Falling Back on Island Time

[Kerry Beal]

Before heading out this evening - made a double batch of Teisen Lap for the staff at the nursing home and the Wiki clinic tomorrow.

 

First learned of this from Sheepish in his blog - here.

 

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Is there a 10 second rule for two falls?

 

Wondering what the rule time is for broken wine bottles?

[Kerry Beal]

Anything you can hoover off the floor with your lips, avoiding the glass, is fair game.  No time limits.  It's wine, therefore cleans the patch it's sitting on!  Unless of course it's been more than 72 hours at less than 54C.

[blue_dolphin]

I was raised by an extended family. All my aunts were married to men who held blue-collar jobs. In those days and I am talking about the 50s the men in my family expected to come home to "tea". This was their evening meal and was usually meat and potatoes. No matter what my aunts and I might be doing, about mid afternoon they would declare, "Must get home and make (insert husbands name here) tea". It was always said with a mixture of pride and fear. Some husbands would become quite abusive if their tea was not ready when they arrived home from their jobs. Even though my own husband frequently declared that he did not want or like to eat as soon as he arrived home I had a terrible time overcoming this early influence. Only on Friday nights when my husband was alive could I relax and enjoy a glass of wine with him before we began making dinner. It amazes me how these early influences have such an ability to continue to control our lives.

I am glad to hear that you can enjoy a leisurely glass or three of wine before making dinner!

I'll second Shelby's thanks for sharing this story, Anna.  I think it's so interesting how our growing up experiences affect us into adulthood. 

Like the husbands you describe, my grandfather expected a full meal (meat, potato & veg) on the table the minute he came home from work.  The kicker is that he worked nights on the railroad so my grandmother had to get up and have this meal on the table at 6 AM.   She then moved on to breakfast for the 5 children, packed their lunches and cooked another dinner for herself and the kids in the evening.  This was in the '20s & '30s so even if it was simple fare, that had to have been a heck of a lot of work. 

My mom followed the same path and always had dinner ready to be served immediately following my dad's pre-dinner cocktail interlude. 

I'm usually on my own and follow Shelby with a little kick back time before starting to cook, but when my mom is visiting me I feel like I have to go straight to the kitchen and get to cooking as soon as I come home from work.

 

Finally, and most importantly, thanks to both Anna and Kerry for taking us along on your adventures.  I greatly enjoy following along. 

 

Oh, and I'm curious about all that fermenting apple juice.  Are you going to transport it back home or will the fermentation finish in situ on the island?

[Kerry Beal]

The fermenting apple juice will be transported home - note to self - need another big lid.  It's not showing as much activity as I would like.  Will have to check the SG again and see if it's doing it more quietly than expected.  

[SylviaLovegren]

I was raised by an extended family. All my aunts were married to men who held blue-collar jobs. In those days and I am talking about the 50s the men in my family expected to come home to "tea". This was their evening meal and was usually meat and potatoes. No matter what my aunts and I might be doing, about mid afternoon they would declare, "Must get home and make (insert husbands name here) tea". It was always said with a mixture of pride and fear. Some husbands would become quite abusive if their tea was not ready when they arrived home from their jobs. Even though my own husband frequently declared that he did not want or like to eat as soon as he arrived home I had a terrible time overcoming this early influence. Only on Friday nights when my husband was alive could I relax and enjoy a glass of wine with him before we began making dinner. It amazes me how these early influences have such an ability to continue to control our lives.

I am glad to hear that you can enjoy a leisurely glass or three of wine before making dinner!

 

Heck, in the 1990s a Texan friend married an English guy.  After the honeymoon, he came home from work, looked at the empty dining room table unbelievingly and said, "Where's my tea, you stupid cow?"    The marriage did not last long. 

[huiray]

Heck, in the 1990s a Texan friend married an English guy.  After the honeymoon, he came home from work, looked at the empty dining room table unbelievingly and said, "Where's my tea, you stupid cow?"    The marriage did not last long. 

 

I can't believe this aspect of his expectations did not come out during the courtship.    Not even a hint???

[lindag]

"...You stupid cow." ?!?!?!   I'm surprised the marriage lasted any time at all.  I'd have been packing my bags that instant.

[IowaDee]

An especially poor choice of words to call a Texas gal too.  Stupid bloke!

[Anna N]

I thought I should get a few things done this morning before I begin posting. But let's begin with breakfast. There were some leftovers from the lunch we had with our guest yesterday. So my breakfast was far from healthy but quite filling and delicious:

Kerry is off in Wiki todaybut before she left I promised her duck breasts for dinner but if this is to happen I must first defrost the duck and then butcher it:

I hope it defrosts in time. I expect to sous vide the breasts, package up the legs for a braise and toss the carcass in the stockpot.

I made yet another iteration of banana bread. This one includes crystallized ginger and chocolate chips. But not just any chocolate chips these are from Cacao Barry and are called Fleur de Cao. Not that I expect anyone will notice.

And a loaf of American-style sandwich bread is ready to go into the oven as the Richard Bertinet bread was most unsatisfactory. (Interestingly our guest of yesterday just to try it and said it was the kind of bread he enjoyed. Just goes to show there's no accounting for taste.)

My plan was to make some sourdough bread using my carefully tended starter. But it was so obviously beyond the pale that even the addition of a little instant yeast failed to move it. I did the merciful thing and flushed it down the toilet.

[Anna N]

So today's bread turned out much better.

Not quite as well shaped as it could be but passable and it does not feel like the brick of yesterday.

The duck breasts are swimming in their sous vide bath, the parsnips are prepared for the steam oven so all is well with the world.

The duck carcass is in the refrigerator continuing to thaw. I could not get it to the point where I could remove the giblets in reasonable time. I was however able to remove the legs, the breasts, the wings and most of the skin. The legs are in the refrigerator and the other bits and pieces I slow roasted and was able to render about half a cup of liquid gold. Tomorrow I will put the rest of the carcass and the slow roasted bits into a stock pot or perhaps the pressure cooker and make some duck stock.

One of the other docs has had a family emergency and Kerry has to pick up some shifts. The work she doesn't mind at all but it's cutting into her cocktail time! She messaged me from Wiki to ask what we would have tonight!

[rotuts]

like to hear as much as you can stand to post on the Duck !

 

i have one FZ in the Freezer.

 

Ive only done Duck  '2 Ways' a la Madeleine Kamman. for my father.   several time

 

too bad they were not more 'plentiful' 

 

Id bet  Quack'er Thighs in the CSB would be memorable.  

[Anna N]

I had given no thought to cooking the legs in the CSO. My two favourite methods of dealing with the very tough meat of duck thighs is confit or open braise (to keep the skin crispy). In southern Ontario frozen ducks are available year-round in most supermarkets. Here on the island they seem to be only on the wing! The breasts of course will be cooked sous vide and then seared to crisp the skin. Apart from the legs and the breasts there is little usable meat on these ducks but they do provide a source of duck fat at a reasonable price and duck stock is almost as useful to have on hand as chicken stock. I shall have to think about doing the legs in the CSO.

Edited to change meet to meat.

Edited October 15, 2014 by Anna N (log)

[rotuts]

in rethinking:

 

the Kamman method for the whole legs is quite interesting:

 

thats the second course of a two course duck :  breast first then the Leg

 

the leg is cooking while you enjoy the breast :

 

put the whole leg on a grate over a pan with some water in the pan.  there should be no skin under the thigh.  the

 

true leg you leave as is .  the water keeps the drippings from burning.

 

pre heat an oven to 400 or so.

 

place the legs/grate/water pan in the oven.  45 min later, pull the contraption out and add some sort of glaze to the legs:

 

orange marmalade, cherry preserves  etc for about 10 more minutes.  pull out just before the sugar in the preserves burn

 

it might even have been 425. 450 ? a tiny bit smokey.

 

but crispy, tender, etc.

 

the problem is when these come to the table ' sizzling'  you just cant wait. and you burn your mouth a bit.

 

but delicious if the burn is not too bad

 

Edited October 15, 2014 by rotuts (log)

[ElsieD]

So, both of us looking at things we might want to bake - realized we don't have any apples in the house (with the exception of one Fuji left over from the Ivan Ramen ramen.  

 

So hiked out before it got dark and picked a few.

 

DSCN3511.jpg

Just got caught up on all your activities. I wonder if the apples with the white flesh are snow apples? I remember them fondly from childhood days when my dad and I would go to orchards and pick apples for home consumption. I used to love them, with their white flesh and pink tinge. Whenever I have gone to farmer's markets where there were apple farmers I would ask about them but no one seems to grow them anymore. Pity. They are delicious.

[blue_dolphin]

...I wonder if the apples with the white flesh are snow apples? I remember them fondly from childhood days when my dad and I would go to orchards and pick apples for home consumption. I used to love them, with their white flesh and pink tinge. Whenever I have gone to farmer's markets where there were apple farmers I would ask about them but no one seems to grow them anymore. Pity. They are delicious.

Sounds like snow apple is also called the Fameuse apple and has a long history in Canada.  I wonder if that name is used more commonly.  I have never heard of either one.  Then again, I've never heard of most of the apples listed on the OrangePippin website that I linked to.  What a pity so few of them are widely available.  But I guess it's the same with most of our industrial produce these days.  One kind of banana.  Just a few types of cherries.  So sad.

[Kerry Beal]

Cocktail decided on this evening - Little Italy.  Was to have had a flamed orange rind - nil to be found - so a couple of dashes of orange bitters stood in.  

 

 

Duck breast, saba sauce and roasted parsnips.  

 

[Kerry Beal]

Went off into the kitchen to pick up the copy of Greweling that I keep here - by the time I got it and remembered to come back - I'd made a batch of almond paste - for this recipe that Food 52 delivered to my email today.  

 

By the time I made it back - the sky outside looked like this - 

 

 

Now to open Greweling and see what I can make in the way of a cheese cake filling with freeze dried cream cheese.

 

 

[FauxPas]

Went off into the kitchen to pick up the copy of Greweling that I keep here - by the time I got it and remembered to come back - I'd made a batch of almond paste - for Apple Peel-Infused Bourbon. Or maybe just to use the left-over peel after making apple pies?   

Edited October 15, 2014 by FauxPas (log)

[Kerry Beal]

I'd be interested in seeing that apple peel infused bourbon - can you fix the link?

[FauxPas]

Sorry, Kerry. Here is the Apple Peel-Infused Bourbon link. 

 

Arg, can't believe how many mistakes I make in posts lately. Really need to slow down and double check! 

[Kerry Beal]

And perfect for 375 ml bottles!  Looks like a very interesting idea.  Especially with unsprayed peels such as I have right now!

[Tri2Cook]

I'd made a batch of almond paste - for this recipe that Food 52 delivered to my email today.

I will be making that cake.

 

[Kerry Beal]

Last night I started fiddling with my freeze dried cream cheese to see if I could come up with a half way decent first try at a cheese cake filling for a bonbon.

 

 

Way too much strawberry - used some jam mixed with freeze dried strawberries - should have processed it more finely and piped just a tiny bit into the bottom of the shell instead of using a spoon (lazy often wins).  Alternately some strawberry PDF processed with some booze to loosen it up and 

 

The cheesecake part has potential - this morning I took the remains and added some of Darcy O'Neill's lactart to boost the cream cheesy flavour - works a treat.

 

The crumbs were graham crumbs, butter and cocoa butter rolled between a couple of pieces of parchment then cut out to fit the top of the mold under the back.  Needs a bit of work as well.  

 

Not sure if I should try moulding in white or dark chocolate - the milk chocolate does mute the other flavours.  

[Chocolot]

Just wondering what kind of birthday surprise Anna has in mind for you today?