Wow, time flies when you’re having fun, but that is still no excuse for being 17 weeks behind on projects.  Mind you, I’ve actually accomplished quite a few things in the past few months, just never got around to photo taking or blogging.  The excuses are endless!  Now it’s go time.

I’ve just recently moved, and with moving there are always things to do! The following are some projects/meals that I’m looking forward to working on and preparing in the upcoming weeks:

1. Herb Planting

2. Toothbrush Rugging

3. developing photos in my spousal equivalent’s make shift - shack darkroom (it’s actually pretty great)

4.  Pho (vietnamese beef noodle soup)  I’ve never attempted to make this because my mom was always around to do it, so I didn’t bother.  Now that I’ve realized my son loves pho, I know it’s my duty to learn the ways of my heritage to be a proper vietnamese mother. sigh.

5.  Banh Xeo (also another vietnamese dish)  I know this is going to be the next wave of popular foods as it can be made to be vegetarian, vegan, and also gluten free!  

So I’ve mapped out the next 5 weeks and hopefully I can stick to it!  Off I go to plant some herbs! 

Last week, while I was being lazy and watching the Food Network for hours at a time, I came across this recipe for Duck.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/the-surreal-gourmet/pan-seared-duck-breast-with-cassis-compote-recipe/index.html

Now, It’s not like I’ve never had duck before, but it was interesting to me that only the breast was being cooked, and it was being cooked like a steak to medium rare.  Initially I thought - yuck!  medium rare poultry?  Little did I know, the way I’ve been eating duck - bbq’d to oblivion, from chinatown, although good, was not as delicious as this!

I decided to invite my friend Claire over for dinner, since she said she loved duck, and try to make this myself.  Keep in mind, I’ve never made duck before.  So away I went to superstore and bought, one frozen young duck.  I defrosted it, and then had to figure out a way to debone it.  Thank goodness for google!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz81d0v78Ow&feature=related

Looks easy enough, and guess what? It was!  After de-boning my duck, I immediately felt the need to render it’s fat, make a short-stock, and start a confit.  I’ve had duck confit before but didn’t realize how time consuming it was.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eng_3c3XFxw

I rendered the fat first.  To do that you take the pieces of skin and fat leftover after you’ve de-boned it and put in a saucepan.  You then add a tablespoon of water, place it over low heat and let it simmer for about an hour.  You then strain the pieces through a fine sieve and end up with this:

And this:

These are cracklings!  I ended up putting these in the oven to crisp them up a bit.  They look gross but they are simply just duck skin.   You can eat them like this with a bit of salt, kinda like pork rinds.  You can also cut them up and add them to a crackling loaf!  You can google that if you want.  So from one duck, you end up with two breasts, two legs, and 1 cup of rendered fat, not really enough for a confit, unless you special order a tub online and have it shipped to you.  Otherwise just roast the legs!  If you’re wondering what else you could do with the rendered fat- oh the endless possibilities!  I’ve already added mine to mashed potatoes in place of butter, cooked my morning eggs in them and sauteed onions for a soup.  It really is great to just have in your fridge, and it lasts for months!  I think everyone should try making duck at least once, it’s so worth it.

Dinner ended up being fantastic.  I was so proud of myself for utilizing the whole duck, carcass and all.  To top it off we even had brownies for dessert :)  

Until next week!