Our adventure for this week is cooking with a whole duck..quack quack.  lol.   I have cooked with a duck breast, but never the whole duck.  This should be interesting.  I think it actually has the head still on it! ew....
I am glad I have my husband to do the duck cleaning in preperation for cooking.  We will probably roast it in the oven.  I need to find a fabulous recipe!  If you have one send it my way.    Check out my poll and let me know if you have had duck before and does it taste more like chicken or steak?

Our dinner was Squab with a cherry balsamic sauce accompanied by sauteed potatoes with heri covert beans and wild mushrooms.
The squab was good, it has the texture of steak but tastes more like very tender chicken.  There are many bones, so it was a little difficult to get the much meat off the bones.  The cherry balsamic sauce was wonderful.  It had a nice sweet flavor that married well with the squab.  The side dish vegetables were very good and I have to admit that we bought them frozen at Trader Joes.  Love that place!!  All in all the dinner was a success.
Recipes
Squab with cherry balsamic sauce
2 squab                               1C cherries (I used frozen)
3T olive oil                         1/4C balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper                    1/2C chicken stock
2T minced shallots              1/4t ground sage
1t minced garlic                   1T butter
Preheat oven to 475.  Cut the backbone out of the squab and gently flatten with the palm of your hand.  Season both sides of squab with salt and pepper.  heat the oil over medium high heat.  Add the squab skin side down and cook for 3-4 minutes.  Turn over and place in the oven and roast for 10-12 minutes.  Remove from oven, place squab on a platter and cover with foil.  Add 1-2T fat from the squab pan to a medium sauce pan over meduim high heat.  Add shallots and cook for 2 minutes.  Add garlic and cook for 30 seconds.  Add cherries and vinegar and cook until nearly all of the liquid has evaporated, add the chicken stock and sage.  Cook for 3-5 minutes.  Remove from heat, add butter.  Sever sauce over the squab.
Saute the vegetables in 1T olive oil until browned about 8 minutes.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Ok..............Squab is pidgeon. The thought of eating a pidgeon is kind of gross, but they are farm raised for eating. Still I'm a little freaked out!  I will let you know how it goes.  Adding spice to your life is good...right?!  This will be an experience!  I have added a picture of the squab before cooking for you to see.

Our adventerous ingredient this week is squab.  Take the poll to see if you know which animal is a squab.  I was surprised by the answer and a little timid on cooking with it.  Time to find a great recipe.
If anyone has a good interesting side dish to have with the squab let me know and I will try and work it inot the meal.  I was a bit disappointed by my soup last week, so I am going for broke this week!

Vegetarian Meal

My husband, daughter and I went shopping at an Asian Market for our vegetarian meal.  It was quite and adventure.  There is so much stuff there it can be overwhelming.  The new ingredients we selected are:  lotus root, vegetable broth and tofu.  We had Asian Soup with Spring Rolls.  The soup was not as successful as the spring rolls. I think the vegetable broth gave a tomato flavor that really did not work.  The ginger was also very strong and in the future I would cut back on that.  The lotus root was good, it tasted like a water chestnut, crunchy without a lot of flavor.  The tofu was organic so did not contain any of the MSG that most commercial tofu does.  MSG gives me a migraine! The tofu was the consistency of thick yogurt and was not firm enough for the soup.
The egg rolls were very good!  We bought KIMBO brand spring roll wraps in the freezer section.  They were very good, fried up nicely and were very crunchy with a delicate thin crust.  The spring rolls were very flavorful with a nice garlic, ginger taste.  A sweet and sour sauce for dipping added a sweetness that balanced the ginger and garlic and tasted wonderful.  We have made these spring rolls a couple of times and the wrappers made these the best spring rolls.
Here is a link for the spring roll recipe: http://www.wolfgangpuck.com/recipes/view/4700/wolfgang-s-spring-rolls

Asian Soup
6 cups vegetable stock (chicken would be better)        1C napa cabbage sliced
2T soy sauce                                                                 Fresh rice stick noodles
1T fresh ginger, peeled and minced                             1/2C carrot peeled, julienned
1T garlic, peeled and minced                                       1T fresh lemon juice
1t chili garlic sauce                                                      1/2t sesame oil
1t fish sauce                                                                 1C lotus root very thinly sliced
3T peanut or olive oil                                                   1/2C snow peas
1/2C firm tofu in small cubes
Heat oil in pan and saute lotus root for about 3 minutes on high heat.  Add snow peas and carrots and saute for 2 more minutes. Take off heat.  In soup pan bring to boil, stock, ginger, garlic.  Add  the rest of the ingredients and simmer for about 4 minutes.  Ladle into bowls.

Vegetarian

I was asked to have a vegetarian meal by the wonderful professor of my class!  So.....let's go vegetarian this week.  I am not a vegetarian so probably many of the foods will be adventerous for me.  I am not a fan of "fake" meat.  I want to eat the real thing, not something made from soy or tofu or other such ingredients. But ...I am the adventerous vegetarian this week.  I would love some food or ingredient suggestions and great places to shop. Also what type of vegetarian should I be this week?  Use my poll to indicate which one I should be as I cook my adventerous vegetarian meal.

·         Total Vegetarians eat only plant food. They do not eat any animal foods, including fish, eggs, dairy products, and honey.

·         Vegans not only omit all animal products from their diets, but they also eliminate them from the rest of their life. Vegans use nothing from animals, such as leather, wool, and silk.

·         Lacto-Vegetarians will include dairy products into their diet of plant food.

·         Lacto-Ovo-Vegetarians eat both eggs and dairy products.

·         Pesco-Vegetarians include fish into their diets.

·         Pollo-Vegetarians eat poultry, such as chicken, turkey, and duck.

Ostrich

Just finsished eating our adventerous ostrich meal.  Buffalo won on the poll, but ostrich was calling to me!  The menu:
Grilled Ostrich with Wild Mushrooms in a Mustard Shallot Sauce and Garlic Butter Rice.
The ostrich tasted like steak!  It was like eating the most fat free, tender steak available.  I would not have know it was ostrich.  The sauce had a wonderful earthy flavor from the mushrooms with a little sweetness at the end from the white wine.  The rice was phenominal, who knew cooking rice from scratch and not a box could be so good!  This is a winner!

Recipes:
Grilled Ostrich with Wild Mushrooms in a Mustard Shallot Sauce

Wild Mushroom Ingredients                   Mushroom Shallot Sauce Ingredients  
8 oz of assorted mushrooms                    1/2C white wine
2 shallots, chopped                                  2 shallots chopped
3 cloves of garlic diced                           1/2 bay leaf
1/4 cup white wine                                  1/2t thyme
1/2t thyme                                               2T dijon mustard
2 T butter                                                2C beef broth reduced to 1 C
                                                                2T butter

Sauce:  Saute shallots in butter.  Deglaze pan with wine.  Add thyme and mustard.  Add broth and reduce by half.
Mushrooms:  Saute shallots in butter.  Add mushrooms.  When mushrooms are almost done, add garlic and wine.  Reduce until dry.
Ostrich:  Brush ostric with olive oil then salt and pepper both sides.  Heat pan until hot about 3-4 minutes.  Cook ostrich about 2 minutes per side for medium rare.  let rest for 5 minutes.

Garlic Butter Rice Ingredients
3 clove garlic diced
1/4C chopped green onion
2 cups chicken broth
3 T butter
1C long grain rice
Add all ingredients to pan.  Heat to boil then cover pan and reduce heat.  Simmer for 20 minutes.
Enjoy!!!