POACHED EGGS, ROASTED POTATOES AND SESAME TOAST

I. Love. Breakfast. Not only is it the most important meal of the day, it’s also my favorite. I love breakfast in all its forms – brunch, continental, even brinner (breakfast for dinner). I don’t get to eat breakfast much during the week, barring the occasional banana or bowl of generic Fruity Pebbles, so when I do, I take it very seriously.

Breakfast means many things to many people and can vary widely depending on what country you hail from, or even different parts of this country. But to me, a proper breakfast means just one thing: eggs. And potatoes. Ok, two things. Wait, it also means pig of some sort – bacon, sausage, ham, chorizo, I’m not picky as long as it’s pig. No matter what the combination or preparation, breakfast food can be a quick and simple meal that literally anyone can cook. Whenever I’m helping someone learn to cook for themselves, I always recommend breakfast as a great place to start. It can still get tricky, especially cooking eggs properly, which is why professional kitchens sometimes test new chefs by asking him or her to poach or scramble an egg, but if you can cook eggs, you can cook anything.

To me, a near perfect expression of the beautiful simplicity of an egg is when it’s poached. On top of toast, nestled in salad greens, waiting expectantly atop a juicy steak for me to break through the billowy white to get at the pleasantly oozing yolk as it drips down and mingles with the meaty drippings creating a luxurious sauce of protein, salt and pure universal goodness. . . or you could scramble it. The point is breakfast food is a great go-to meal absolutely any time, which makes it a great place to start if you’re trying to cook for yourself at home more often.

I know I’ve given the egg most of the spotlight here, probably because it’s my favorite part of breakfast, but the supporting players are awesome in their own right. I fried some pancetta (Italian bacon) on the stovetop, then sautéed potatoes with onions and garlic in the rendered pork fat. Not only does it make great use of cooking “by-products” that would otherwise get thrown out, it tastes amazing. I also made sesame toast, a great twist on regular “breakfast toast,” but regular is good, too. Whichever way you prefer to cook your eggs and toast and potatoes, just make sure you do. If you have to, wait for a relatively lazy Saturday and take the time to cook breakfast for your family.

Poached Eggs, Roasted Potatoes and Sesame Toast

We cooked this meal for 3 people, but you can alter the amounts depending on how many you’re serving.

4 eggs

12 small red potatoes
12 slices bacon
1/3 of a large white onion
3 cloves garlic
6 cups water
3 tbls white vinegar
Bread for toast (We had a French baguette and cut it in 1 inch slices)
Sesame seeds
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

1. Put the water in a deep pot and heat over medium-low to medium heat. Heat the water to the point just before it simmers. You’ll see small bubbles on the bottom of the pan, but not really rising to the surface. Stir in the vinegar, which helps better set the egg whites. Don’t worry, you won’t taste it.

2. While the water simmers, heat a 12-inch skillet over medium-low heat. Once it heats up, put in a few bacon strips and let them cook gently. This will render a good amount of the bacon fat which we’ll use to cook the potatoes. Cook the bacon as crispy as you like, then place them on a plate lined with paper towels. Cook the bacon in batches, 4 or 5 slices at a time, so you don’t overcrowd the pan. Reserve the bacon fat.

3. While the bacon is cooking, cut the potatoes in 1 ½ ince pieces, place in a microwave safe bowl, season with salt and pepper, cover with plastic wrap, and microwave on high until the potatoes are ¾ of the way cooked, 5-10 minutes. You’ll still see some solid white in the center of each potato. Drain the potatoes, as they would have released some moisture, and pat them dry with paper towels.

Heat the pan with the bacon fat over medium heat. Dice the onion and garlic, and sauté them in the pan until the onions start to get translucent. Sauté the potatoes with the onions and garlic until they get some color on all sides. Mmmm, delicious.

4. Beat one egg in a small bowl and set aside. Without breaking the yolks, crack an egg into a small bowl, then gently drop into the near-simmering water. With a slotted spoon, immediately start spooning the egg whites over the yolks to ensure the yolk is covered with the whites. Some of the egg white will spread out into the rest of the water, but just remove it with the slotted spoon. Continue this with each egg and remove them with the whites are just set.

5. Spread the sesame seeds on a plate. Dip one side of each slice of bread into the beaten egg, then place side onto the sesame seeds so they stick. Place each bread slice into the formerly bacon-y pan, still over medium heat, until the sesames are toasted, then turn to toast the other side. If there’s no bacon fat left in the pan to cook the toast, pour in enough olive oil to cover the bottom.

6. We placed the potatoes in a bowl, then the bacon, the egg with a little salt and pepper, then the toast on the side. Plate your delicious breakfast however you want, but make sure to drizzle a little more olive oil over the egg and potatoes. Devour with gusto.

Roast Chicken and New Goals

We’ve been through this before. About 6 months ago I apologized for letting this blog fall by the wayside and made grand schemes to keep up with it every week. That obviously hasn’t happened. The good news for me is that I don’t have throngs of devoted readers who depend on me for information, inspiration and insert-third-rhyming-thing-here-piration, so my lack of posting has largely gone unnoticed. This is no excuse, however, and something must be done to create greater consistency, focus, and most of all, more home-cooked food.

So here, at the beginning of 2012, is my effort to refocus Garden Fresh Chefs. Let’s start with a slightly new direction and some things to look forward to:

The goal of this blog will be to encourage people to cook for themselves, family and friends at home. We lose something as a culture when we keep others away from our homes, become too far removed from our sources of food, and stop preparing the food we eat. There’s a good reason why most major holidays and events revolve at least in part around food: sharing a meal can bring people together.

For example, I used to work at a church about an hour away from our home and had to stay in that town the whole day, and there was one particular couple who would invite Jackie and me over almost every Sunday for dinner. (FYI, in country towns such as this, we learned the mid-day meal on Sundays is “dinner.” You had “lunch” during the week.) They never hesitated to have us over without an agenda, without obligation, but to simply share a meal and each other’s company. Sharing a meal someone took the time to prepare with their own two hands can be mysteriously amazing. Some of my favorite memories are around the dinner table, and I bet the same could be said for you.

I’ve heard more and more people tell me they prefer the Thanksgiving holiday to Christmas as they get older, and that shouldn’t be a surprise. Peel away the layers of frantic shopping, decorations, commercialism, and crummy TV specials and what do you have? Time spent with loved ones and a big, home-made meal.

As Michael Ruhlman has said many times before, industrial food companies want you to think that cooking is hard; it’s a chore; it’s something you’re not smart or capable enough to do for yourself. Look at how many recipes, TV shows, cookbooks, frozen meals, and food personalities tout meals that are easy, fast, or uncomplicated all in 5 minutes or less. And that’s true of a lot home cooking, but what if does take time? What if you have to use more than 5 or 6 ingredients? What if the process might seem a little complicated at first? Does that mean we shouldn’t cook at all? Should we relegate our meals to those pre-made in boxes, tubes, bags, and trays? Or might it mean that cooking at home is something valuable enough to work at? I think it’s true that anything worth doing is worth doing right, and if cooking at home is worth doing then we should put forth effort to do it well.

The ultimate goal of Garden Fresh Chefs is to re-imagine the modern view of cooking, though sometimes a process, as a craft to cherish instead of a chore to dread. To me, the best expression of this is a simple roast chicken. I’m not exactly breaking new ground with this, as everyone from Sandra Lee to Thomas Keller has a roast chicken recipe. But a no-nonsense, simple and delicious meal such as this is the perfect place to start. Roast chicken is infinitely variable and adaptable to about anything you have already in your kitchen. You can add pretty much any herb you want on the inside and/or outside of the bird, or not. You can put aromatics in the cavity such as citrus, onion or garlic, or not. You can truss the bird, or not. You can lube the bird with oil or butter, or not. The only required elements of a good roast chicken are salt and pepper inside and out, and that means you are able to cook it at home for yourself and your family. No excuses now, get cooking.



Roast Chicken

1 4-5 lb. “roaster/fryer” chicken

Preheat the oven to 425°

Again, all you really need for a proper roast chicken is salt and pepper, and a chicken of course. Pat the chicken dry with paper towels inside and out, season generously with salt all over the bird and inside the cavity and add freshly cracked black pepper to taste.

Feel free to experiment with the flavors below, or whatever crazy combinations you want, then place the chicken on a roasting tray then into the oven. Leave it alone for 45-60 until the internal temperature of the thigh reads around 165 and the juices of the bird run clear. No basting, please. It’s not necessary. Let it rest for about 10 minutes, then devour.

If you’d like to employ herbs either on the skin or inside the cavity (or both!) you could use:

Thyme, which we did on the skin
Basil
Tarragon
Oregano
Savory
Parsley
Sage
Basil
Chives
Rosemary (sparingly)
Pretty much anything green

If you’d like to put other aromatics (things that smell good) into the cavity, you could use:

Lemon, or really any other citrus
Onion
Garlic
Ginger
Cinnamon
Carrot
Celery
Apples
Get the idea? Just make sure you don’t stuff the cavity full or else you’ll have to increase the cooking time to make sure the chicken is cooked all the way through and will most likely dry out. Also, once done the aromatics in the cavity have given their all. Dispose appropriately.

Just Kidding. . .

So obviously, this isn’t a post about sautéed mushroom risotto. In fact, it’s been a while since we’ve posted about anything. We’ve had some major life changes since the last time we were here (all good things, though).

We moved! Jackie and I both got new jobs about an hour away from our home town and it’s been quite an adjustment. I don’t think either one of us expected the amount of stress that came from starting two new jobs in a new house in a new town all in the same week. Things are starting to settle down a little more now; we’re both getting more used to our new routines with a lot of support from our friends and family.

Unfortunately cooking has tended to go by the wayside in the midst of all the craziness. I think it’s happened to all of us: you come home from a hard day’s work, step into your kitchen and just stare at the cupboards while trying to muster up the energy to open one. While this setback in our own kitchen enabled us to explore the restaurant scene in detail, we knew we had to get back in the habit of cooking our own food in our own kitchen. The first meal officially cooked in the new Garden Fresh kitchen was actually a frozen pizza, but the first real meal came together in almost as much time and reminded us of what we were missing.

In our frantic state, we forgot what it was like to take charge of what we ate, the satisfaction we felt from turning an assortment of raw materials into something greater than the sum of the parts, trying to treat those materials like the gifts they are. We were missing the connection that comes from preparing and sharing a meal together as a family. It was almost embarrassing to me when we finished, that an entire home-cooked delicious meal took the same amount of time to prepare as that first frozen pizza (now I sound like an infomercial).

We also remembered the best food is the simplest. Season carefully, pair ingredients thoughtfully, relax and enjoy the process, and you should always be satisfied with the results. No part of this meal required a recipe, and only three of the items were actually cooked, but all of it was wonderful.

What’s the moral of the story? Is this the end of frozen pizza and ramen noodles in the Garden Fresh kitchen? Not even close. I guess what I’m trying to get at is cooking isn’t a chore that should be dreaded; it’s a blessing we should be thankful for and participate in no matter how busy we get. I try to remember that now every time I turn on the stove.

Bruschetta – Slice French bread ½ inch thick, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and bake at 350° along with the sweet potatoes below until lightly toasted. Rub toast with garlic cloves, top with chopped Roma tomatoes and basil. Season tomatoes lightly with salt and pepper, drizzle with more olive oil and serve.

Roasted sweet potatoes – Wrap in tin foil and roast until fork tender. We sliced ours width-wise, seasoned with salt and pepper and drizzled with olive oil.

Bell peppers – You could serve them raw, but we chose to lightly steam them. Either way, slice the bell peppers thinly, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. We steamed our peppers until tender and topped them with chopped basil.

Cheese – This is by far the easiest thing to prepare, but my absolute favorite to serve and eat. We picked up some aged English cheddar and mozzarella from our favorite grocery store. Crumble the cheddar (since the more aged a cheese is, the more crumbly it is), slice the mozzarella, season lightly with salt and pepper, top with chopped basil and drizzle with olive oil. Sensing a theme yet?

Cajun-season crab – We picked these pre-seasoned beauties up at our favorite store as well. We steamed them in the same pot as the bell peppers until they were heated through.

All these dishes were uncomplicated, put together quickly, and absolutely delicious. If you keep it simple, you’ll never be disappointed.

Roasted Vegetable Stock and Poultry Stock

“Waste not, want not.”

- Old Klingon proverb

I think like most people, we’ve found ourselves with too many groceries and too little time to prepare them, which means we’ve had to throw some away. That is a feeling of defeat for me. I know there’s no way we can plan out exactly what groceries and ingredients we’ll need so the day we run out of the very last thing it’s time to go shopping again. There’s going to be some overlap, or life gets in the way and things go bad.

I guess it’s more disappointing than anything else. I’m disappointed in myself because I had some grand scheme for this item when I bought it, I had the best intentions, but I didn’t make the time for it now it’s garbage. Anyone who knows me could tell you I’m somewhat of a tightwad, so it’s especially upsetting to me because I feel I’m throwing money away. But that’s not the only thing that distresses me.

As I open the garbage to throw out limp celery or too-moldy cheese or slimy salad greens, I think about all the people and work it took to bring that food to the store and then my home. Farmers got up at the crack of dawn, soil was dug up, backs ached, livelihoods struggled to be made, and that chicken breast that stayed in the fridge too long? That used to belong to an actual living chicken that had to die so I could eat.

There are plenty of ways you can use, reuse and stretch the groceries you buy to get the most bang for your buck and be responsible with them as well. This isn’t new; your parents and grandparents and on down the line went to greater lengths just to make ends meet. Things like making jams, canning vegetables, pickling and curing, and a myriad of other delicious deeds were done to make the most of what they had and make sure they wouldn’t be without in the leaner times. While I’m not asking that you take up all that stuff right now, I think one procedure will give you the “stretching and saving” bug enough to get you started: making your own stock.

It’s amazing the difference in the stock and broth you make at home compared with the cans or boxes you get at the store. Really, there’s no comparison. Not only will it be more full of flavor, but it will be as complex or simple, strong or subtle, light or rich as you want it to be. I get an extreme amount of satisfaction when we get the ingredients together for our sautéed mushroom risotto (which is coming up next) and the first thing we reach for is our homemade vegetable stock out of the freezer.

Roasting a chicken for dinner? Pick all the meat you can off the carcass, wrap it up and freeze it for broth. Did a hunter give you duck breasts still connected to the breast bone? Add those in with your chicken carcasses. Carrots leftover from making soup? Celery getting too limp to schmeer peanut butter on? Using the leaves of parsley and thyme but not the stems? Making mushroom risotto and need remove the mushroom stems? Don’t throw them out! Start saving up your scraps for stock and save yourself a bundle.

Roasted Vegetable Stock and Poultry Stock

These recipes are adapted from Emeril Lagasse and Alton Brown, respectively. There are about as many ways to make stock as there are vegetables growing in the ground. These are my favorites, but adapt whichever one you like to use whatever ingredients you have on hand. By the way, make sure you have a balance of vegetables in your veg. stock. If you use more carrots than anything else your stock will turn orange. Still delicious, just orange. Trust me on this.

Vegetable Stock:

Adapted from Emeril Lagasse

I love the extra flavor you get from roasting the vegetables first, but if you’d rather not or if you prefer a more subtle flavor, just skip the roasting and continue as directed. You can use a whole lot of different vegetables, or just a few. At the very least use carrots, celery, onions, garlic and herbs. Others that would work well are: turnips, parsnips, tomatoes, zucchini, fennel, corn cobs, bell peppers, and so much more!

Ingredients:

2 large yellow onions, quartered

2 leeks, green and white parts, well rinsed

Mushroom trimmings, wiped clean

4 carrots, quartered

4 ribs celery, quartered

1 head garlic, cut in half horizontally, unpeeled

8 to 10 peppercorns

4 thyme sprigs

8 parsley stems

2 bay leaves

2 cups white wine (optional)

Olive oil

Salt

Cold water to cover

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large roasting pan, spread out all the veg. Drizzle with the olive oil and season with the salt and pepper, stirring to coat. Roast for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes to brown evenly. (The dark green leek leaves and mushroom stems will roast a lot faster than everything else, so if they start getting too brown take them out early.) Remove from the oven and transfer to a large pot. Add the water, herbs and spices and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes, skimming to remove any foam that rises to the surface. Add the optional wine and cook for 30 minutes. Remove from the heat and strain through a fine mesh strainer into a clean container. Cool in an ice bath, then refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 5 days, or freeze for up to 3 months. Prior to use, bring to boil for 2 minutes.

Poultry Broth:

Adapted from Alton Brown

Ingredients:
4 pounds chicken carcasses (Ours included bones from roasted chicken, duck breastbones, and the backs of these Cornish game hens)
1 large onion, quartered
4 carrots, peeled and cut in half
4 ribs celery, cut in half
1 leek, white part only, cut in 1/2 lengthwise
10 sprigs fresh thyme
10 sprigs fresh parsley with stems
2 bay leaves
8 to 10 peppercorns
2 whole cloves garlic, peeled
Cold water to cover

Directions:
Place chicken, vegetables, and herbs and spices in 12-quart stockpot. Set opened steamer basket directly on ingredients in pot and pour over water. (This step is a great addition by Mr. Brown. The steamer basket keeps everything submerged and makes skimming scum a whole lot easier. However, if you’re like me and don’t own a steamer basket, proceed as normal and just do your best to keep the solids under water.)

Cook on high heat until you begin to see bubbles break through the surface of the liquid. Turn heat down to medium low so that stock maintains low, gentle simmer. Skim the scum from the stock with a spoon or fine mesh strainer every 10 to 15 minutes for the first hour of cooking and twice each hour for the next 2 hours. Add hot water as needed to keep bones and vegetables submerged. Simmer uncovered for 6 to 8 hours.

Strain stock through a fine mesh strainer into another large stockpot or heatproof container discarding the solids. Cool immediately in large cooler of ice or a sink full of ice water to below 40 degrees. Place in refrigerator overnight. Remove solidified fat from surface of liquid and store in container with lid in refrigerator for 2 to 3 days or in freezer for up to 3 months. Prior to use, bring to boil for 2 minutes.

Sweet-Glazed Cornish Game Hens and Roasted Vegetables

Today one of my co-workers was snacking on a big plate of strawberries, and I could smell their sweet-tartness as I walked past her desk. As I looked down at her plate of half-eaten strawberries, sliced thinly and starting to leek juices and color the dish a light pink, I noted how good they smelled. She replied, “Yeah, but they’re really sour.”

That got me thinking about the impending spring season and all the wonderful produce that’s about to come in season. For the last few months we’ve had to subsist on vegetables from hothouses or shipped in from the other side of the globe, and I CAN’T WAIT for the first wave of farmers’ markets to hit the scene with all their juicy, colorful and inspiring offerings. Those mushy, overly sour strawberries will morph into tiny flavor bombs I will be more than happy to stain my fingers pink over.

I was thinking about this especially when we did a tasting for our friends who are getting married this summer. Jackie and I were trying to be mindful of what would be in season, readily available and totally delicious by then, and we decided to go with two of our favorites – asparagus and tomatoes. Now, anyone who reads this blog (and let’s be honest, there are millions of you) will know that we’re absolute tomato-philes, so it should come as no surprise they’d show up again. The only problem is right now tomatoes are . . . well . . . dull. Kind of watery, lacking in texture and severely lacking that bright, acidic burst they have in the summer and beginning of fall. And the same goes for asparagus – tender, grassy, and bright-green turns to wooden, flat and gray in the winter months.

With all that in mind, why would we choose these two misfits when they’re not nearly up to their potential right now? Because they point to how good they’re going to be. In a few months when asparagus and tomatoes are in season, our friends and their wedding guests will be thrilled at the mixture of the roasted vegetables, the burst of concentrated acidic sweetness from the tomato and pleasantly tender asparagus. And that’s something we can all look forward to.

And let’s not forget the main event of this dish: the sweet-glazed Cornish game hens. Have you ever had one of those “Of Course!” revelations where you are doing something you think is complicated, only to find out there’s a much easier way if just stopped and thought about it? Happens to me all the time, and it happened when we were trying to split these hens in two. We were trying to cut through the backbone with a chef’s knife, and there was no way that was working out. So we tried going the other way through the breast bone, and that just tore the skin we were going to crisp up and glaze. Then one of us said, “Why don’t we use shears?” After a moment of blank stares between two college graduates, we tried the obvious and more effective solution, which took about 2 minutes to prep 3 birds.

To contrast with the bright crunch of the vegetables and the sweet, digit-smackin’ awesomeness (“finger-lickin’ good” is trademarked) of the hens, we made our stand-by of sautéed mushroom risotto. We also saved the backbones of the hens to make stock out with, along with the duck breastbones from this dinner, recipes for both of which will be forthcoming.

Molasses-Glazed Cornish Game Hens

3 Cornish game hens (half for each person)

1 cup molasses

½ bottle dry red wine, such as Cabernet Sauvignon

2 tbl balsamic vinegar

2 sprigs each thyme and sage

Olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 350°.

Using kitchen shears, cut down each side of the hens’ backbones to remove them (Freeze them for stock. Recipe is forthcoming.), then turn them over and cut them down the center through the breastbone. Pat them dry and season them with salt and pepper inside and out.

Put the molasses, wine, vinegar and herbs in a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Reduce until thick and syrupy, coating the back of a spoon. Season to taste.

Place the hens on sheet trays skin side up, drizzle with olive oil on both sides and roast for 30 minutes (or when an instant-read thermometer reads 180° in the thigh), basting with the glaze every 10 minutes. Serve immediately with tasty roasted vegetables and mushroom risotto (recipe’s coming, really).

Roasted Asparagus and Cherry Tomatoes

1 bunch asparagus, washed, ends trimmed

½ quart cherry tomatoes, washed

Okay, seriously? There’s no need for a recipe for this dish; it’s that easy. Thinly peel the asparagus starting just under the tip, put in a casserole with the tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil, roast in the oven next to the hens for 10 minutes, or until the tomato skins start to split. Done and done.

Pan-roasted duck breast, parsley salad and sauteed mushroom risotto

“I messed up; I’m sorry.” Those five words can help you so much, whether at work, with your spouse, or in my case, with dinner.

A hunter friend of mine scored big the last time he went duck hunting, and he was nice enough to give me 4 pairs of duck breasts – still on the bone, mind you, so duck stock is in my near future. I’d never cooked duck before, so I was excited to try it out on my family AND have it as our first meat-centric blog post. I researched different methods and preparations and decided it was best to just Keep It Simple, Stupid: season with salt and pepper, sear on the stovetop and finish in the oven ‘til they’re medium rare – medium at the most. We’ll get to my mistake further down.

So after I removed the duck breasts from the breast bone (with considerable effort and expert help from Jackie), I started on the two side dishes. We make risotto a lot, but we’ve only recently been including sautéed mushrooms in the mix, and now we’re hooked. Portobello, shiitake, oyster . . . it doesn’t matter to us. Mushrooms + oil + hot pan = golden brown and delicious. Unfortunately (kinda), risotto is so delicious that it deserves its own post, so I’ll have to skip over it for now.

I wanted another element to cut through the richness of the duck breast and creamy, cheesy risotto, plus I wanted to feel like I was eating somewhat healthy, so I made a parsley salad with a red wine vinaigrette leaning toward the acidic side. This was delectable and just what was needed to balance the other dishes, but the parsley leaves were a little chewy. Next time I’ll definitely make more of an effort to pick all the leaves from the stems and probably roughly chop them to cut down on this.

Here’s my moment of humility: the risotto and parsley salad were either done or getting done, so it was time to pan roast the duck breasts. Seared in a hot pan with some oil – easy. Remembering that the duck came from a hunter and not from a grocery store, so the breasts vastly varied in size – not as easy. I should have placed the bigger ones in the oven to finish cooking through and removed the smaller ones to rest in the meantime. Instead, half of the duck breasts were perfectly, and I do mean perfectly, cooked. The other half were cooked to well-done and had the consistency of over-cooked chicken livers. Not inedible, but not what I was going for by a long shot.

Why bring it up at all? Because for a long time when I was first learning to cook and trying new things, if something went wrong I would kinda throw a temper tantrum. It seemed soooooo easy for Jackie and others to walk in to the kitchen, throw some random assortment of ingredients in a pot and come up with something mind-blowing. While I, on the other hand, struggled with still burning toast sometimes. The difference this time for me was I realized nothing bad happened. Yeah, there were some over-cooked duck breasts, but I didn’t poison someone, I didn’t lose a Michelin star, I didn’t get yelled at by a bleach-blonde Englishman. I did, however, learn how to do it better next time.

I think one thing that keeps people out of their home kitchens is the fear of trying something different, doing something wrong and disappointing the people you tried to cook for. While that’s certainly kept me from failing as much as I would have, it also kept me from learning all that I could by burning the toast and then figuring out the right setting. The point is to COOK, and cook as well as you can at this very moment. Food will burn, sauces will over-reduce, cakes will fall, things will be crunchy when they’re supposed to be soft and vice-versa. You don’t have to do everything perfectly all the time to cook for your family and friends. They’re supposed to like you anyway, right? Then what does it matter if the chicken is dry? Learn what you did wrong and how you can do it better next time.

I certainly did, and next time I’ll have duck breasts so tender and tasty people will sing my praises far and wide. And all I had to do was over-cook the first batch.

Roasted Duck Breasts

4 boneless, skinless duck breasts (This is what I had to work with.)

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Pat your duck breasts dry and season them on both sides with salt and pepper. Heat a sauté pan on medium-high heat and add enough oil to lightly coat the bottom. Once the oil is shimmering add the duck breasts and cook 2-3 minutes on both sides till golden.

Remove smaller breasts to rest tented under aluminum foil at this point and place pan with larger breasts in the oven to cook until medium to medium-well, 5-7 minutes. When pressed the breasts will feel a little soft, but bounce back (giggle) or when an internal temperature of 130 degrees is reached.

Rest duck for 5-10 minutes tented under aluminum foil and serve.

Parsley salad with red wine vinaigrette

1 bunch parsley, washed and patted dry, leaves picked (freeze the stems to add to stock)

½ carrot, diced small

Parmesan cheese, shaved

Olive oil

Red wine vinegar

Lemon juice

Dijon mustard

Salt and pepper

Instead of the usual 3:1 ratio for the vinaigrette, try to be a little more heavy-handed with the acid. That’s why I included lemon juice (from half a lemon in my case) to tip the scales toward the acidic to cut through the richness of the rest of the dish.

You know the drill: put a little Dijon mustard in a bowl, add vinegar and lemon juice and whisk until combined. Drizzle 2-3 times that amount of oil, whisking constantly, until the dressing is emulsified. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Place the parsley and carrot in a bowl and drizzle some of the vinaigrette around the edges. Toss to coat, season to taste, top with parmesan and devour.

More Than Rabbit Food Part 3 - Grilled Leek Salad with Mint Vinaigrette

This latest streak of warmer weather has me counting the days ‘til I can peruse the aisles of a farmers’ market, or better yet the rows of my own garden, for fresh produce that may or may not even make it inside if I’m hungry enough. After hours of shoveling snow and salting driveways there’s nothing better than a big bowl of chili or sautéed Portobello risotto, but that’s another post. But with the temperature rising and me in denial about just how much winter we have left, I wanted something more light, bright and crisp.

This is the inspiration for the last installment of our epic trilogy, More Than Rabbit Food: a grilled leek and cucumber salad with mint vinaigrette. Like the other salads we’ve discussed, you can put whatever vegetables strike your fancy and have either a little or a lot of them.

Except for the leeks, every vegetable in this salad is raw. To cut down on the harshness of the raw shallot, we added it to the vinaigrette with the other seasonings so the vinegar could have time to mellow it out. If you don’t like bell peppers as much as I do (which is a lot) you could add them to the vinaigrette as well or omit them completely. The most fun part about this salad for me is the long, thin ribbons of cucumbers lending some cool crunch. They’re a neat and different way to add cucumbers to a salad, and as long as you shock them in ice water and thoroughly dry them they’ll keep from getting soggy. You could also do this to your shallot to take away some of its pungency instead of adding it to the dressing.

Ingredients:

(Remember, you can use pretty much any vegetable you want. Just try to get a good variety of textures, flavors and colors.)

1 leek

1 bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, diced

1 rib celery, diced, plus a few inner yellow leaves

1 carrot, small dice

1 cucumber

6-7 mint leaves

Feta cheese

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Mint Vinaigrette:

Red or white wine vinegar

Olive oil

1 shallot, minced

Dijon mustard

2-3 mint leaves, chopped

Salt and pepper

Directions:

As we’ve said before, how much dressing you make is up to you, but the basic ratio for a vinaigrette is 3:1 fat to acid. Put a little mustard in your mixing bowl, add your vinegar and whisk together. Add the mint leaves and slowly drizzle in the oil while whisking until everything is incorporated. Season to taste, add the shallot to let it start mellowing and set aside.

Peel off a few of the tougher outer layers of leek. Trim off the root end, split it in half lengthwise, cut off the darker green leaves and rinse the white and pale green parts. Heat a sauté pan on medium high. Pat the leeks dry, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and place cut-side down in the pan. Cook without moving for 2-3 minutes or until browned slightly. Turn, cook for another minute, then remove, and carefully chop across the width into short strips.

Using a vegetable peeler, peel the cucumber, then continue peeling strips of the flesh of the cucumber until you reach the inner core of seeds. Plunge the strips into an ice bath to shock them for 5 to 10 minutes, then drain and dry. This will keep them crisp in the salad.

Mix all the vegetation and the rest of the mint leaves together in a large bowl and spoon a few tablespoons of the dressing around the sides of the bowl. Mix everything lightly with your fingers until the salad is evenly dressed. Salt and pepper to taste.

When plating, top each salad with a few celery leaves and a sprinkling of feta cheese.