Duck with blueberry peach butter

Tonight's dinner was duck (black duck to be specific) with a blueberry peach sauce along with sauteed red and white cabbage and a caesar salad. (and a framboise lambic!)


Trollie had dinner of a bit of duck, some salmon, little bit of turkey, baked squash, cottage cheese and egg with vitamin of salmon oil and vit B.

 The black duck was a bit too gamey for Shawn who was sharing the dinner but I guess my palate really is different. I believe it is because I haven't eaten meat from the grocery store in over 25 years.  But even though he thought the meat was gamey he said the sauce was good. The cabbage and salad were good side dishes. The recipes are below.

Duck:
- thinly sliced duck breasts (I had a black duck that y boss hunted and gave to me but mallard or other duck would probably be better if you don't like gamier meat) - would work with chicken or other bird too
- blueberry peach butter (I made this butter which is basically just blueberries and peaches cooked down into a thick "butter") - any kind of butter or jelly would work
- mead (I have home made mead but any kind of wine would work here as well)
- garlic (fresh and minced)

Get a cast iron pan hot and place the duck slices in pan and sear on each side, (don't worry about cooking all the way through it will continue to cook after you take out of pan and you don't want to over cook).
Deglaze pan with mead adding the butter and garlic and let reduce until thicker sauce consistency
Pour over duck slices.

Cabbage:
- sliced/shredded cabbage (I had a little bit of red and white cabbage so I used what I had, I personally think the red works best)
- butter or bacon fat

Saute cabbage in the butter or bacon fat.

Salad:
- romaine lettuce
- 1 egg coddled, preferably farm raised (boiled for just under 1 min so it is still soft)
- anchovies
- shredded parmesan (preferably fresh and not from a jar with added fillers)
- garlic (fresh minced)
- lemon juice (fresh if possible)
- olive oil

I don't really measure anymore because this is a staple dish of mine but I would say combine the egg, about 1/3 of a cup of cheese, a couple cloves of garlic, 1/4 cup lemon juice and 1/8 of a cup olive oil with a couple minced anchovies in a bowl...adjust to taste. Pour over broken up romaine lettuce and add croutons if you like (I make them sometimes but often go without), some more parmesan and anchovies on top.

Friday Primal Dinner/Saturday Breakfast

Sausage, Roasted Apples and Squash/Apple Soup

This week I made all the recipes up myself by what I had on hand.

Dinner for Friday night was Sausage sauteed with sage, Roasted Apple in balsamic vinegar and sage and Roasted Banana Squash and Carmelized Apple Soup.

Sausage:
local country sausage
fresh sage from garden

- cut into pieces and sauteed in cast iron pan

Roasted Apples:
local apples
balsamic vinegar
fresh sage from garden

- cut apples into slices with skin on
- place in baking pan at 350F drizzled with balsamic vinegar and sage
- roast until tender

Roasted Banana Squash and Carmelized Apple Soup
banana squash roasted and pureed
local apples cooked down and carmelized into butter
home made beef stock
garlic, onion, tumeric, sage, cayenne

- combine all and let simmer to combine flavors

Saturday Primal Breakfast: Bacon Pieces, Sauteed Apple and Fried Egg

I had a package of bacon ends so I cut the meaty parts off into bits and saved the fat. I cut the apple into small bits and sauteed in the bacon fat, then fried the egg after and combined in a bowl.

Baked salmon w/artichoke and sundried tomato; Kale and Kielbasa soup

Well, today is rainy and chilly so my outdoor plans for working on the coop doors has been postponed... so now I am studying and watching cooking shows as background noise. Study days make the kids happy. They see that study blanket come out and they pile on... nicely keeping my feet warm!

I figured I would post my recipes for the weekend so far.  Friday night I made a baked salmon.  I get salmon from a local seafood shop and luckily have a wonderful barter going exchanging farm fresh eggs for fish weekly.  So, with a salmon ready to be cooked, I stuck it in a pan and covered it with sundried tomatoes and artichoke hearts with a bulb of garlic to roast on the side.  The sundried tomatoes are mine, I make a big batch every summer (a gallon container) from my own or local farmer's tomatoes.  I use my dehydrator and store them in olive oil and they last me through the year.  I love sundried tomatoes but I hate the price and the other junk in the store bought ones!  I believe this year I will have the same as last year, a big fall harvest of my own roma tomatoes...there are tons of green ones on the plants now, last year they did the same thing and I had a big harvest the end of October!  So, I will have lots of sundried tomatoes and hopefully some more sauce too.  Anyway, dinner Friday night was the salmon that I baked along with a simple salad, lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber from my CSA.

Saturday I made a dish I remember my Mom making alot when I was a kid.  Portuguese Kale Soup.  I made it without the starches since I am doing my best to eat primal.  There was kale in the CSA veggies this week and I had gotten local kielbasa earlier in the week from a local butcher shop.  This soup is supposed to be made with linguisa but kielbasa is as close as I can get here.  It was a really simple soup to put together.  I used some beef stock that I made from bones I got from the same butcher shop.  I sauteed an onion, then slices of the kielbasa and then the torn pieces of kale in coconut oil.  I put the onion, kielbasa and kale in the beef broth and let it cook for about half hour.  I baked an acorn squash, also from the CSA in the oven for about 45 minutes to have alongside.  I added just some butter (also local but not my own, I need to make some more) and a bit of red pepper flakes and paprika to the squash.  It was a nice fall meal of hearty soup and acorn squash.  The chickens love the skin and the seeds are very good for them so they enjoyed the dinner too!

For lunch Sunday I sauteed up a bit of the leftover salmon, artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoe and roasted garlic.  I added just a tiny bit of taini on top so it was like a salad.  Yumm. 

Now, back to studying, midterms are this coming week!