Thanksgiving

It probably says something when Thanksgiving is your least stressful meal of a week.

Josh had asked for venison, but it's increasingly hard to get venison these days, so we opted for duck. Not that he really had a choice in the matter when it comes down to it.

There is a roasted skillet duck of Jacques Pepin's that we are fond it. It's easy to make and incredibly tasty. When doing our run at Dekalb FM, I picked up seven duck legs. I would have preferred duck quarters but they didn't have any and the thighs were all frozen. I know all this meat starts out frozen, but I didn't want to have to deal with thawing it myself. Anyway, I took their last duck legs. Three for the cassoulet and four for thanksgiving.

When you have all that downtime and you're just sitting there on the couch, you might as well caramelize some onions for french onion soup. We had a small bowl with some thinly sliced aged gruyere which melted right in. Anyway, we had bowls of french onion soup the next day (yesterday) with baguette and more gruyere for lunch.

So you take your duck legs -- which, contrary to most meant needs to be washed (or at least these) because it is so damn fatty -- and basically sear them on the skin side and then let it slowly render the fat and then slowly confit it for about a half hour. Two of the legs ended up a little darker than I would have preferred, but the other two didn't seem too crispy.

Anyway, then you add in all the veg. For us, we had a McMullan farms sweet potato and Hennessey turnips, I think. Then we added whole shallows and unpeeled garlic cloves. Cover with foil, and let cook on low for another thirty minutes.

See? Isn't that one of the easiest recipes evar?

An episode of French Cooking at Home prompted me to prepare stuffed mushrooms. I chose four big mushrooms at the Dekalb FM. I peeled the tops, chopped the stems, and sauteed the stems, garlic, and cloves and then topped with a parsley/parmigiano mixture. At least, I think that is what I did.

We baked the tops first, then filled, then topped, then baked again. Laura Calder serves them with a balsamic reduction, which we have some of from Hendricks. Josh dripped a drop or two on top, which, in hind sight, I think we should leave it on the side.

Anyway, I seriously need to make stuffed mushrooms more often.

So. We have the duck legs with their roasted veg. And then the stuffed mushrooms -- two per person. And then I made some tasty mashed potatoes -- a mixture of yukon golds from both McMullan and Dekalb FM -- and rather large batch of gravy, from my own stock and butter, plus some normal King Arthur all-purpose flour.

I like to mix my mashed potatoes with gravy and then top with more gravy.

Dinner was quite tasty. I had two servings of potatoes.