Roasting duck

Although I've enjoyed duck in a myriad of ways, I've never actually cooked any myself. Today I took a shot and roasted an entire duck, and used made a personal goal of using as much of the bird as I could.

One whole bird. 

First step, like any time you'd cook whole poultry, take a moment to see what goodies you have inside. Now, I've been guilty in the past of discarding all of these little treasures when cooking poultry, but I'm determined to use it all. Found inside today's duck: neck and liver. Set aside. In addition, you can remove the large flaps of extra skin on the bird to retain and draw more fat out of later.

Rinse the bird inside and out. Pat skin completely dry. I've seen someone post that they've actually used a hair dryer to dry the skin perfectly. The more dry the skin, the crispier your skin will be. I patted dry with paper towels. The skin is crispy, but I have to admit I'm curious about how much drier (read: crispier) I can get it. Season the cavity of the bird with salt.

Time for the roasting pan. The key here is making sure your duck is off the bottom of the pan, on something which will allow the grease to drip off. In my case, I pulled out our broiling pan and roasted the duck (uncovered) on that. Duck is a fatty bird. Specifically, if you take a look, you'll see a rather thick later of fat directly under the skin. Our goal when roasting the duck is to get as much of that fat rendered down as possible. The outcome is a delicious and decadent fat you can use in cooking later on. I have my sights set on duck fat roasted potatoes....

To help the fat get out, and the skin crisp up, I used two methods. First, score the skin before roasting. I scored a diamond pattern all over the breast side of the bird. The idea is to cut through the skin and a bit of fat, but not the flesh. I'll admit I went a bit deep a few times, but it was quite easy when I got the hang of it. The second method will be poking through the flesh and fat of the bird throughout it's cooking time, to release the grease building up under the skin.

Time to roast the bird. It's dried and scored. Season with a little salt, place breast side up and stick it in the oven. 300F The technique I used was to roast it an hour, prick the skin to let grease escape, flip it and repeat. In hindsight, I'd only have it on it's breast for one hour near the beginning, some of the skin ended off coming off on the broiling pan. Disappointing, but I saved most of it. However, no pictures of perfectly roasted duck for you this time.

When the bird is pretty close to being done, the fat is mostly rendered and the meat is cooked, turn the oven up to 400F for 5 - 10 minutes. If you choose to glaze the bird, you'll want to remove all of the fat from the bottom of your pan so it doesn't get glaze in it, then glaze the duck and return to the oven for another 5 - 7 minutes at the same temperature. Eat. Delicious. Crispy. Must do this again.

Afterwards I was left with the bones of the duck, the neck and liver. The neck and bones I immediately put into a pot and started to make stock out of it. It's simmering now, and smells fantastic. I took the extra pieces of skin and cooked them in a saucepan with a little water in it. Slowly I was able to render out quite a bit more fat from those pieces.

 Duck liver. I'm not a huge fan of liver, but I thought I'd give cooking it a shot. I used the oil made from the pices of skin at the end, let it brown just a little bit, then tossed in a handful of finely chopped onion. Cooked the onion in the fat until they were soft, then added the duck liver (cut into smaller pieces) and minced garlic. When its all cooked, I seasoned and pureed it. Should be great on crackers.

So that's it. How I used an entire duck today, and now it's dinner time!!

Pumpkin Hunting

Over our Canadian thanksgiving weekend, my husband, brother and I were on our way to my mother's for thanksgiving dinner. Since it's a town over, it not only gave us an opportunity for a leisurely fall drive but a trip to a favourite farm that carries many varieties of that famous October squash: the pumpkin.

One of the reasons that I really enjoy having our Canuck Thanksgiving celebration in mid-October is because of how intensely autumn has descended upon us at that point. This year, the weekend was beautiful and bright coloured leaves were falling from the trees. Our detour took us to a childhood favourite, Strom's farm, known for their sweet corn in the summer. Strom's also provides a very large children's outdoor play area, corn maze, pick your own popping corn (right off the stalk!), a bakery, and more. Yes, you can even have your birthday celebrations there. It's located just outside of Guelph (Ontario), on Wellington rd 32, between highway's 24 and 7. I have fond memories of eating Strom's sweet corn as a young girl, when my best friend worked on their farm over the summers. Still to this day, when I bring something to my mother that says "Strom's farm" on the bag, my mother lets out a bit of an excited noise.

A plethora of smells hits you when you first get close to the farm store. Inside, they are working away to bake pumpkin pies, apple crisps, apple pies and other treats. Outside, hot apple cider is waiting for you. We bought a few kinds of pie to take back to my mother's house for thanksgiving dinner (again, she made that excited noise). I picked their pumpkin pie and happily enjoyed it that evening. I'd say it's probably my current favourite store-bought pumpkin pie. It doesn't need whipped cream, it is that good. Then again, I'm a bit of a pumpkin pie freak. I love pumpkins.

Not surprisingly, one of my favourite things about visiting Strom's in October is that there are pumpkins strewn about as far as the eye can see. Anyone can find the right Hallowe'en pumpkin here, as well as many varieties for pies and cooking. They have more types of pumpkins that I'd like to admit I even knew existed (11 types of pumpkins this year). You can go out to the fields to pick your own, or choose from the hundreds they've made available at the store. They offer gigantic pumpkins, up to 60lbs, that one year I am determined to buy and turn into an epic jack o'lantern. There are also your standard pumpkins, pie pumpkins, and other small eating-types. My favourite section is the section of "gourmet" pumpkins, in some of the oddest colours and shapes. A friend bought a pure white pumpkin there last year, perhaps a Casper variety pumpkin. This year, my husband and I picked up a Jarrahdale pumpkin, which is actually a blue coloured pumpkin that looks like a blue-grey colour. It's going to make us an excellent jack o'lantern this month (post to come...)

By the time we were done, our little wagon (provided by Strom's) was filled with pies and pumpkins. In addition to our soon-to-be-halloween-decoration, I picked up a few of the sweeter pie pumpkins to cook and keep over the next few month. I love pumpkin soup, or just a plain pumpkin mash. Mmm.... pumpkin.

For the record, this year I have managed to find two separate uses for pumpkin puree that are new to me. The first is a knock off of Starbuck's Pumpkin Spice Latte which is not only cheaper to make at home, but tastes better since it uses pure ingredients rather then chemically produced flavours. The second use, oddly enough, is feeding it to our cat. Little known fact - pumpkin puree in a cat's food helps them with constipation. I can only wonder how it helps us too ;)

As the season winds down...

Next week is our last CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) vegetable pick up. I'm having end of CSA anxiety: Did I put away enough veggies for winter? Did we let too much go to waste? Why didn't I get anything canned while the crops were being produced?

This is the third time that my husband and I have participated in a CSA season. The first year we tried, we wasted a whole lot of produce while we learned what we were doing. CSA's aren't necessarily easy things to be a part of for more urbanites. Once a week you are faced with a plethora of local vegetables, some of which you may never have seen before or which you don't cook often with. If you don't get through those, there is more coming next week, and the week after. The veggies can start to pile up, and eventually rot. It can turn people off of a CSA very quickly.

Let's be honest. Even with three years into my CSA experience, we still lose some veggies during the season. It reflects on how busy our lives are, and how much work it really is to clean and cook veggies all the time. But, like most things, practice makes us more efficient. Compared to our first season in a CSA, we lose next to nothing now. We make a point of freezing more items, and making more meals at home during the week. Sometimes we lose a few things.

I think of rotting CSA veggies as food for my composter.

So at the end of this season, I know we've done ok because we're getting better and better at it. I have food in my freezer to eat over the winter, even if it's not quite as much as I've put away last year. Maybe we're eating more of it when it's fresh, because we're not really wasting much.

CSA's offer a lot of benefits. It provides you with locally grown produce, usually harvested a day or so before you pick it up. That means very fresh produce which hasn't had much of a chance to lose nutrients. It's also almost always organic produce you get. Better for your body, and for the environment. You make a social statement when you join a CSA that you want organic and local foods, it's supporting a movement. You make a relationship with your farmer(s), and know everyone that has been in contact with your food. You can donate your time and help on the farm, contributing toward the harvest. And the constant stream of veggies means you're eating foods that are good for you too.

I encouraged my Mom to try a CSA. I wasn't sure she'd go for it, and when she jumped on the challenge, I was wary she'd enjoy it. Now, at the end of her CSA season, she is telling me how much she enjoyed it, and how she was looking forward to joining again next year. She got a small share, and made a routine for herself that weekly she cleans and processes most of her veggies for the week, and was able to keep up with most of it. My mom isn't someone that looks for organic/local foods, but it's so encouraging to see her getting benefits out of it. It's allowing her to watch the seasons, and enjoy new foods.

CSA's can be a great experience for anyone, although it takes work. I can't recommend them enough.

Dinner on a hot day - or - thank gods for my CSA

It's unbearably hot here. Being the good (frugal) environmentalists that we are, we have yet to give into the this "air conditioning" trend, and don't even own one. With temperatures into the 40s (celsius, after humidex), the last thing I really wanted to do tonight was turn on a stove. And with no propane in the BBQ, it took a bit of creative thinking to come up with a meal with what we had at home.

I've mentioned we're in a CSA. That means we're getting bags of veggies of weeks right now. Salads get a bit tiring, but they make nice side dishes. After a quick tour through the pantry I came across some red quinoa.

Perfect! Quinoa, a grain, is a complete protein. This makes it a great addition to any vegetarian meal. No need to make a meat dish when we have this amazing little grain. It's one of the non-local staples that I will keep in my pantry. You can eat almost the entire plant, although we really only see the seeds here in North America. It's native to Peru, and was sacred to the Incans. No wonder, given the nutritional fortitude of this plant. It contains about 15% protein and has a full spectrum of the amino acids that humans require. It is also gluten free.

I cook our quinoa in the rice cooker: 1 part quinoa to 1.5 parts water and usually a handful of fresh herbs, today I used oregano from my garden. About three-quarters of the way through it cooking I added in the steamer tray to which I added chopped rainbow swiss chard and topped it with chopped garlic scapes, sprayed lightly on top with peanut oil.

When this was done, I served it in a Napa (Chinese) cabbage like a little quinoa-chard-veggie-taco. I didn't add a sauce, but you could add sour cream or salsa, or another favourite sauce. On the side, a spinach salad, because we still have all those salad-type veggies to get through!

Stay cool...

Garden Grown Tabouli Salad

Last year I tried my hand at planting parsley from seed. I ended up with a ton of parsley plants which I put in pots in and outside of the house, as well as in one of my front gardens. I was delighted at the end of winter to see several parsley plants poking their heads up under the yard waste and snow. I now have more than a half dozen plants growing in my front garden and became very large by the end of April.

I finally went out and took the first harvest from the plants this week. The plants have yielded a large haul so far, and I realize I am going to have to find several uses for the parsley to both eat it fresh, and keep it over the winter.

I'll be freezing some. Parsley is easy to freeze, and doesn't need blanching in order to do so. It won't be crisp when you defrost it, however it's great for adding to soups or any other cooked dish. Hang parsley in a dark, dry area (or bake it at 100*F) to dry it out and keep it as a dried herb. I did this with my harvest last year, and my husband was amazed at the flavour our dried parsley had. No way we could go back to the store bought stuff yet. But it's early in the year and I'm craving fresh garden greens. I never thought I'd get some at the start of May! In addition to my parsley, I have quite a lot of mint growing in the same garden. It struck me that I could make a tabouli salad out of it!

Here is a general guide to making tabouli. I didn't measure a thing, but added ingredients to taste. It's fantastic to eat it by scooping it up into a lettuce leaf. Also tasty on a spoon!

Wheat Bulgar (traditionally little is used, I like to add extra)
Chopped Parsley
Chopped Mint (I use 2x as much parsley as mint)
Diced Tomatoes (I like to use cherry tomatoes)
Sliced Scallions or Onions
Olive oil
Lemon juice or juice of one fresh lemon
Salt & Pepper to taste
Cayenne pepper (optional)

Where the wild foods are

I love spring in Ontario. Everything around me has just ended it's winter slumber, ready to burst forth for another green summer. The ground is wet, and the woods have an earthy, loamy scent. When I'm brave enough to traverse the mud, I'll stand there for a few minutes, just smelling the earth.

Our first foods start showing up at this time of year, including some foragers favourites. There are three that I get particularly excited for which grow wild in my area: ramps, fiddleheads, and morels.

Ramps
Commonly referred to as Spring Leeks at the market, also known as: Wild Leek, Ramson, or Spring Onion. As it's Latin name indicates - Allium tricoccum - it has a garlic-like flavour which makes it a nice addition to spring meals. Ramps have long, broad green leaves, a burgundy coloured stem and a white scallion-like bulb. The entire thing is edible. I enjoy chopping it up and adding it to a sautee, or grilling them to include in a vegetable dish. You'll find them on wooded slopes, and probably need a tool to help dig them up whole.

Fiddleheads
Fiddleheads are young ferns which have not yet uncoiled. Commonly found near water in wooded areas in early spring. I've seen debate about which kind of ferns you can eat. Most sites will indicate you should stick to the Ostrich fern only, however there is a family of ferns very similar and before they are uncoiled, it's difficult tell if it's an Ostrich fern or not. I get my fiddleheads from a local Mennonite farmer. When I asked him how you can tell which are edible, he said he'd pick any from that particular family. You don't want the ferns that have started to uncoil, as they tend to be bitter. You need to wash them well, and remove the brown papery cover from them. Everyone has their preferred way to cook these. I like to boil them until they are fairly well done, which helps to make sure I've gotten all the grit out of the uncoiled fern and makes them easier to digest (you can't eat these raw). Then I'll sautee them in garlic and butter. Delish!

Morels
I went camping one day and spotted a bunch of morels. Because I was completely inexperienced with wild mushrooms at the time, I just took a picture and left them behind. Had I known for sure, we'd have dined on a classic wild dish. Morels have a deep, woodsy flavour to them, and they are absolutely irresistible to foragers. You can find people who will sell them, and they aren't particularly cheap but they are completely worth it. Since they often grow in sandy areas, you have to clean them carefully, or you'll find yourself dining on the tastiest grit ever. You can't over clean these - trust me. Start by putting them into a dry towel while they are dry, then shaking them around in there to try to knock dirt out of them. Next soak them in salt water for quite a while (will also help to get rid of critters up inside). I nibble a piece to test the grittiness. When I finally get them clean I often slice them in half lengthwise, and sautee them in butter then eat them as is. Dried morels are good, easier to use because they are cleaned already, but nothing beats a fresh morel.

Because they are wild foods, please do not go foraging if you are inexperienced. I buy all three of these foods at my local market. I'm asking them and learning about the foods, so hopefully I can forage for my own one day.

What the Wild Meal was
Of course, with this selection of wild treats we had to have a wild meal. I sauteed the ramps and fiddleheads with garlic and butter for a large, green sidedish. The morels were sauteed and presented alone, I think first morels of the year need to be appreciated for what they are. Lastly, to accompany our wild veggies, we had local wild boar sausages that we picked up from a local meat store.

Our local, wild, spring-time meal.

Soup for a sicky

Although we're relatively healthy, the flu caught up with my husband. At this point I am praying to just about every god I can that I don't get it, since he spent the entire night and part of today physically expressing his illness (so to speak... the least I can do is to be polite since this is supposed to be about food).

It started when we were out of town, and it's funny how powerless I felt to help him without my kitchen nearby. I know the healing power of food and herbs.

Finally when we came home, I made a soup that would nourish my husband and settle his stomach, and as well would boost both of our immune systems.

I added two cartons of organic chicken broth, one and a half BULBS of garlic (and if I had more I might have used it), a large handful of fresh parsley (chopped). To it I added about 2 tsp of fennel seeds in a tea diffuser. The whole thing was cooked for quite a while. I had a few cupfuls and he's had some which was finely strained.

There is magic in cooking, and there is energy in all the foods we eat. I think it's an excellent compliment for any foodie to have some working knowledge not only about the taste but of the medicinal values of many herbs/foods.

My current autumn staple

I love apples. One of the wonderful things about autumn is all of the apple products that show up in the local markets again. From tart to sweet, green to red, apples are a staple of Ontario autumns.

I bought seven pounds of Honeycrisps last week. It's a type of apple I am still fairly new to eating this type of apple, and the taste is simply delicious. They are an apple's apple! With McIntosh's and Honeygolds in their family tree, someone's taken the time to create what is (for me) a perfect tasting apple.

This week's favourite way to serve this apple - in apple sauce.

The night before work I make up my lunch and snacks for that day. I've been making apple sauce from putting two honeycrisp apples, a dash of cinnamon and a splash of lemon juice into my magic bullet. It saves well for about two or so days and may brown a bit, but the lemon juice helps to preserve it.

My second favourite apple dish of the season - apple crisp.

There are as many apple crisp recipes out there as there are the people that bake them. My very basic apple crisp involves chopping apples for the base which I may or may not lightly coat in sugar first (I opt out if trying to cut back on sugar). For my quick apple crisp I use 1/2 cup of oats, 1/2 cup of brown sugar (can cut back to 1/4 for a lighter option), 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour 1/4 of butter. I mix my crumble by hand, religiously, then spread over the top and bake at 200C for 40mins. I'll also try baking it at a higher temperature (maybe 240C?) for about half the time, then shutting the heat off and allowing the ambient heat to do the rest.

Mmm. Apples.

Food Network Facebook Foodie Face-off: Frittatas

This morning, Food Network Canada on Facebook had a foodie challenge in honour of Clean Out Your Fridge day. Create a frittata, give it an interesting name, put up a picture and add a description.

This was my entry:


Local Yolks: Saving the world, one frittata at a time

A frittata featuring all-local ingredients: free range eggs, smoked cheddar cheese, sliced portobello mushrooms, green onions from our CSA, and fresh cut basil from my windowsill. Topped with grated caramelized onion cheddar.

Served with a local Spelt bread from Golden Hearth Bakery.

Husband's reaction (direct quotation): "My love, this tastes grand"

Looking back at the summer's foods

I don't have many readers, but somehow I still feel awfully bad about not posting for a few months. Yes, I can make the excuses.... "Life got away from me", "It's a busy time of year" or whatever, but really I just have to move past the need to give reason and get back to food.

It's been a really fabulous year of food exploration for my husband and I.
The local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program we were a part of
has recently ended, and we can truly look back at the season with both
satisfaction and accomplishment. Satisfaction in both the amount and
quality of the foods we received, as well as for the people we had a chance
to meet through the program. Accomplishment because of the fact that we
managed to eat, or freeze nearly all the food we picked up this year.

A few years back we joined a similar veggie-basket program for the very
first time. A little ambitious and maybe over excited, we soon found
ourselves to be a little in over our heads. We just weren't prepared for
all the work that would be involved with all the vegetable matter which
soon descended upon our household. The first few weeks it was cute.
Packaging things away into the fridge, and mostly forgetting about them.
Eventually, the veggie overload began to take it's toll and pound upon
pound of vegetables began to rot. By the end of that summer, we'd started
to get the hang of it, and had even began to freeze a few things, but the
amount of food we wasted was astounding. We also acquired two very
important things as a result of this experiment: (1) a composter for all
the veggie waste we produced since we're not in a green box program and (2)
that Tupperware fridge smarts will literally save you hundreds of dollars
worth of produce. If you take no other tip from me, take the Tupperware
one, it's completely worth it.

So, with Tupperware and composter in hand, we head into this year's CSA
program ready for the challenge. Aside from the waste produced in preparing
the vegetables, we wasted next to nothing over the course of the summer,
and what did go to waste is making beautiful, rich compost for my garden
for next year.

Speaking of gardens, I'll call my veggie/herb garden a success, even if it
didn't yield a high crop. We live in a small townhouse and I am limited to
the space I have for gardening, as well as the sunlight available. But I'm
learning quickly and my garden is getting better and better every year.
This year's local growing season, however, left quite a bit to be desired.
Lots of rain, and little sun. I've also had an ongoing disagreement with
the squirrels and chipmunks in our area. They think they should be able to
dig into whatever they please, and even better would be to nibble on the
roots of my tiny little fledgling plants. I just don't agree with their
logic and have been looking for any solution to stop them. Best idea ever -
Blood Meal. Thanks for a friend for that one. Not only did it keep the
critters out, it helped my plants grow and grow and grow and grow....
So I had a lush and full garden this year. I did the entirety of my herbs
and veggies in pots (and a recycling bin) in my back yard. Crowded together
on the side of the yard that gets the most sunlight. Tomato vines completely 
covered my fence, and it was beautiful to look at. The herbs had a high yield
this year, and I did manage to get some vegetables. A little broccoli, few
eggplants and zucchini, handfuls of tomatoes, parsley roots, and cucumbers.

All tasted amazing. Completely satisfying.

We didn't hit the farmer's market as much as I might like, but there wasn't a
lot of need based on the vegetables we were receiving. 

A great summer. Tasted some new things, and ate tons of fresh local foods.
Autumn is one of my favourite seasons, when squash and leeks are abundant.

I've made a handful of squash soups so far this fall, with various squash, and all
have been simple and easy. Basic concept - organic/high quality broth, cooked
squash, onions and other savoury foods to your taste, add spices then blend.
Add greens or other things to it at the end and eat. Let it warm your belly and
make you feel good. Or throw together a potato leek soup. Similar concept, but
switch the ingredients. You get the idea.   I never used to be a soup person, but
something about the cool air of autumn allows me to enjoy a steaming bowl of fresh
homemade soup.

Mmm... now I'm craving some soup.