish...coming later

Second up: Clams w/a parsley, garlic sauce

• Handful of parsley, one pinch of garlic, half glass of wine of olive oil (aka 2 tbs). Blend until smooth. add what you need until you like it :) Consistency lighter than pesto. 
• Put wine (enough to coat the bottom of the pan) and another good pinch of garlic in a medium pan. Bring it to a boil, then put clams in (we had a bag of 12 from Harris Teeter), cover for about 10 minutes. Start paying attention though at about 8 or 9 minutes. You're looking for them to open by themselves. After 7 minutes, add half of green sauce. This is your first opportunity to see if the clams are opening. Mix everything up with the sauce. Cover that baby back up. 
• 3 minutes later (10 min total cooking time), take out the open clams and put them aside. 
• Wait another 30 seconds for the other guys to open. If they haven't opened, take them out. Don't wait for them to open. Throw 'em away. (this is our opinion, feel free to wait longer if you wish)
• Plate the clams, spoon remainder of sauce over the plate.
• Enjoy!

Third up: Stuffed Mushrooms
Stuffed mushrooms are, shall I say a staple in our house? This time, the stuffing was stuffing... typically it would be breadcrumbs. Tis the Thanksgiving season, right?

• Carve out the center mushrooms with a pairing knife (white button mushrooms... find the largest ones you can)
• Make stuffing according to package (we used the same stuffing mix for the clams and mushrooms), about a cup. 
• Mix half a cup of stuffing mixture with half handful of parsley, 2 tbs or green onions or chives (your choice), salt, pepper, 2 tbs of BACON. We found some Boarshead slab bacon on sale at Teeter, so we diced that and used it. 
• Put mushrooms on aluminum foil-lined baking sheet, spray mushrooms with olive oil, stuff mushrooms with filling. 
• Bake at 375 for about 10 minutes. Then really start paying attention. You're looking for is it to start browning and bubbling ("Bubbling is always a good sign" -Mr. K). Could be up to 15 minutes. 

*Chef's note: pour glass of wine, then enjoy Mushrooms.

Fourth up: Seared Duck on Top of My Two Favorite Foods 
Mr. K knows how much I love mashed potatoes and ramen noodles, so this was a surefire way to my heart (and stomach). This dish can also be called: Hoisin Duck & Sweet Potato Mash on Crispy Noodles

• Cook ramen noodles per package directions. Only cook the noodles though. After noodles are done, drain, then toss the noodles in the seasoning. 
• Divide noodles up into mini-muffin pan. We tried different levels of filling. 
• Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. 
• If you don't have mini muffin pan (we didn't until two days ago), you can use a regular muffin pan and make 6 bites, or just use an oven-proof skillet and make one big crispy pan-sized noodle (that actually sounds awesome). 

• For the potatoes, peel them, boil 'em, drain. Mash with 2 tbs of coconut milk for sweetness (or butter if you don't have coconut milk), and salt to taste. 
• Duck: The recipe we started to follow for this called for marinating the duck for 4-8 hours. We didn't do that. We marinated it for about an hour, and it still turned out flavorful. Either way though, this is what you should do: 
• Marinate duck in hoisin sauce, garlic and ginger for "some time." 
• heat oven to 400 degrees (yes, same as the ramen noodles) 
• use a medium or large pan, sear duck breast fat side down for about 1-2 minutes. Then sear the other side for 1-2 minutes. Place duck breast fat side up in a baking dish and roast int he oven for 6-8 minutes, or until the internal temp reaches between 140 (rare) and 150 degrees (medium rare). Fun tip from the recipe we were following: Roasting the duck breast fat side up allows the fat to melt down into the meat while roasting, keeping the meat succulent and juicy. 
• Allow duck to rest on a cutting board for about 10 minutes before slicing, so as to keep the juices in. Slice into 12 bite-sized pieces for serving (or however many ramen noodle crispies you have). 
• Put it all together now! Crispy noodle bite on the bottom, then spoon a bit of potato mash on top, then top with a piece of sliced duck. Garnish with whatever you like - scallions, peanut or sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds. 

Note: To be honest, we were really excited for this dish, but it looks a lot better on camera than it actually tastes. Give it a shot, but it definitely wasn't my favorite. The noodles aren't all that flavorful, but the combination of purple potatoes and the duck are pretty great, so try that together.

Date Night Dinner Series: Appetizer

Cooking in our kitchen, eating in our house is the highlight of our weeks more often than not. Mr. K is an amazing cook (can I say chef?), and he loves cooking. The kitchen is what really sold us on this house, and we've made every penny count since we moved in. One of the biggest ways is cooking new things at home instead of going out to restaurants for date night. Believe me, we do love a fun time out, but perusing Harris Teeter's specials, wandering the store for new things is exciting to us.

We're also finally in town for a few weeks together which is a joy, and makes me so happy. We've been traveling a lot for a few reasons and we haven't been able to spend too much time together at home. When we do get a night or two, we brainstorm fun dinners to cook (for Mr. K to cook, and for me to photograph and drink wine).

Tonight's wine of choice was Alamos Malbec in honor of Pope Francis being in town this week! My father's family is from Argentina, so having an Argentine Pope is even more special. My parents attended the Mass outside of the Shrine this week and they said it was so special. More on that later. Let's get to the food!

First course was mussels and gazpacho! We're channeling the summer weather that's slowly on its way out. Both were so delicious. Mussels were steamed in a lemon, wine, cilantro sauce.

All serving platters are most likely from Home Goods :) That's our go-to spot during our free weekends to try and find new things. 

Zest of one lemon 

3 cups white wine (2 for the mussels, one for you!)

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons grated, crushed ginger

1/2 of one shallot

2 tablespoons of butter

A handful of Cilantro (once you pull the mussels out, toss the cilantro in and mix 'em up)

Melt butter in the pan, throw in the garlic, shallot and ginger. Sautee for for 30-40 seconds, add in the wine (don't forget to sip some along the way, too). Boil the wine. 

Throw in the mussels, channel your inner T Swift and shake it off (shake the mussels in the pan a bit). 

Toss in the cilantro, mix up a bit, and then put everything into a bowl, and serve. Don't forge to put the wine mixture in the bowl too. Enjoy! 

Appetizer #2: Gazpacho

In typical Mr. K fashion, he didn't actually follow a recipe. That's a large part of the reason why it either takes me forever to actually write a food post, or why I don't post them at all... because he adds his own twist to every single thing he makes, he combines a bunch of recipes, or just thinks of things on his own, and says he's going to tell me everything but never actually does ;) So let's give it a shot with the gazpacho... 

2 lbs roma tomatoes

1/2 vidalia onion

2 poblano peppers 

3 gloves garlic

1 cucumber peeled and diced 

1/4 cup sherry cooking wine (and some actual wine ;)) 

1/4 olive oil 

1 tablespoon Paprika (if you want it a little smoky) 

1 tablespoon of cumin (again, we really like this spice) 

Chop everything, put into a bowl, let is sit out for an hour, puree with a cup of whipping cream (we like it creamy, but if you don't, use water instead). 

Then put it in the fridge for 2 hours, up to a day (we didn't keep it in the fridge for two hours because we started late, but it was still good. It will probably be pretty awesome tomorrow, filled with even more flavor). 

Top with raw, fresh ingredients, like chopped tomato, cucumber and onion. Add croutons if you like, too :) 

Serve and enjoy! 

Shepherd's Pie Winter Night Dinner

It was my turn to cook dinner and since I was working from home today, it was the perfect time to come up with something fun, different and warming since it's freezing outside this week! Let's be honest though for a second, I don't cook very much. Not because I don't like to, but because Mr. K is just so darn good at it! Seriously though, he loves to cook and he's great at it. Great at coming up with meals on the fly, while I always need to follow a recipe. But that's ok because I enjoy following a recipe and trying new things (to a certain extent).

Anyways, tonight I made Shepherd's Pie. I was going to make a bunch of mini pies, but decided to just make two and then make the rest in a big pan. I followed a couple of different recipes, so I've combined those here. Mr. K is usually the mashed potato maker in the house, but he said that I may have taken over that duty. I was pretty impressed, if I do say so myself ;)

I have to admit though, the only photos I took are over the mini-Shepherds pies I made. I forgot to take a picture of the big one. BUT it looked just like this, only in an 8x8 ceramic dish.

Yields: 4-6 Servings
Temperature: 450 degrees
Cook Time: 15 minutes

Mashed Potatoes: 
3 large potatoes, peel and cubed
1/2 C. Sour Cream
1/4 C. Milk
1 tb butter

Filling:
1 3/4 lb. ground beef
salt and pepper
1 carrot, peeled and chopped (I had a bag of baby carrots in the fridge so I just chopped about 10-15 of those)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 C. chopped mushrooms (about 4 large mushrooms)
1/2 C. Frozen peas
1 tsp paprika
2 tb butter
2 tb flour
1 C. beef broth
2 tsp Worcestershire
1/2 C. shredded cheddar cheese (I actually forgot to use this, and it turned out just fine!)
2 tb chopped fresh parsley leaves

Preheat oven to 450 degrees

1. Boil potatoes in salted water until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes 
2. While potatoes are boiling, heat skillet over medium-high heat. Add ground beef to pan and season with salt and pepper. 
3. Brown meat - toss in carrots, mushrooms, onions and garlic 
4. Cover and cook this mixture for 5 minutes, stirring frequently 
5. Stir in peas, parsley and paprika 
6. In a second, smaller pan, heat butter and flour for about 2 minutes (make sure not to burn the butter!). Add in the Worcestershire and beef broth. Whisk until thick, about 1-2 minutes. Add the gravy to meat pan. 
7. Drain potatoes, put into a bowl (I just put them back into the pot I boiled them in), mix in sour cream, butter and milk, mash until smooth 
8. Pour meat mixture into casserole dish, and top with mashed potatoes. Top potatoes with cheese. 
9. Cook until potatoes are browned on top 
10. Let cool and enjoy! 

Fat Tuesday Tradition

I'm a bit late on this post, but I had other ones I wanted to put before it. Fat Tuesday in my house growing up was always about indulging in a great dinner, usually comprising of pancakes, bacon, eggs...breakfast. This is Mardi Gras, always falling the night before Ash Wednesday. We've always cooked this meal, so I decided to bring it into Mr. K and my house this year. I had even gone to the store on the way home from work last Tuesday and gotten fixings for enchiladas because Mr. K had made his infamous salsa (don't worry, I'll post about that very soon). Then I remembered it was Fat Tuesday and there was no way I was making enchiladas. Breakfast it was.

Since Mr. K is from North Carolina, we decided to put our own twist to my idea of pancakes and bacon. So, in comes friend chicken and pancakes. It was delicious! We had a few chicken breasts we needed to cook, so it worked out great. I looked at recipes to get a feel for what we needed to put into the batter, and then I took it from there and added in our own spices. For the pancakes, I've been making my own for a few months now after I went to cook one Saturday morning and realized there wasn't enough Bisquick. I love my homemade ones even more.

For the recipes I look at, I rarely use the suggested "4 chicken breasts" because sometimes I only need to cook one because the packs we get at Harris Teeter or Safeway are so big! I just butterfly one chicken breast and we have a decent serving for each of us. So, when I recommend a recipe, or make my own, I'll also just write it as it fits for two people. I think that's important.

Fried Chicken:
(I adapted a few recipes into my own for lack of ingredients, and/or because I didn't like them!)

1-2 chicken breasts
1 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp Old Bay (I add this to anything I can, so this is optional for you)
1 tsp Thyme
1 tsp cayenne (I added this for a little spice for the breading, optional if you don't want much heat)
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp Tony's Creole (again, adding a little heat/flare to the breading)
1 tsp marjoram
1 tsp salt
3 Tb Vegetable Oil

Ingredients

1. Cut up chicken breasts into cubes, strips, or two halves - however you like your fried chicken (I cut ours up into strips)
2. Soak chicken in milk for 15-20 minutes or until you mix all other ingredients and heat your pan to fry the chicken
3. Heat pan over medium-high; add olive oil once hot enough
4. Meanwhile mix all dry ingredients in a medium bowl

4. Take chicken out of milk and toss them in the dry ingredients. Be sure to cover them well! 

5. Put strips into hot pan in oil (we don't deep fry, or add in enough oil to submerge our chicken strips, but that's our decision. Feel free to add in enough to submerge the strips in the pan) 

6. Cook until darker and crispy, 3-4 minutes on each side. *when you're frying chicken, it cooks a lot faster (thanks to Mr. K giving me this little tip). Another tip when you're frying, make sure the pan isn't TOO hot because you'll burn the outside faster than it will cook inside, but too low heat won't make it crispy. It took me 2 batches to figure out what worked best. 

My first attempt, wasn't that crispy, but we adjusted the heat (hotter) and put them back in there and they were great

So, here is when you'll have to multitask and make the pancakes:

Pancakes: 

1 egg

1 cup flour

3/4 cup milk

1 tb sugar

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla (I love adding vanilla to my pancakes, I think it's essential)

1 tsp cinnamon *optional (again, I love adding cinnamon to my pancakes)

2 tb oil 

I like to multi-task so I heat griddle low-medium while mixing ingredients 

1. Mix dry ingredients, then add in wet ingredients; whisk all together

2. Pour batter onto griddle 

3. Cook until golden brown, flip, about 3 minutes each side 

I forgot to add in the most important ingredient of cooking...

Wine!

I love to smother my pancakes in butter and then add syrup to cover it! These chicken and waffles were just what we needed for this Fat Tuesday meal. What are your Fat Tuesday dinner traditions?! 

Finished product: Fried Chicken & Waffles, DC style!