Duck Stew

I didn't mention, yesterday me and Totty had a nice cosy lazy day in, the weather was rubbish, so we had a Sunday lunch. That in itself is a bit of a rarity.

We had the normal, nice veggies, bit of stuffing, that I sexed up with a bit of garlic. Totty had duck that I roasted.

Now there was a lot of duck left on the carcase, which was fine. Totty had indeed had his fill at lunch time, and there was enough for a couple of weekday sandwiches.

I popped the carcase in a pan with four small onions just quartered, three carrots unceremoniously hacked up and thrown in and of course almost enough water to cover the whole thing.

That was left on a low heat to do it's own thing for a couple of hours.

This morning it was cool, so I put it in the fridge and revisited it when I got in from work.

What you can't quite see from this photo is that the liquid is jellified. so I would guess that there is a lot of flavour and goodness. I expected a lot of fat, but there wasn't.

So in a larger pan I fried off three small onions with a little oil. The pan got a bit dry, so I slugged in that bottle of wine that is having quite an outing this evening.

When the onions were looking to be a little transparent, I strained in the stock from the pan that you see above.

I picked off the remainder of the meat from the duck, and added a little of the smooshed vegetables to the soup pan.

At this point it is important to mention that I had a little helper. Yes that's Bean, giving me the evil eye and ordering me to give her some duck. Isn't it fantastic how a cat can look menacing and cute at the same time?

In went about a medium handful of pearl barley, and another slug of wine, lots of pepper. Four or five peeled potatoes and six peeled carrots, in large batons.

The whole lot cooked away to itself while I made myself busy doing other things.

Totty didn't proclaim his hunger when he got in. I wasn't surprised, because he did get in late and past the hungry time of an evening.

A quick whiff of this duck stew and suddenly his appetite returned.

Roasted Peppers filled with Eggplant, Summer Squash and Basil

This recipe calls for:

3 medium size red bell peppers, I used 4 regular size.
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

Halve the peppers longways and remove the seeds and membrane. Coat the peppers in the olive oil and seasoning and roast in a hot oven for about 7-9 minutes.

Filling
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup medium sized yellow onion chopped
3 Fat Garlic cloves (Original called for 5, but this is a school night!)
1 Medium sized eggplant, diced (original recipe called for Japanese this wasn't available)
3 medium size courgettes, diced
Small handful of black olives (the original called for "Gaeta" olives, I didn't have these and I have a sick soft spot for those dark ones in the jar.)
2 ounces Feta cheese, diced small (original called for "Fontina" but I've never heard of this)
Half a cup grated parmesan
3 tablespoons Basil (left out)

Heat oil in large frying pan, cook onions until transparent, add garlic.

When the garlic is looking cooked, the recipe is saying to add the eggplant. I found this all a bit too dry, so I slugged in some week old wine that I had in the fridge to add something extra.

Then I added the eggplant, stirred this about for a while, slugged in a bit more wine. In went the courgette when the eggplant was looking fairly well cooked.

The olives were roughly chopped up chucked in, as was the feta.

When everything had seemed well acquainted in the pan, I turned off the heat, added most of the parmesan into the mix and started filling the peppers with the mixture.

This is what it looked like in the oven. I cooked it for about 40 minutes because I was indeed lazy and I didn't precook the peppers.

I must say, that it didn't look as pretty as I would have liked. When Totty came in he said that it looked fantastic.

The overall taste was nice. The filling wasn't overly cheesy, which is a gripe that I have with a lot of vegetarian food.

I think that if I make this one again, I will add something to the filling, perhaps some thyme, and perhaps a pepper and olive oil dressing drizzled over the top to lift the flavours.

Cooking the Whole Book

OK, so one of my goals that I intend to share with who ever reads this far is my cooking through one of my cook books, "Fields of Greens" by Annie Somerville.

YIKES!

Well, there is a very good reason for this. All of us who have a real interest in food, have a huge pile of cook books. Books that we turn to for inspiration, and books that we look up old favourites. Often we make one or two, things from a book.

So, this being my favourite cook book, I intend to cook EVERYTHING in it. I will of course make substitutions for ingredients that I can't get, or for things that I just don't like.

Since I have owned this book, I have made just two things out of it, the Winter Vegetable Curry (page 190) which was delish, and I had a little spate of making my own sourdough bread, including starting my own culture (page 312-315). I don't intend on repeating these.

I would also like to add that my kitchen is tiny, and to have two people in my kitchen area is a stretch. I know that you can make spectacular food in a small area, you just have to be creative with space, and meticulious about the order in which you do things.

OK, so the actual book is 3.7cm thick, that's including the cover. The pages measure 3.2cm, so that's not too bad. Let's be honest here, cookbooks have nice thick pages. Without the appendix, that's 2.5cm of pages to cook through. Doesn't sound too hard.

So, where to start?

This week I will try to do two, maybe three things.

I will make Polenta (page 278) and Roasted Peppers Filled with Eggplant, Summer Squash and Basil (page 268) and possibly Fall Risotto with Chantrelles and Late Harvest Tomatoes.

Seasonal everything would be fantastic, but because I don't have a car, I am relying on local high street supermarket, I will make do with what I can lay my hands on!