Recipes Cooking: out

Showing posts with label out. Show all posts

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Where’s the Beef It just fell out of the back of a truck and is now running all over the road!

Today is my sister’s wedding, and I wanted to thank everyone for all the nice wishes and thoughts, and also for all the comments regarding my About.com try-out. I passed the second stage and the final decision comes on Monday. As I said before, I’m sure there are lots of great candidates, with more time, and no weddings to go to applying, so I’m not getting my hopes up too high, but I still appreciate all the encouragement I’ve gotten on this blog.

By the way, regarding the title of the post; my sister Val and fiancé Rick first met when she was a new police officer and received a call that a large truck carrying cattle had the back gate come open and dozens of very large and annoyed cows were running all over the road and terrorizing the surrounding areas. Rick, who is also in law enforcement, happened to be in the same area, and got a call from the dispatcher to help the local cops (Val) round up the cattle. So, that’s how they first met, and the rest is history!

Friday, January 10, 2014

How to Host Out of Town Visitors

{Obligatory blogger shot at a farmers market}

Normally, Tuesday posts are reserved for the often imitated, never duplicated (its probably true) TwoFaced recipe series, in which The Paleo Project and I take one shared ingredient and whip up our own paleo masterpiece. But not today. Instead, I bring you photographic evidence as to why there was no paleo cooking or baking this week (spoiler alert: it involves alcohol and non-paleo food).

You see, continuing our blog BFF adventures, Jenna came down this weekend ~~just to visit me~~ for Blogger Blitz DC and stayed at the CupcakesOMG! abode. I dont know if it was the making her sleep on my couch part, force feeding her carbohydrates, or missing out on basically any and all D.C. sightseeing, but at some point this weekend, I realized I was a terrible hostess. Im hoping that some of our new inside jokes and a rare glimpse into life with Kyle made the visit totally worth it for her, otherwise, this.is.awkward.

{First stop of the trip--a house of chocolate!}

{Peanut Butter Hot Chocolate with a homemade marshmallow. I mean, have you even HAD
a homemade marshmallow? Its like the angels were sitting around one day and all "lets make
the most delicious treat of all time" and then the prettiest of the angels took the lightest of the
sweetest clouds and dropped it down to Earth in little bite-sized squares. The end.}

Following a busy day of eating, shopping, and the watching half of The Help on OnDemand, we decided we should venture out for more eating and a lot more drinking.

{Kyle joined up with us at dinner and picked up the tab. Hes a regular sugar daddy!}

{I do like to enjoy a beer through a straw sometimes, yes. This, however is plain ridiculous,
but for what its worth, I was trying to play them like a harmonica. I dont even know
HOW to play the harmonica, btw.}

Jennas second/last day in D.C. included brunch at Liberty Tavern, which happens to have one of the best brunch buffets in all the land. It also makes for great posing opportunities.

{Thank god were eating again!!!}

{The one "monument" of sorts I let Jenna see--the fountain at Dupont Circle}

Whens the last time you hosted a visitor? Do you cook for guests or do you go out?? Am I a bad hostess for not taking visitors to see the sights???

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Inside Out Brown Sugar Glazed Jalapeno Duck Poppers

Per my previous post Brining Wild Duck, I essentially said that the taste of wild duck usually has me running for the hills. But I was determined to like it. Waterfowl is a huge part of the hunting world, and it was a real shame that I did not care for it. So this week, I set out to find a way to get rid of the gamey taste of duck. I brined the duck breasts for three days, and my efforts were paid ten times over!

What we have here are duck breasts which have been brined for 3 days, then marinated in olive oil, rosemary, garlic and red wine vinegar. They were then filled with cream cheese and julienned jalapeno peppers, then wrapped in bacon and glazed with brown sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon, which caramelized beautifully over hot coals.

Well, in our unfortunate case, we had to broil them. A storm swept over Southern California yesterday. We had the coals started in the chimney and everything, and when Rick came out to check on them, evil struck! The air was so thick with moisture that it made the coals fall apart into a mound of useless hot dust. So that really sucked, but the broiler worked just fine.

Rick and I absolutely loved these! They were spicy, salty and sweet all at the same time. They certainly didnt last long. We hope you all love them too!

Servings: 2 appetizer servings (10 poppers)

Prep Time: 1-3 days, depending on how long you want to brine

Cooking Time: 10-15 minutes

Ingredients:

- 2 brined duck breasts, cut into 10 pieces (brining is optional)

- 5 slices of bacon, cut into halves

- cream cheese
- 1 jalapeno, cored/seeded and julienned
- 10 toothpicks

Marinade:

- 2 tbs. olive oil

- 2 tbs. red wine vinegar

- 1 garlic clove, minced

- 1/2 tsp. dried crushed rosemary

- freshly ground pepper, to taste

Brown Sugar Glaze:

- 3 tbs. brown sugar

- 1/2 tsp. nutmeg

- 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

- 1 1/2 tbs. water

We brined the duck, but this is totally optional. To view instructions on how to brine, please click here.

1. Butterfly the breast pieces. The bright red color reminded us of sushi tuna.

To butterfly, cut the duck breasts horizontally, but not all the way through. Lay flat. You now have thinner, larger pieces.

2. Lay the butterflied duck pieces flat between two pieces of plastic wrap. Then lightly pound with a flat mallet to flatten the pieces a little more. We used the poor mans rolling pin. Move the duck to a medium bowl.

3. In a small bowl, whisk together olive oil, red wine vinegar, minced garlic, rosemary and freshly ground pepper.

4. Add the marinade to the duck. Marinade at room temperature for at least 20 minutes.

5. To make the glaze, combine brown sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon.

Then add water and whisk well.

Taking notes as we go ... all a part of the recipe developing process!

At this point, you should probably get your grill ready.

6. Remove the duck from the marinade and fill with cream cheese and jalapeno match sticks.

Then roll everything together with half a slice of bacon. Pierce a toothpick through the poppers to keep everything intact for grilling.

Mmmmm....

7. Grill (in our case broil) the poppers until the bacon is cooked on both sides. When theyre just about done, baste both sides with the Brown Sugar Glaze. Dont do this beforehand because the glaze will just burn.

MEAT CANDY!

Arent they pretty? They taste just as good as they look.

Remove toothpicks and serve!

Check us out on Facebook!

Follow Us on Twitter
Follow @FoodForHunters