Biscuits & Duck Gravy

There's something about snow that inspires me to make biscuits. Conveniently, we also have a glut of duck stock at the moment.  So I made biscuits with duck gravy and a side of bacon for a glorious snowy Sunday breakfast!

There are two things that make the gravy absolutely magical; first, I used stock made from Stokesberry Farms duck, and their ducks are divine. Secondly, the stock was almost entirely duck and leeks, and then I started the gravy by sauteing leeks in butter.  Few things are better than the simple deliciousness of leeks, butter, and duck.  When the leeks began to turn translucent I added a bit of flour and then enough duck stock to get the perfect gravy consistency (with a bit of stirring and patience,of course). Here's breakfast in the snow!:

Catching up...

Well, Autumn Quarter happened.  I took 16 credits worth of classes, did some of my own research, applied to graduate school, applied for an NSF grant, scored the Mary Gates Research Scholarship, and ate some tasty food.  Here's one big long post of all the pictures I've been snapping and doing absolutely nothing with until now:

1) Pesto.  I was gifted some basil starts in the spring after I killed the one basil plant I bought.  I babied these basils unlike any plant I've ever grown before. I kept them in black pots so that when it was warm enough to be outside, the sun would warm the soil around there roots.  I talked to them everyday and gently touched them so they would feel loved.  It was quite a labor of love and in the end, I was able to make a pretty significant amount of pesto! I froze the pesto into ice cubes, so we can save some for winter when we're pining for a taste of summer.

2) Tater-tots: BAD idea! Perhaps I did this all wrong, but making home-made tater-tots turned into an inferno of spontaneous hot-oil explosions.  That tater-tot on top of the stack is one of the culprits - they basically popped like popcorn in the oil.

3) Decibel Festival is a 5-day electronic music festival in Seattle that just so happened to fall precisely in line with the first week of school this year.  Alex and I discovered that Breakfast For Dinner was the fuel required to sustain five-days of non-stop dancing and school.  We had black tea, pancakes, Skagit River Valley Ranch breakfast sausage, and veggie omelets with fresh avocados that I smuggled back from California.  Nothing like an avacado fresh off the tree! mmmm!

Also, North Hill Bakery was right down the street from the Decibel in the Park show, so we could eat amazing ham-and-cheese croissants while groovin' to some delicious music.

4) Duck.  Every once in a while Stokesberry Farm sells duck, and we can't resist.  It's best to do as little as possible to it, it's perfect just the way it is! Here it is roasted on a bed of itty-bitty onions, which, if you've never had tiny onions roasted in duck juices, I highly recommend it!

5) Thanksgiving Leftovers: Turkey Curry.  It's brilliantly delicious and cranberries go surprisingly well in curry! I took Alex to Market Spice several weeks ago, and he was so inspired by all the spices there that he turned into a curry-making machine!

Paella, Brownies, and Duck

I have a bit of catching up to do, so here's one big post about a couple totally unrelated things I've been cooking recently. First is paella. At least, my initial intention was paella, inspired by my Spanish coworkers. But then I realized I don't really keep paella ingredients just lying around, so this is my Cascadian Paella:

Blue Bird Grains wild rice pilaf blend, Skagit Valley Ranch breakfast sausage, chicken stock, onions, garlic, carrots, tomatoes, cilantro, paprika, saffron, and cayenne. Breakfast sausage is officially no longer just for breakfast!

A few days after the paella adventure we hosted an Indian-fusion themed potluck. I made gluten free chai brownies and they were amazing! First I have to show off a new toy that I used for this recipe; it's essentially a sauce pan with a round bottom that becomes the top half of a double boiler. The rounded bottom is really nice to have for making cooked-egg emulsion sauces like hollandaise or sabayon. But I just melted butter and chocolate in it this time:

I followed Julia Child's recipe for fudgy-gooey chocolate brownies, substituting Bob's Red Mill gluten free flour and adding coriander, cinnamon, and cardamom.

That was Friday, then on Sunday we went to the farmers market. Stokesberry farms had duck again and we couldn't resist. I decided this was a special duck that deserved special treatment so I rummaged through my cookbooks for a while and finally settled on a recipe in Thomas Keller's French Laundry cookbook. The recipe was for duck breast wrapped in cabbage leaves and poached for just a couple of minutes. Thomas Keller wrapped them in plastic wrap for poaching, which seemed excessive to me--I just tied the cabbage on with butchers twine and it worked perfectly. Oh and I poached it in duck stock from the last duck that we got. Here's the finished product served with pilaf:

That was just the breasts. For the rest of the duck; I roasted it and then plucked all the cooked meat off and cooked it in butter with onions, garlic, and carrots. Mean while I made a duck demiglace, washed some spinach, and cooked some pasta.

Then I combined the demiglace with the buttery duck and veggies to make a pasta sauce, seasoned with salt and fresh ground pepper, and finished it with the spinach so it just barely wilted. Then I mixed in some cooked pasta and grated a bit of Gouda for garnish. Voila!

Foie Gras is my Anti-Drug

Wednesday night I took Alex to Lark for his birthday. I've been saving up for this occasion since a few months ago when a foie gras protest outside Quinn's caused us to stop everything we were doing, go inside Quinn's, and order a plate of foie gras (10% of profits went to NARN as a thank you for increasing their foie gras business!). At Quinn's we found out NARN (Northwest Animal Rights Network) was also protesting Lark. It's become clear to me that these NARN people have never tasted foie gras, because if they had, surely they would not be protesting it. But I'm getting ahead of myself, Lark was magnificent.

We got some cheese and sparkling wine to nibble on while we browsed the menu. Unfortunately I don't remember what the cheeses were, but one in particular changed the way I feel about blue cheese. I've never really been a huge fan of blue cheese although I can respect its culinary importance. But this blue cheese was a deep blue, almost a dark greenish blue and had a delectably complex flavor that was sweet and tangy.

Next we had Blue Bird Grain Farms Farro with Romano Beans and Lobster Mushrooms along with Chilled Tomato and Huckleberry Soup. The farro was in cream, making it a very satisfying dish and the lobster mushrooms were sauteed to perfection. The Tomato Huckleberry soup was simple, light, and wonderfully refreshing.

We discovered pretty quick that Lark's "small plates" contain relatively large portions and we were beginning to feel full. So, we decided to cut to the chase and order both preparations of foie gras at once paired with a Muscat wine. The first plate was a foie gras terrine with mini toasts and slices of vanilla poached peaches and the second plate was seared foie gras with pecans, blackberries, and a caramelized onion crepe. The experience of eating both these preparations was absolutely spiritual. Placing a bite of this foie gras in my mouth, gently chewing it, and ultimately swallowing it made my insides vibrate with sheer joy, slowly seeping euphoria into every inch of my body. I found myself rubbing my lips together as if I had just put on the most divine lip gloss. The world around me vanished and when I closed my eyes I swear I was flying blissfully through the stars. I think I might have gotten high off foie gras. If reincarnation exists, I would like to be reincarnated as a foie gras duck; what could be better than to live life in a food coma, have a quick death, and have your liver go on to give humans an experience like this!

An Hierloom Melon Salad with Frisee, Yogurt, Lime and Mint began to bring us back to reality and refresh our palates before dessert. Dessert was a Mission Fig Tarte Tatin with Caramel Goat Cheese Sorbet along with a Summer Pudding with Brioche, Raspberries, Blueberries, and Whipped Cream. A beautiful way to end a phenomenal meal.