French Friday with Dorie: Twenty-Minute Honey-Glazed Duck Breasts

When I walked up to the poultry counter at Whole Foods, the butcher asked if he could help me. I saw that there were two duck breasts in the case, but no price, so I asked him how much they were. He told me he could look the price up in the register and while he was doing so I told him that I had never cooked duck before and that my husband was really excited that I was going to fix it. He looked up and cautioned me to not overcook the duck because he said it is easy to do and then it will be dry. He put one of the duck breasts on the scale and fiddled with the scale and it was exactly one pound and then he said that it was $13.99 per pound. "Oh, wow, " I said and I don't know if was my low gasp of shock mixed with what I am sure was disappointment on my face that moved him to say, "Well, since you are buying two perhaps I can give you a break in the price. "Shall I wrap them up for you?" he asked. "Okay." I replied, thinking to myself that I had better not overcook these because while they may be Dorie's duck-as-everyday food, they are duck-as-caviar only-for-special-occasions dinner for us.

I think the butcher would approve of Dorie's recipe because 20 minutes is all that is needed to have the most moist and succulent duck that you will possibly ever eat. No kidding. And the honey-glazed sauce is truly what put this recipe over the top for me. If you haven't made this yet, make sure that you do have some rustic bread on the table because you will want to sop up every last bit of the sauce. And what did John think about it? He said it was the best meal I have ever made. Can't wait to share that with my butcher the next time I see him. Yes, I finally understand how important it is to get to know your butcher, so I will be buying my French Fridays with Dorie poultry and meat from him from now on.

Visit French Fridays with Dorie to see what the other members thought of this week's recipe. You can find the recipe on p.229-30 of Around My French Table and you can find it online here.

Happy Halloween

French Saturday with Dorie: Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good

What a crazy, busy week it has been. Even though this post is late, I simply could not miss making the stuffed pumpkin. I was so glad to have some down time today, and I am very, very glad that I made this recipe. 

This is one of the recipes I have been waiting to make ever since I bought Around My French Table. Luckily I had bought the sugar pie pumpkins last Sunday and had all the ingredients, so I didn't have to make a trip to the grocery store this morning. I used Gruyère cheese for the stuffing and added some dino kale that I sautéed in some of the bacon grease before adding to the bread and herb mixture. I baked them for an hour and then removed their tops and let them bake another 20 minutes to brown the stuffing a bit.

The heavy cream makes the stuffing just moist enough without being soggy and the herbs combined with the bacon, bread, and kale is just about the most wonderful flavor when you mix it with the cooked pumpkin. Dorie suggests two different ways to serve this: one is the pull-and-mix where you use a spoon to scoop some of the stuffing and some of the pumpkin out at the same time, and the other is cutting the pumpkin into wedges. I served it the pull-and-mix way and ate that smaller pumpkin all by myself. Yep. All. By. Myself. 

Don't forget to visit French Fridays with Dorie to see what creative ideas the other members came up with for this week's recipe. And if you haven't made this yet, you'll want to try it for yourself. It would be fantastic served along with Thanksgiving dinner. You can find the recipe at Epicurious. 

BAKED Sunday Morning: Chocolate Mint Thumbprints

I was so ready to make these chocolate mint thumbprint cookies for this week's BAKED Sunday Morning because I have been baking so much with pumpkin lately that I needed a little chocolate fix and when you throw in some mint, well, that's even better.

I used some Valhrona cocoa powder and since these seemed like they would be extra special cookies I even broke down and bought some Valhrona white chocolate for the white ganache filling.

The cookie dough was easy to make and it was the first time I used the little Andes baking mints and they melted nicely along with the dark Ghiradelli chocolate. I used the handle end of my cherry pitter to make the indentations in the cookies which I thought worked well.

But I must have made crater-size indentations because I ran low on the white ganache filling even though I made the amount the recipe called for and only made 1/2 of the cookie dough. I had just barely enough for 24 cookies. These are absolutely delicious cookies and I think they are special enough to make not only for holidays, but for any day you want to put a smile on someone's face. The mint with the dark chocolate and white chocolate is wonderful together.

This has nothing to do with the cookies, but I couldn't resist showing you a picture of our cat. Her official name is Sophie, but we have called her Little One since day one and it has stuck. This was one of those rare days that I was able to take a fairly decent picture of her. She is my husband's baby girl. Oh, she loves me too, but she loves him more. She follows him around like a puppy dog.

Be sure to check out the links of the other BAKED Sunday Mornings members to see if they made the chocolate mint thumbprints or decided to bake something else from BAKED Explorations. You can also find the recipe for these cookies over there.

French Friday with Dorie: Pissaladière

Pissaladière is basically an onion pizza with Niçoise olives originating from Nice. It has no tomato sauce, no cheese - nothing else. As much as I wanted to make it like the pizzas we are used to eating, I resisted the impulse and followed Dorie's recipe. 

I was happy when I found the Niçoise-style olives at Whole Foods because I had struck out at a few of the grocery stores and since we had never had Niçoise olives before, I wanted to include them in the pissaladière.

The dough was easy to make and while it was rising, I made the onions. The onions took all of the hour to cook and while I was chopping the anchovies I wondered how everyone was going to like this. We never eat pizza with anchovies - Never, so I decided not to adorn it with the anchovies because no one in my house would touch the pissaladière, including myself. There is something about those little fillets, besides the fact that we never eat them, that is off-putting and I didn't want everyone to be turned off and not try the Pissaladière, so I only mixed the anchovies in with the onions because I knew they would melt away and just flavor the onions.

All of us liked the pissaladière and although it will never replace the American-Italian pizza that we are used to, all of us thought it was good and were happy to have tried it. You can find this recipe on pp. 45-47 in Around My French Table and you can also find it online. Visit French Fridays with Dorie to see what the other group members thought of this week's recipe.

leaf

Finally, a garden magazine has joined the ranks of the free online magazines with the launch of Leaf Magazine.

The premier issue of Leaf is full of garden inspiration and inspiration drawn from the outdoors. This issue includes articles on a little known, but prolific American landscape designer, Ellen Biddle Shipman; the wonderfully creative garden of landscape designer, Dustin Gimbel; and master basket artist, Kari Lonning, who weaves the Norwegian landscape into her baskets. 

Beautiful, right?