Nice Firm Arteries and an Expanding Waistline

Ok so I know it’s been a long time. When you’ve got to cook as much as I do something s eventually got to give and seeing that the challenge was too cook everything then the cooking gets priority. If someone wants to come over and do my dishes for a while I could probably get a couple more hours typing in. No? I didn’t think so.

Given that we really only have two weeks left, and naturally I have a bit of cooking to do I’ll just write about a random selection of what I’ve been cooking rather than bore you all with a list. I am conscious that someone does possibly read this and I’d hate to be held responsible for concussions from people’s foreheads hitting keyboards.

And you'll be able to see that the last post was when I had 5 weeks to go. I have therefore been M.I.A. for three weeks. That really is poor form isn't it! I'll start up with the self-flagellation later as I really shouldn't distract myself from the typing now that it has finally restarted.

This project has given me an opportunity to do things I’ve never done before. I’d never made jam before. I’d never cooked offal (probably won’t be rushing back to do that again). I’d never cooked duck before – but now I have.

Duck is one of those things we usually order at a restaurant – most often at thai restaurants actually which seems a little odd now that I think about it. I don’t think I’ve even eaten duck at someone’s house before – the inlaws are compulsive kill it, cook it, eat it types with rabbit, deer, thar, chamois, etc but I’ve never been treated/subjected to duck before.

I had heard that there was not a lot of meat on a duck. Fortunately there is just the Husband and I at home because it turns out that at $24 duck will only really feed two people. Admittedly two people who will, given the opportunity, have the most ridiculously large portion sizes, but still. And you country folk can get back up off the floor re: my paying $24 for a duck. That’s just what we do up here.

The thing that really amazed me was the amount of fat on the damn duck – there must have been more than ½ pint – see I’m completely 1966 now, I even talk imperial. What do duck eat to end up with that much fat? It was obscene, I had put my vegetables into the roasting pan as well and they were slowly deep frying me into an early grave. Gosh I love a good roast vegetable but these were so richly fat soaked and glossy that I was almost physically sick straight after. That might have something to do with the aforementioned ridiculously large portion sizes. I now have fantastically firm arteries.

Now seeing that I was probably never going to cook a duck again – at least not in the near future – I actually thought I would save the duck fat. One of my memories of cooking was the dripping container in the fridge. It was a battered old enamel bowl and all the juices (read : fat) was poured into it after cooking. I can’t for the life of me figure out what we were cooking that kept the dripping container permanently full by that dripping made the best fried potatoes in the world. And now I have a dripping container of my own. And I love potatoes. I think I’m going to be seeing a lot more of my waistline…