Special Occasion Dinner

Hello Friends!  How was your weekend?  Saturday was rainy here, but Sunday was sunny and warm.  We even had the doors open.

As I mentioned last week, Frank celebrated a birthday on Thursday.  You know I love to cook, so I prepared a special meal for us.  Frank's favorite protein is duck, though we rarely have it.  Earlier this year I searched for a good duck recipe and found this one by Bobby Flay.  I made it then, and we both loved it.  Frank even said it was his favorite meal I had ever cooked for him.  I marked it as a keeper!  Do you guys mark your recipes?  It's so handy to jot a note about when you made it and if there was anything fun going on, or a guest at the table. 

 Duck is a bit hard to find around here, but I picked some up at Greenlife in Asheville, and the rest of the stuff is pretty readily available at your local grocery.  I'll highlight some of the steps, then list the full recipe at the bottom.

There are several components to the meal:  The duck, the pear sauce, the pear relish, and the potato cakes.  And I added a simple spinach salad.  You'll want to go ahead and boil a couple of potatoes and mash them up.  Have them refrigerated and ready to use for the potato cakes.  You can do this a day or two ahead of time.

A few hours before you're planning on sitting down to the meal, start with the Pear Sauce.  You'll saute some onions, then pour in a little red wine.

 In a separate pot I thawed 8 cups of chicken stock.  Since we keep it frozen, it was necessary for me to thaw it and warm it, but if you're using boxed or canned stock, you could use it at room temp without heating it.

While these were heating, I peeled, cored, and cut up three pears for the sauce.   The sauce will be strained, so I just cut them into big quarters.

Once the wine in the onions has reduced to about half, add in the other ingredients.  The recipe calls for New Mexican Red Chiles.  I wasn't able to find those 'round here.  I googled and didn't find much info, either.  I ended up picking up these dried Ancho chiles.  They worked well, and brought a medium level of heat to the sauce. I really don't know if Bobby intends for the chiles to be dried or fresh, whole or diced, or what.  But, this worked for me.

Toss all of this, along with the chicken stock, into the pot with the onions and wine.  Oh, the recipe calls for star anise.  Frank's not a huge anise fan, so I just left it out.

It needs to reduce by half again, which will take a while, depending on how wide the mouth of your pot is.  I started around 5pm and at a rolling boil it took about 2 hours for it to reduce down.   These 8+ cups of stuff will eventually be less than one cup of sauce.

Once I had the sauce going, I started the pear relish.  This part is super easy.  Dice up some ripe pears. The recipe calls for Asian pears, but I just used the Anjou we had.

 Lightly brown them.

Then you'll add bourbon and brown sugar.  Yum.

These pears were super ripe and juicy.  I cooked it down until the liquid was pretty thick.

This stuff is SO good!  It would be delightful on pork chops.  My little helper supervised as she ate her dinner.

"More please, Mom."

 Next I formed the potato cakes.  Use those potatoes you mashed, and just mix in blue cheese and panko bread crumbs, then add some salt and pepper.

Form them into cakes and stick them in the fridge to set.

Frank arrived home, and I pulled out some cheese and crackers for a little appetizer.  Have you guys had Humboldt Fog?  It's divine!  I'm no cheese connoisseur, but it's like blue, goat, and brie all wrapped up in one.

While the sauce was reducing, Frank opened up some gifts.

We bathed the Bean and put her to bed, and finally the sauce was where it needed to be.  I strained it into a smaller clean pot and left it to reduce even more.  And I started pan frying the potato cakes (after sprinkling them with more panko).

Last, but certainly not least, bring out the duck.  Go ahead and preheat your oven to 400F and set a pan on high heat.  The breasts I found came frozen, so I thawed them in the fridge the day before.

I patted them dry, then made slits in the layer of fat.  That will help the fat render and crisp more evenly.  Don't forget to sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Once your pan is screaming hot, place the breasts in, fat side down.  My pan was so hot, the breasts even jumped around a bit!  The duck has so much fat, it just crisps up.  It would take a while to burn these.  Once the fat has browned, flip them over.

After 4 minutes or so, drain the fat (keep it for another use!) and pop the pan into your hot oven for just a few more minutes.

The last thing to do for the sauce is whisk in a bit of butter and season with salt and pepper.  Next I plated it all up (potato cake, duck, relish, then sauce), and we dug in!

You know I'd love to create a masterpiece dessert, or layered cake, but alas Frank's favorite sweet has only three ingredients: cereal, butter, and marshmallows.  I have to admit, they're simple but delicious!

It was a wonderful evening with my favorite guy on earth! 

Let me know if you give this meal a shot.  Do you guys have any good duck recipes?  Is your favorite dessert a childhood treat?

Here's the full recipe from foodnetwork.com.  You can print it easily if you follow the link:

Pan Seared Duck with Red Chile Pear Sauce, Bourbon-Brown Sugar Asian Pear Relish and Potato-Blue Cheese Cakes

by Bobby Flay via Food Network

Ingredients

• 4 duck breasts
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• Potato-Blue Cheese Cakes, recipe follows
• Red Chile Pear Sauce, recipe follows
• Asian Pear Relish, recipe follows

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Heat a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Season the duck with salt and pepper on both sides and cook, skin-side down, until golden brown, drain the fat, turn the breast over and continue cooking in the oven to medium-rare doneness, about 4 to 5 minutes.

Place 2 Potato-Blue Cheese Cakes on each plate. Place one duck breast on top of the potato cakes, and drizzle the Red Chile Pear Sauce around the plate and on the ends of the duck breasts. Place a few teaspoons of the Asian Pear Relish on top of each of the duck breasts.

Potato Cakes:

• 2 cups cold mashed potatoes
• 1/4 cup panko bread crumbs, plus extra for coating
• 1/2 cup crumbled domestic blue cheese
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• Panko crumbs, for dusting
• 1/4 cup olive oil

Combine the potatoes, bread crumbs and blue cheese in a medium bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Form the mixture into eight 2-inch cakes. Chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Dredge the cakes lightly in more panko crumbs. Heat the oil in a large saute pan over high heat. Cook the cakes until golden brown on both sides.

Red Chile Pear Sauce:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large red onion, finely chopped
• 1 cup dry red wine
• 8 cups homemade chicken stock
• 2 whole New Mexican Red chiles
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2 star anise
• 3 pears, peeled, seeded and halved
• 2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

Asian Pear Relish:

• 3 Asian pears, peeled, seeded and diced
• 1/2 cup bourbon
• 2 tablespoons light brown sugar

For the Red Chile Pear Sauce: Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook until soft. Add the wine and cook until reduced. Add the stock, chiles, cinnamon, anise, and pears, and cook until reduced by 1/2. Strain the sauce into a clean saucepan and cook to a sauce consistency, and can coat the back of a spoon thickly. Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Sauce can be gently re-heated, but cannot boil, or the sauce will break. For the Asian Pear Relish: Heat a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the pears and cook until lightly golden brown. Remove the pan from the heat, add the bourbon and sugar and cook until the pears are lightly glazed.

Linking up:  At the Picket Fence  and Making Lemonade  

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Tiny Pantry Makeover

Yesterday was Frank's birthday, and I cooked up a pretty yummy meal, if I do say so myself.  I'll share the recipe next week.  I'll say it involved potatoes, cheese, wine, and duck.  Yum!

I'm jumpin' on the pantry makeover bandwagon.  I've been inspired my many bloggers who have done the same, and our lil pantry was getting out of hand!

New shelves, a fresh coat of paint, and a few new baskets made all the difference.

The first thing I did was take a quick inventory of everything we had in there and thought about what we wanted the pantry to hold in the end.  That helped me think through how many shelves we'd need and how much height each shelf would require.

Those wire shelves that used to be in the pantry weren't installed level, and didn't maximize the space.  I started by removing them.  None of the screws were in studs, so every single one was in a drywall anchor, leaving dozens of huge gaping holes once it was all removed.

I glopped spackle in and let it dry.  I knew from experience that when the holes are big and you use a lot of spackle, it shrinks a bit when it dries.  So, once it had dried, I went back and added another layer.  I like the pink variety...you know it's dry when it has turned white. 

Once all of the spackle had dried, I sanded the spots and used painters tape to map out my new shelf locations and the depth of the new shelves.

I knew the highest shelf needed to be pretty shallow (8"), since it was above the door frame.  Most of the shelves are 12" deep, but the one right in the middle is the full depth of the pantry...18".  Once I had decided on the locations, I wrote down all of the measurements and took down the tape.  Then, I painted the inside the same color as our kitchen, a pale blue.

Next it was time to get out the power tools.  I'm so lucky to have a handy husband who has a pretty nice workshop set up in our garage.  I feel fairly confident using several of the tools, and was able to complete this whole project on my own.  I picked up pre-primed 0.5x2" slats to screw to the walls, on which the shelves would sit.  I needed to cut these down to fit in the pantry.  As Norm would say, the most important safety equipment is your safety glasses!

 Our pantry is less than plum, so the slats to support the shelves would all be slightly different.  I just made sure to mark them well so I wouldn't get them mixed up and used the chop saw to cut them to length.

I shopped through Frank's drawers to find screws that would be long enough to get through the slats, the drywall, and well into the studs.

Using a level, I screwed these into the back wall, making sure to hit the studs.

 The side slats varied in length, depending on how deep I planned each shelf to be.  You can see that here, under the shelves.  I painted those the same color as the wall.

I used a circular saw to cut down the piece of plywood I used for shelves.  I set up sawhorses, and again measured and cut each shelf for the specific location it would be installed.

Once the shelves were cut, I primed, then painted them.  I used leftover off-white paint that was used for our cabinets before we moved in.  I was so anxious to fill the pantry and get all of this stuff off of our counters, I neglected to take a pic of it empty.  Here it is all filled up! 

 

Frank and I are both pretty tall, so we use that top shelf for tall shallow things like cereal, and we can reach it easily.

 

I made the labels in Word using Emily's cute new Fancy Font.  It was only $1.99 and comes with a bunch of adorable symbols.  Then I "laminated" them with packing tape, cut slits, and threaded white grosgrain ribbon to tie them to the baskets.  Our printer was running out of color ink, and I'm pretending it's an intentional ombre effect. 

It's a mishmash of baskets and containers, some of which we had before, and some of which I picked up at thrift shops.  Ball jars work for some containers.  Oh, and whenever I see lazy susans at the thrift shop, I grab them up.  They are so handy in kitchen and bathroom cabinets. I used one here. 

Recycling sits on the floor.

If you're wondering, our cans and jars live in another place.  See that door just to the right of the pantry?  It goes into our laundry room.

Hanging on the back of the door is this handy rack.  In a perfect world we'd have a big walk-in pantry, complete with small appliance storage, bins for flour and sugar, an extra fridge/freezer, and plenty of room for cans.  Actually, I'd take Jen's in a heartbeat.  She just made over her gorgeous roomy pantry.

So far I'm loving it!  It feels so much more organized, and the space is used more efficiently.

Linking up at Serenity Now.   

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Repurpose Extra Floor Tiles

White Rabbit and happy February 1st to everyone!  Do you guys "play" white rabbit?  Say it to someone else (before they say it to you) on the first day of the month, and you'll have good luck.  

In the spirit of Tiffany's No Spend Challenge, I found a use for some leftover tiles we had lying around.

These are leftover from our porch project.  They are 18x18" travertine tiles we found a great deal on at Home Depot.  We had also purchased some flagstone to test out.  We decided against that, but the sample worked great for this project.

I simply drew out 3.5" squares, and Frank made the cuts.

You can get tile pencils that have a waxy "lead" and won't rinse off, but we didn't have one on hand.  Frank could make out my lines and it worked OK.  But, you may want to grab one of those tile pencils.

I did pick up a pack of felt pads.  $2.99 = total money spent on this project. 

The bottom side of the travertine is mottled, and the top is polished.  I liked the mottled look for this project, and I thought those holes might help absorb condensation from a cold glass. 

These little coasters didn't need a whole pad on each corner, so I cut each one into fourths. 

 Then I just peeled and stuck them to the corners.

I love the variations in the flagstone.  Isn't it pretty?

Here they are, all stacked up.

I think these would make a great hostess gift.  I googled around and found some similar coasters for $15-$20 for four.  That makes my $2.99/20 = $0.15 each a pretty good deal!  While you've got the tile saw going, you could easily make trivets this way, too.

 

I'm linking up to Tiffany's challenge.  She has done some really cool things for zero dollars.  My favorite is her faux gold leaf tray.  Check her out!

Linking up:  At the Picket Fence and Making Lemonade   

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