Ducken

Our holidays didn't quite go as planned, but because we had more time than expected we were able to roast the last of the ducks we'd stored in the freezer. Not only was I able to render about three cups of fat, I saved the bones to make stock. Yesterday I combined the duck bones with the bones of a couple of chickens to make ducken stock. 

Today I made soup first, with all the meat, a gallon of stock, leeks, carrots, barley and spinach. Unless we can't get through it in the next few days, I won't be canning it. However, I had nine pints of stock left over which I canned. 

One jar broke, unfortunately, but I still have eight pints of ducken stock canned which is good because I seem to be perpetually running out of stock. 

Conversion

Since in a relatively short time my kitchen will be in shambles and my fridge needs to be emptied, I'm starting the process of clearing out the freezer. What I need to do is convert things that are currently frozen into shelf-stable items like soup or stews that are canned. Today I made stock with the chicken and duck bones stashed there, along with some onion peels I also kept in the freezer. I then took all the stock I made and converted it to soup by adding onion, carrots, wild rice and Swiss chard (the chard came from the farm share). After dinner there was enough soup left over to can in 3 quart jars. These can be opened and microwaved for a quick meal while we are kitchenless. 

I did find some bags of vegetable scraps so might make vegetable stock soon. Or not, if I run out of time. 

Ran Out, Made More

We were down to the last jar of stock and there were three bags of chicken and duck bones in the freezer so today I simmered them in my lobster pot and made about 16 pints of stock. Only 14 jars fit in the pressure canner so the rest got frozen except for what I needed for tonight's chicken piccata. Not a whole lot else to report, except that I found a great way to use Napa cabbage for something other than kimchee...sautéed and served with pan fried salmon. This week the farm share was in between crops so there wasn't as much produce to contend with. We're already mostly through it and it's only been 3 days.

Easter Feast

Today, for Easter, we pulled out all the stops. By that I mean we cooked, non-stop. All day.

See? Not cracked!

Breakfast was bacon and egg sandwiches on homemade bread, which was immediately followed by me making a NY style cheesecake for tonight's dessert. I may have finally cracked the mystery of how to keep my cheesecakes from, well, cracking. I let it get almost done, turn off the oven and let the cheesecake cool in the oven for a while. Twice in a row now I've managed to produce an uncracked cheesecake. With different recipes each time.

While that was going on, I also made bread. So as soon as the cheesecake was out, the oven was in use again, baking a milk and honey sourdough bread, 2 sandwich loaves and one round loaf for dinner.

Then, as soon as the bread came out of the oven my husband started to roast the duck for dinner. We normally only do ducks on New Years but when we ordered them we were told we had to buy the whole case, which was six ducks. Three were roasted on the holiday and the other three have been waiting in the freezer. Now we have two left, and unless I find another specialty butcher shop that will be it for a while. I'm sad to say our local butcher shop closed.

From the duck, I was able to render about 2.5 cups of fat and we have some leftover duck meat as well that maybe I'll make into pad thai as that was really great the last time.

After our feast of roast duck, fresh bread, and miso cauliflower, we put strawberry pie filling on the cheesecake and served it over a drizzle of chocolate ganache. So, so good!

Mixed Fowl Stock and Soup

Winter season canning has begun!

I needed to get all the bones of chickens and ducks out of the freezer so the other day I threw them ALL (3 ducks and 3-4 chickens) into my lobster pot and added 12 quarts of water. Once the stock was made I set it aside and took all the residual meat off the bones and saved that as well. Today the stock was skimmed, warmed back up, and 14 pints were canned in the pressure canner. I was running fairly low on stock so it's good that I made so much. This way, since it's duck and chicken together, it'll add a richer taste to whatever I'm making.

The rest of the stock, all the meat, and some vegetables from the fridge were combined to make a variation of Turducken Soup. This time, I added about a cup of turkey stock which was still in the fridge so I can technically call it Turducken but just barely. I added 2 small leeks, 2 parsnips, 7 small carrots, 1 rib of celery, 1/2 red onion, and half of a small can of tomato paste, plus wild rice, salt, pepper and bay. I may or may not can this as I'm running out of pint jars. If we don't eat most of it today, maybe I will just save the rest for when I'm working this week. 

New Year Catch-Up

Happy New Year!

Since I was working on the 31st and the 1st, I didn't do the cooking. My husband roasted 3 ducks on New Year's Eve, which were more than enough for 6 of us to enjoy. We had almost a whole duck left over, which I used the other day to make a terrific duck pad thai.

But with those ducks came duck livers and I had enough to make a triple batch of paté (recipe from Duck, Duck, Goose). Actually, it was an all-fowl paté as I'd been freezing livers from ducks, geese, chickens and a turkey. I had just about 22 oz. once everything was thawed, then I sautéed them with shallots, sage, capers and cognac and blended them with butter and cream. I used my new little ramekins to make 8 small pots of paté plus some for that evening. Each ramekin was sealed with a layer of duck fat and eventually stored in the freezer for later. It came out a little runnier than expected so I hope that while they're in the freezer they will dry out a little and fix the consistency. One of my Christmas gifts was reusable food wrap and I'm trying to use less plastic wrap in general. Sealing the pots in fat should provide coverage for the paté but I'll probably have to check on them soon to make sure it's sufficient.

Yesterday school started up again and the youngerchild was responsible for bringing snack to advisory. There's a whole schedule. I've sent in cookies before but decided to make mini muffins this time. I used this muffin base recipe and added wild blueberries (from the freezer stash) and a few white chocolate chips and ended up with 4 dozen little muffins. They're excellent, and bite sized, and they were popular with the advisory group.

There's been a lot of take-out, too. We have a fridge full of leftovers which is helpful when I'm working so I can either take something for myself or leave something for everyone else so they don't have to cook. Last night I finished the duck pad thai and they finished the pizza. I think there may still be some Indian food.....

Merry Christmas!

Well. It's been a while, hasn't it? It's amazing that I never really know where the time goes. As far as I know, Thanksgiving just happened, and then Christmas came up like a freight train. You know. First you can't hear it at all, and then it's just this vague, slightly familiar sound in the distance. And then before you have a chance to really process what that sound might be, it's RIGHT THERE and you have to run to stay ahead of it just long enough to let it pass by safely. Only, in this case, safely means everyone is together and well fed and gifts are purchased and wrapped on time despite all the other commitments.

I'm not quite done, mind you. We just had Christmas. Tomorrow is the big shindig for 10 people.

Today, just my parents and the four of us feasted on duck legs confit with miso cauliflower and these amazing Parker House Rolls from eat the love. I made the dough yesterday and stopped at the point where the rolls were in the pan before they were proofed. Today they proofed and baked and I topped them with Hawaiian black sea salt and they were just terrific. Yesterday I also made eggnog crème brulée and had them ready so all I had to do today was the brulée part and the garnish. Made things so much easier, giving us time to open presents in the morning and make a Lego Gingerbread House centerpiece. (It's pretty cute.)

Tomorrow there will be beef tenderloin, baked stuffed shrimp, Persian rice, and individual berry trifles. So much cooking!

Spaghetti Sauce

For a while now I've been meaning to make spaghetti sauce. Since I've been on a roll with plum tomatoes from the farm share, I thought this week I could try this recipe for spaghetti sauce and make a few jars. Yesterday I picked about 13 pounds of plum tomatoes and today, while waiting to get my chimney swept, I started a half batch. It took roughly four hours to cook to the right consistency and then a while to get it all canned (mainly because I had to take the youngerchild back to school for a club meeting which is a 40 minute round-trip so I had to wait until I got back to actually boil the water in the canner).

Ultimately I ended up with a little more than four quarts of sauce. I quite like it, I do think the soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce add depth and a little punch to the flavor. Plus, I used a bunch of onions and peppers from the share so that helped make a dent in the huge piles of vegetables I've accumulated over the past few weeks.

The other thing I did today was make a compound butter with duck fat. To properly experience this glorious creation we made corn bread for dinner and it was, indeed, lovely.

Wild Duck Confit

As I previously mentioned, I got a bunch of game meats from my brother-in-law, including the breasts of 5 ducks. I decided to try to confit them, even though the legs usually work better. Two days ago I marinated them in an onion/garlic/parsley marinade and then yesterday I cooked them slowly in a combination of duck and goose fat. Today, I looked for something to do with them and I saw online that duck confit could be added to mac and cheese. I've certainly added lobster to mac and cheese so, why not?

Usually when I make mac and cheese I make a simple white sauce and melt in 2 cups of
shredded cheese (I've been buying the Mac and Cheese blend from Cabot recently) plus 8 ounces of cream cheese. This is enough for one pound of macaroni. Then I took about half of the duck and shredded it and sautéed it with some diced onion. Once all that was mixed in with the mac and cheese and put into a casserole dish, I mixed some bread crumbs with the leftover duck fat in the pan and added pepper and parsley and sprinkled it on top of the casserole. This all was baked for about half an hour.

It was really great and, in my opinion, even better drizzled with a little white truffle oil. My husband found a little birdshot pellet in his portion, whoops!

Variations on Confit

The other day I made duck confit using 8 duck legs and a whole lot of duck fat. When the legs were done I stored them in a big jar with the fat sealing it all in. Today I put it all to good use!

For dinner we had spaghetti with confit and lemon, essentially this recipe. The youngerchild prefers plain pasta with meat on the side so received just that, with a seared duck thigh. We also had a quick salad of baby lettuces tossed with crisped duck confit shreds, croutons, and a vinaigrette made with duck fat and balsamic vinegar. It all was lovely.

There are two duck legs left for dinner on another day. So many uses out of one dish!

Gooduckey Soup

Finally, I had all the ingredients amassed to make this soup! Usually it's turducken but this year we also had a goose, so I could play around a bit. Yesterday I made the turkey stock - two gallons of stock. Don't judge.

Here's the ingredients for this year's batch of poultry wonderfulness:

2 leeks, sliced

6 ribs celery, chopped

1 package each of portabella and shitake mushrooms, sliced

12 ounces oyster mushrooms, sliced

4 cups turkey meat

2 cups each duck meat and goose meat

1 cup wild rice

1/2 cup farro

4 quarts turkey stock

2 quarts duck stock

2 quarts goose stock

salt, pepper and tarragon to taste

Once the vegetables are sautéed, the meat and stock were added to the pot. This was brought to a boil and then simmered for at least 30 minutes. After that, the rice and farro were added and continued to simmer until done, about another 30 minutes. Super easy, as long as you have everything ready to go.

Now I have 14 pints of soup in the canner, and at least 3 more quarts in various containers in the fridge and the freezer. I can use the non-canned stuff for lunches at work over the next week and gradually start to dip into the canned ones later. 

Once these are done, I will can the rest of the turkey stock. Eight Nine(!) pints worth. 

Year of the Rooster

Today is the Chinese New Year and a friend of ours was hosting a celebratory dinner/housewarming party. I wanted to make something at least remotely traditional and didn't have a lot of time. A quick Google search yielded various cookies and then I found a recipe for Chinese peanut candy. I've seen this stuff in Chinatown, little batons wrapped in plastic, always factory-made. I'd never even thought about making it from scratch. But it was so easy! The peanuts are roasted and then mixed with salt and five spice powder, then put on a baking sheet with sesame seeds and red pepper flakes. Then the sugar is cooked with water and a little vinegar for 16 minutes and poured over the top. When the sugar is poured, the candy is sprinkled with more sesame seeds and, after a few minutes, cut into pieces.

A few notes to self: the amount of the sugar wasn't enough, so while I doubled the recipe I should have tripled the sugar portion AND maybe use a little less of the red pepper flakes. It has a kick.

Another gift I brought for my friend was paté, made from a combination of chicken, duck and turkey livers. I'd saved a bunch of livers from all our various roast birds and ended up with 18 ounces of liver. That, when cooked with the shallots, garlic and duck fat, made two 12-oz loaves of paté. I made the paté a few days ago, using this recipe, and had frozen some of my share for later meals. I think my friend may do the same. Twelve ounces is a LOT of paté.

The other project for today was making turkey stock. I now have all the stocks I need to make Gooduckey soup, which I think I'll do tomorrow. I have a ton of turkey meat, some duck and some goose meat to go with all the stocks. I just want to pick up some more exotic mushrooms and then I'll have everything I need. I didn't can the turkey stock yet; I'll take what I need for the soup and then can the rest.

*TINK*

That's the sound I hate to hear when I have the pressure canner going. It means something has gone awry!

For New Year's Day, we were coming back from skiing and a friend had purchased a goose with a plan that she would cook it at our house after we got back. THAT plan went off without a hitch. She found a terrific recipe for roast goose, complete with a gravy that was just OK until the last ingredient was added - minced goose liver. Then the gravy was phenomenal. And I'm not usually a gravy fan! (I'll admit, I had eyes on that liver so I could add it to the paté I'm making soon but, I agree, the gravy needed it more.) We saved all the bones to make stock and I set aside some chopped up meat in the freezer to make a different soup variation...Turgoosuck. Well, maybe the name still needs a little work.

Last week I took the bones out of the freezer and made stock. Four quarts of stock, to be exact. And I set them aside until I had time to can them. See, to make the soup, I need turkey, duck and goose stocks, and I can only really make one at a time. But I've been busy, so I haven't had the time I needed to can them. Until today. And only because the youngerchild is sick and wasn't in school and so isn't doing the usual afternoon activities. So. I took the stock, which was cold, skimmed off the fat and poured it into four quart jars. Which were also cold. I put cold water in the pressure canner, left the top off, and heated everything up together. This seemed to be going fine. Then I put the lid on, and continued to heat everything up until it started to vent steam. After it had vented steam for five minutes, I heard it.

TINK.

Sadly, I know what that means! I turned off the burner, undid the canner and, sure enough, one of the jars had snapped at the bottom. The TINK was from the jar pieces hitting each other in the canner. I had to take everything out, rinse out the canner, and put in new water. Which, now that the jars of stock were hot, had to be heated up before I could put the jars back in. Once everything seemed to be the same temperature, I put the jars (three of them) back in and am trying again.

So much for trying to be clever.

Also, I'm making duck stock today, and will can this as well. Then, all I'll need is time to make the turkey stock and then I can devote an afternoon to making soup. Turgoosuck soup. Durkeese? Gooduckey?

The Fruits of All Our Labor

Yesterday after the meal and the presents and driving around to look at light displays it was too late and I was too tired to post anything about dinner. But it was lovely.

Once again, the ducks were roasted to perfection. They seemed to be bigger than previous years so three had a hard time fitting in the oven. When it came time at the end to crisp them up, we had to separate them into different broiling pans to give them space. From them I rendered six pints of fat for this year's confits and other yummy things. They were served with Persian rice with barberries (zereshk polo), roasted sunchokes and green beans. For dessert there were Nanaimo bars and the chocolate sweet potato pie. With the bourbon whipped cream. Of course.

Today after work I simmered the remaining duck meat in a tikka masala sauce from a jar, to which I added a little garam masala to boost the flavor. We served this over more of the rice and there were various cheeses and a panettone as well. Then we went to go see "Rogue One." A thoroughly entertaining evening!

Christmas Feasts

So many intriguing recipes, so little time!

Since we're roasting ducks today for our Christmas dinner, we'll be rendering duck fat. (And later I'll take all the duck livers and make paté.) But that meant it was time to get rid of all the duck fat I've saved up from last year. There were 6 or 7 pints of it and I've used it throughout the year to make confit, in baking, and as a topping on vegetables instead of butter. While it could probably last longer I felt that turnover was a good thing and found a recipe for which I could use up a bunch.

Donuts.

Not just ordinary donuts! Duck fat donuts. Actually the recipe calls for duck confit to be stuffed inside the donuts but I didn't have any confit nor the will to take two days to make some, so I just made the dough and deep fried them as a side for dinner last night. It turns out the initial step is to make a sort of poolish from yeast, milk and flour and waiting an hour. If I do these again, I might try using a cup of Legion for this step. It'll save time and might add something interesting to the flavor. Anyway, once the donuts are rolled into little balls, they are deep fried in duck fat. They came out perfectly! Light and fluffy and ever so slightly gamey. And really not that hard.

Dinner last night consisted of maple-bourbon steak tips, fresh fruit, these donuts, and chicken milk. Which is what we call eggnog ever since the elderchild took French and learned that the French word for eggnog is lait de poule. Chicken milk.

Day 13: Petits Fours (and Dinner)

So, I learned today that petits fours are any bite-sized pastries that can be divided into five categories. The first category is sec or dry. AKA, cookies!

Between all of us, we made 15 different kinds of cookies. Some will be baked tomorrow but most were baked today. My partner and I made checkerboard cookies, lemon sablée, damier (little sandwich cookies with apricot filling dipped halfway in chocolate) and flat orange cookies stuck together with chocolate. We also made the batter for a sesame and poppy seed tuile which we will bake tomorrow. There was a lot more piping than rolling although the checkerboard cookies, which look so cool, required a lot of steps: make the two doughs, chill them, roll them out, stack them, cut them and stack another layer, then chill again, then cut slices, assemble the checkerboards, roll out the chocolate dough to make the edges, wrap the checkerboards in chocolate dough, chill, slice and bake. Whew! They're a lot of work but totally worth it.

Also on the list were three other kinds of tuiles, Diamonds, Linzer cookies in two different flavors, pignoli florentines, and raisin cookies (with rum, of course), plus at least two other types that were prepped today and will be made tomorrow.

Here is a shot of the whole production, to give you a sense of how many we made. We set aside at least 12 dozen cookies for that event coming up in March.

When I got home, I had a lovely duck confit waiting for me. I'd gotten the recipe from that Regional French cooking class and, a few days ago, purchased 12 duck legs to confit. First they are marinated overnight in a mixture of garlic, parsley, onion, salt, pepper and bay. Yesterday they were placed in one layer in my turkey roasting pan and covered with all the duck fat I had left from all that rendering (8 pints). After cooking at 300˚F for four hours they were cooled and then divided into two dishes, covered in that fat, and stored in the fridge. Today I took the dish with seven legs, scraped off the fat, split the legs into two pieces each and then seared them in a sauté pan until they were warm. I had to do them in two batches and then kept them warm in the oven until it was time to eat. They were phenomenal.

Another Full Day

After spending a large part of the day at the Museum of Fine Arts to see the Dutch Painting Exhibition (Rembrandt,Vermeer and contemporaries) we got home around 4 pm or so. At that point, I made the turducken soup. Here's this year's recipe:

2 quarts each duck, turkey and chicken stocks

3 leeks, sliced

2 ribs celery, diced

1 cup diced carrots

12 oz. each oyster, portabella and shitake mushrooms

duck and turkey meat

1 package wild rice

salt, pepper and thyme

While this simmered, I canned 14 pints of duck stock and 3 pints of turkey stock. Since I can only fit 14 jars in my canner, that took roughly two hours as I had to do two batches. Now I have 11 pints of turducken soup in the canner which will take about another two hours all by itself. We ate more of the soup for dinner and I have about 3 quarts left in the fridge for this week. It's already 9:30 pm; the kids don't have school tomorrow but I do. At least I got a chance to study while the stock was getting canned.

Many Projects, One Day

In the past 24 hours I have made the following:

1. Granola, using this recipe:

Granola, toasting

3 cups (240g) rolled oats

1 cup (50g) shredded coconut

1 cup (100g) pecans

1/4 cup (25g) toasted wheat germ

2 tablespoons (30g) coconut oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup maple syrup)

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1 large egg white 

Preheat oven to 300. Line baking pan (half sheet) with parchment. Combine all ingredients except for egg white in large bowl, mix until thoroughly combined. Beat egg white until frothy, stir into mixture. Spread onto baking sheet evenly. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes. Cool in pan, then break into desired cluster size. [I will point out that I did not get chunks that could be broken up. Also, I added a little dried fruit.]

2. Turkey stock.

3. Duck stock.

Both stocks are in the fridge; tomorrow I will skim off the fat, make turducken soup, and can the rest of the stock as well as the soup.

4. Cheese bread. This is a recipe from school but, I'm sad to say, I think I overproofed the rolls because they ended up too big and flat. I really tried to keep track of that and I even found a way to add steam to the proofing process by putting a pan of water in the oven. It was likely still too hot in there.

5. Yogurt. Well, set it up, anyway. It'll be ready in the morning.

6. Donuts for breakfast, which we drizzled with leftover chocolate ganache and sprinkles.

7. Beef ribs for dinner, with the cheese bread. 

I am worn out, but it's a good kind of tired.

Christmas Eve

Today's projects were to make a couple of pies (for tomorrow) and prepare our Christmas Eve feast. I'd made the pie crust and roasted the sweet potatoes for a chocolate sweet potato pie already so all I had to do was roll out the crust and mix up the filling. I got out of work early today and that allowed me time to get the pies done before the ducks had to go into the oven.

Chocolate Sweet Potato Pie

The ducks are becoming our own tradition, which is terrific. The traditional Christmas dinner at my parents was always beef tenderloin and baked stuffed shrimp. Instead we have gravitated to duck which my husband always roasts to perfection. This year he roasted 2 ducks, enough food for the four of us and some meat set aside for soup. The bones will be made into stock, the livers into paté, and I have almost 4 pints of rendered duck fat for cooking.

When we stopped by the grocery store this evening they were out of eggnog. This was a calamity! Fortunately, I found this recipe for eggnog which was really terrific. I only made half the recipe and the other changes were that I used half and half instead of light cream and we used cognac instead of rum.

The elderchild artfully folded the napkins for our Christmas table. None of us wanted to unfold them, they were so nicely done.

After our lovely dinner, we ate ice cream (eggnog and peppermint-hydrox flavors) and watched The Year Without a Santa Claus. Tomorrow, the presents!

Sometimes, Plans Change

Today I was going to make grape jelly. I have over 13 cups of grape juice prepared, and that's enough for 2 batches of jelly plus some for drinking. I bought sugar and jars. And then I went to pick up my farm share.

In the share, I could get peaches and pears in addition to the usual fruits: melons and raspberries. As the allotment of berries was only 1 cup, and I had all these lovely fresh peaches, I was reminded of peach melba jam and thought maybe I'd make some. That means putting off the grape jelly, and the applesauce I was also thinking about making, but that's OK. Those ingredients will keep longer than the berries and peaches will.

The berries, when crushed, made about half a cup. To this I added 3.5 cups of peaches, 2 T. lemon juice, 5.5 cups sugar and a package of pectin. This made exactly 6.5 cups of jam.  Last time I made this flavor, I used more raspberries than peaches and one couldn't even taste the peaches. I am not sure I can taste the peaches this time, either! Maybe it needs to mellow out some.

Tonight for dinner we will have the last of the portions of paté I made, with the cornichons and the spruce paste, along with cheese, bread and fruit. After spending over an hour in the sun picking vegetables, I'm worn out!

Edit: After dinner, I got the 20 small tomatoes peeled and into a quart jar in the canner, just as I did last week. There are just too many tomatoes for us to eat and I found these jars of peeled, whole tomatoes really useful in the past year.