A weekend of cooking

This weekend I set my own personal cooking record. J has pulled a muscle in his back or something. I'm unsure what it is -- and so are the doctors -- but he's on muscle relaxers and pretty much home-bound. So I set off on my own on a shopping excursion Saturday so that I could spend Saturday afternoon and all Sunday cooking. This sudden need for massive cooking is mostly due to the fact that we got in Martha Stewart's Master Chefs DVD. We watched Riad Nasr make Coq Au Vin, Diana Kennedy make tamales, Eileen Yin Fei-Lo make Char Siu Bau. Most of all, we watched Daniel Boulud make the most ridiculous dish ever: Cote de Boeuf with an entire cooked foie gras. Sure, I was drooling the entire time, but it was insane. Watching people cook always makes me feel like cooking.

So I set off to the market on Saturday to get all the goodies I would need. Among the things I purchased are these luscious heirloom tomatoes. On the leftmost top and bottom, those are Brandywines: slightly sweeter than black crimsons and less earthy. The top right and bottom center are Black Crimsons. I've been calling them Purple Cherokees, and Joe at Star Provisions says they are close enough to be called that, but I've learned a new one! These are our favorites. Deeply sweet and earthy. The top center and bottom right are Nebraska Weddings. They are supposed to be sweet and mellow. I'm really looking forward to trying all of these.

Saturday, left along to my own devices, I decided to make meatballs. Meatballs are one of J's favorites and sweet Italian sausage is one of my favorites, so this dish works out for both of us. Normally, I make a basic tomato sauce to go with this, just canned tomatoes, basil, oregano, and pepper. But I'm never really happy with the sauce so this time I went with minced celery, onions, and carrots with my canned tomatoes. No herbs. So far, I'm finding it to be as light as I want it but we'll see when I bring it for lunch tomorrow.

I think I have given my meatball recipe before, but here it is again: ground beef, bread -- wet, squeezed, and then crumbled -- basil, oregano, eggs, and ketchup. Then roll 'em into nice balls. Then I put them into a baking dish and put them into the microwave for about 10 minutes, depending on how many I have and the size of the dish. While those are pre-cooking, I fry up the sausage and prepare my sauce. Once everything is ready, it all goes into the pot to simmer away.

For dinner, I made one of my favorites: linguine with white clams. When J emerged from his muscle relaxer stupor, I made him some spaghetti to go with his meatballs and sauce.

Sunday I started the day off with huevos rancheros and then spent an impressive ten hours on my feet cooking. First I put on two bags of crab shells to cook away in a nice rich stock. While I have no real plans to use this soon, I like to have it on hand so that the day that I do decide to make cioppino or gumbo, I don't have to wait to create the stock.

The first dish I made was a peach pie. When J and I were returning from North Carolina, we stopped off at a street-side stand and bought some peaches. They have been sitting in the fridge the last few days waiting for me to buy some pastry shell. I know that I could have made some, but really, I find baking to be quite exhausting. So I dropped eight peaches into a nice pie and set it to bake.

I just had a piece for dessert, and it is quite tasty. It's not super sweet like those pies you buy in the grocery store. It's nice and light, and I think you can actually taste the lemon juice in it. Joy of Cooking comes through again!

Then I made the rabbit ragu. I've actually been wanting to make this ragu for a while. When I asked for it at the farmer's market yesterday, they were all out of whole rabbit, but when they were able to locate some later on, they actually sought me out in the store to tell me they found some. That was very nice. After a long time of cutting and simmering, I finally reached the part of pulling all the meat off the bones and mincing it back into the sauce. This may be the most work-intensive ragu I've ever made! I hope the taste is worth it. I put it all into tupperwares and stacked it in the fridge.

Before I started on my plan for dinner, I whipped together some pork fried rice. Since J will be home-bound for the next few days, I wanted to kill two birds with one stone: give him some food to eat and also use up the leftover pork from when we had a pork roast last week.

The last thing I made was Braised Duck with Port and Cherries. Last night, I set the cherries to plump in port, and I patted duck breasts down with some ground toasted coriander, allspice, thyme, pepper, and salt. This recipe was actually rather simple. Brown the duck on each side. Then saute sliced shallots, add white wine, some chicken stock, and put it all into the oven with parchment paper. Cook for two hours, flipping the duck at the halfway mark.

I was not prepared for how luscious or delicious this dish would be. No wonder Molly Stevens notes that each person will get only one duck breast. This recipe was as rich as duck confit. I had feared that it would be overspiced, but it was perfect. I served it with filet beans from Star Provisions and my attempt at pureed butternut squash. Towards the end there, I was having some trouble with too many pots and dishes and just not enough space.

Whew! Ten hours later, my feet are really killing me, and my fridge is piled to the gills with tupperware containers! I forgot to mention that I cut up the watermelon that we got at the produce stand in North Carolina also. I think that is taking up the most space of everything since there are like eight containers of it. I'm looking forward to my spaghetti, meatballs, and sausage for lunch tomorrow!