As I finished reading my Hungry Monkey book, it became clear to me that I am in the minority with my bacon views. It seems to be what all the cool kids are eating. But then the author started raving about duck. Duck sounds kind of trendy and cool. And I suppose it falls close enough to "poultry" (which I eat) on the meat scale. I got some duck legs at Whole Foods (do they even make non-organic duck?) and went at it. I had to work from home today because Astrid had her 6 month checkup, so the 3 hour recipe was perfect for today. This is from Hungry Monkey:
Brown 2-4 duck legs, seasoned liberally with salt and pepper, (the recipe calls for 2, but I did not realize that each package had 2 legs until I opened them, so 4 it is) in 1 tsp butter and 1 tsp olive oil heated over medium-high heat. This requires 10 minutes skin side down, then another 5 minutes on the other side.
Remove the duck from the pan and pour off all but a tablespoon of fat. Add 1 chopped carrot, one chopped celery stalk, and one chopped onion (I doubled the carrots and celery). Saute for about 5 minutes then add 2 cloves of garlic, 1 teaspoon brown sugar (I used turbinado sugar), 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (I used allspice because I don't have cloves), and 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper (or more if you like it spicy). Saute for another minute. Add 1 can of tomatoes and 1 cup of marsala, bring to a boil. Then add the duck back in, cover, and put it in the oven for 1.5 to 2 hours at 300 degrees.
When the duck is tender, take everything out of the oven. Take the duck out of the pan and cool it enough to shred it. Once shredded (I removed the skin at this point), put it back into the sauce and simmer 5-10 minutes while it thickens. Serve over pasta (I used whole wheat curly pasta).
Oh, it was good. Sorry Donald, Daisy, Daffy. The flavor of the sauce was fantastic, savory, and hearty (I credit the marsala). The duck made it a little greasy, which is always yummy. The celery and carrots retained just enough crunch and weren't too squishy. I was a little concerned that Annika would balk at the thought of eating a beloved cartoon animal. But she dug right in and declared it "delicious"! It can't be too unhealthy, it is loaded with tomatoes, carrots, celery, and onion and most (okay, a lot) of the duck fat is poured off after browning. It was good and I felt pretty cool. Duck is no boring chicken. Maybe I can keep my "foodie" card even without the bacon.
Tonight we also fed Astrid her second meal. Her first meal was last night. It was about a teaspoon of banana mixed with copious amounts of breastmilk. And each bite resulted in the kind of face you would get from me if you fed me breastmilk. But seeing as that is her favorite food, I'm not sure why she was complaining. Annika hovered about the entire time, laughing hysterically at every face. This is cute at first, then you realize she's distracting the baby. Then it's annoying. Tonight I tried to remedy that by feeding Astrid while the rest of us (aka Annika) were occupied with our own meals.
I made some rice porridge by pulverizing brown rice in the food processor for 2 minutes and then simmering it in water. Then I mixed it with copious amounts of breastmilk (anybody seeing a pattern?). I was not hopeful. If she didn't like bananas, no way she'd like rice paste. This only goes to show you only make yourself look stupid when you try to predict what a baby will do. The rice went down much better than the bananas.
Still a lot of bitter beer face (if you're too young to get the reference, I'm not explaining it to you), but also some smiles. And a few porridge-filled raspberries blown. Awesome that she learned to blow raspberries the week before starting "solid" foods. As you can tell from my descriptions, "solid" is a total misnomer. Annika still hovered about distracting Astrid, so I put her to work and let her feed Astrid a spoonful. She managed to do this without choking her baby sister, so I'll let her do it again next time. Plus I got a cute picture out of it.
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