Restocking

Since we'd run out of applesauce, I bought a bunch of apples at the store to make more. Which I did today. A dozen apples made just under three quarts of applesauce. I added maple sugar to these, to give it a little maple flavor. Which is good.

Learning from our history that we couldn't finish a full quart jar of applesauce without it going bad, I packed this in pint jars instead. So, five pints and some in the fridge.

So Retro

A friend was coming over today and I got it in my head to make a pineapple upside-down cake. I've never made one before, in all this time! I remember my mother making one once or twice, back when I was a kid. It feels very retro to me. It was very easy. To be fair, it would have been easier if I used a cake mix, but I wanted to make it from scratch and this recipe fit the bill. It's a separated sponge cake and that was definitely fun to make. I even made sweetened whipped cream to serve with it. Mmm.

So I'm making a note of this because I definitely want to keep this recipe link!

Side note: I used my homemade maraschino cherries. Even better!

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!

Ran Out!

Of applesauce!

To be fair, this is my fault because I didn't make any in the fall, partly because I thought I had more than I did. Last night I pulled the jar out of the fridge only to discover that it had gone bad, in such a way that we threw out the entire jar. Ew.

But, to my surprise, that was our last jar! No applesauce. We used a pear-cranberry compote made by a friend to go with our pork chops which was fine, but not applesauce. I guess I should pay closer attention to the inventory.

However, since we finished off all the apples from when we went apple picking, and it's the middle of winter, I might have to go buy apples just so we can have more... 

The Princess and the Nonpareils

As I mentioned in my last post, my mother-in-law requested gingerbread cookies. I decided on hearts this time, thinking I could get ready for Valentine's Day by making some cookies ahead of time and freezing them until February. I made them on Sunday and today I got to decorating them.

One thing I know - I should use the good metal tips rather than the cheaper plastic ones; the icing came out in globs. Despite that, the cookies turned out much cuter than they had any right to, considering my suspect decorating skills. And, speaking of that...

For Christmas, in my stocking there were various little sprinkle decorations, including a bottle of tiny white nonpareils. (Yes, I know nonpareils are the chocolate candy with the little white balls, but I think the term also applies to the white balls themselves.) Let's just say they are affected rather profoundly by static electricity and, the second I opened the bottle and poured some into a bowl, they scattered.

Despite sweeping, and roomba-ing, I am constantly stepping on these itty bitty, 1 mm-across candy balls. And I can feel every one. I have taken to picking them up off the kitchen floor by hand. And I haven't even checked out the dining room yet...

Quite The Production

Holidays came and went, along with a quick ski trip in Vermont that was less "skiing" and more "staying inside and avoiding the rain." We did play a pretty awesome game, Betrayal Legacy, which kept us entertained for hours but needing to take a break once in a while because it was so complicated! We also discovered that ground venison is a fine substitute in tacos and spaghetti sauce. My brother-in-law sent me a bunch of game meat for Christmas; I sent him a signed copy of Hank Shaw's new cookbook: Pheasant, Quail, Cottontail.

One of the things on my agenda this weekend was to defrost the freezer, so exciting, but that meant I needed to get the four gallons of tomatoes out of there. Yesterday they thawed and this morning I boiled them and tried to run them through the food mill. I'm not really sure what happened except that somehow the food mill got jammed. I ended up scooping out tomato pulp from the hopper and pushing it through a sieve by hand, making a mess that the youngerchild suggested looked like a crime scene. Someone has been watching too much Supernatural, maybe? Anyway, after the liquid boiled off I was left with 3 and a half pints of tomato sauce; I added Persian spices to one pint, Italian spices to the other two and left the half-pint plain.

The other thing that I wanted to get done today was to make a batch of gingerbread cookies for my mother-in-law, who was envious that she didn't get any over the holidays. I got the cookies all made today - two different sizes of hearts - and will frost them tomorrow, hopefully. It's a LOT of cookies. 

Where've You Been?

Yeah, I recognize I haven't posted since Thanksgiving. I don't know where the time goes anymore. But I have been baking, a lot, and getting my holiday gifts together.

As November drew to a close I discovered I hadn't really been canning all year and had approximately three jars in my gift stash. Normally I need about 50! Clearly something needed to be done. I decided to try to make a variety of cookies this year and hand them out to my neighbors instead. I started with gingerbread (Day 1). Actually, I started with a gingerbread house, and then moved on to gingerbread cookies. We had a marathon decorating session (Day 2) and I set the cookies aside. Nine dozen.

Then I made shortbread cookies (Day 3). They were supposed to be spritz cookies, using my cookie press, but the dough was too thick (I vaguely remember that this was why I put the press back in its box for over a decade) so I rolled it out and made shortbread hearts which were filled with ganache and dipped in chocolate. Two dozen.

Next I made Biarritz cookies (Day 4), with almond and hazelnut flours and orange zest. These also were sandwiched with ganache and striped with dipping chocolate. Four dozen, I think. Maybe five. I lost count.

The next task was meringues with hazelnuts (Day 5), Rochers. The technical difficulty here was that the hazelnuts clogged the star tip while piping, so I had to change to a plain tip and they weren't as pretty. They baked overnight in a low oven. Six dozen or so.

Then I made chocolate crackle cookies (Day 6) which was really fun and easy. But the recipe was a little off for me so instead of five dozen cookies I got four and a half dozen.

Lastly, a double batch of Nanaimo bars (Day 7). This recipe I posted is similar but I use pecans and my Mom's recipe has slightly different proportions. These are traditional for our family at Christmastime. Roughly four dozen bars.

Today I assembled little gift boxes of all the cookies along with some kisses and other chocolates and have started delivering them to our friends and neighbors. I have more to do, but this takes care of the bulk of people on my list!