Charcutepalooza. What have I gotten myself into?

So, after watching plenty of tweets go by about duck prosciutto and charcuterie and charcutepalooza, I decided to join the meat madness for 2011.

For more information on what Charcutepalooza is, head over to Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Kitchen. She's got the rules and some pretty sweet prizes for the winner. Trip to France, anyone???

I wasn't sure if I could hack it with curing and salting my own bacon, duck prosciutto, etc. It's only recently that I've been excited about cooking and being in the kitchen. I love baking, but cooking is a whole other story. My parents can tell you stories about how I wasn't exactly in love with cooking when I had to (read: when they made us kids cook dinner). On those nights, dinner was usually mac and cheese or something like that. Mostly pasta, because it really only required the knowledge of how to boil water.

I think their goal was to get us engaged with cooking, but it definitely backfired for me. I dreaded those nights. A lot.

I digress.

So I signed up for Charcutepalooza. And tonight, I rubbed down four pounds of pork belly to make bacon for February's challenge. By this time next week, I should have some delicious bacon.

Well, I know I'll at least have bacon. We'll see whether it's delicious or not! Stay tuned!

My To Make List

My "I really need to make this!" list is so long that I couldn't even begin to list it here. You would get very, very bored.

And then you'd leave and miss out on these delectable recipes!

So here's my "to make" list for the immediate future.

- Olga at Mango And Tomato's mediterranean vegetables and poached egg breakfast. Steve saw the picture as I was scrolling through Google Reader and made me stop so he could drool over the photo. I think this is in my REALLY immediate future if he has anything to do with it. What's not to love about potatoes with veggies and a poached egg?

(Lovely photo by Olga on Mango and Tomato)

In my opinion, poached eggs make everything better.

- My Baking Addiction's cheesecake. I can NOT wait to try this. I've never tried making a cheesecake in a water bath, so this should be an interesting endeavour. Hopefully it doesn't end with water all over the kitchen floor. But now I'm really craving cheesecake. Right this second.

- These cupcakes. An older recipe (from a 2008 post from Meet Me in the Kitchen) Really - cupcakes of any kind. I've been muttering and tweeting about how much I want cupcakes for the last week now, so it's time to do something about it. I listed that recipe, but I'm open to suggestions.

But those nutella ones need to be made immediately.

And then I will eat them all.

Except not. This whole "being healthy" and "avoiding sugar" kinda sucks.

- Last thing on the list is this:

Yep. Coq au Vin. I found a recipe in a Williams-Sonoma cookbook we got for the wedding and that's the next thing to come out of the dutch oven. Yummm....rooster (or chicken, whichever is easier to find).

We won't actually cook the rooster that ran around the resort grounds while we were on our honeymoon, even though Steve threatened to do it on more than one occasion.

What's on your to make list?

Honeymoon Gluttony: The Cooking Class

This is SO delayed...but here's another post on our fantastic food-filled honeymoon in Anguilla!

As part of our gourmet package at CuisinArt, we got to take a cooking class with Executive Chef Daniel Le Guenan. We had already gotten to interact with him a bit at the Chef's Table two nights before, but this was a much more one-on-one setting. Of course, I have no pictures because my stupid camera stopped working days earlier.

It was just me, Steve, another woman from the resort and Chef. I was actually really surprised that no one else was taking advantage of this great opportunity but was happy that we got him (almost) all to ourselves!

We started out with a quick explanation of what we were going to do - chop veggies, stuff chicken breasts, make a vegetable stock and a green pea soup, and end with a banana bread.

With the hydroponic farm just a quick walk across the resort driveway, we each had a huge bowl of fresh vegetables at our stations. Eggplants, plantains, red bell peppers, onions, garlic...yum. Beautiful beautiful veggies. More on the hydroponic farm in a future post (that will not take two months to produce, promise!).

So we chopped our veggies how Chef Daniel instructed us to - taking care to not cut the peppers the way most people do. According to Chef Daniel, you lose too much pepper by slicing the pepper in half and then popping the stem out. All you have to do is slice the pepper down the side as close to the stem as possible - then you get the most pepper.

After that, we combined our veggies and let them simmer for about half an hour with plenty of water and garlic on the stove. After about 30 minutes, he brought the stock to a boil.

While the stock was simmering, we sliced up our plantains into slender spears about 2-3 inches long. Chef Daniel showed us how to butterfly the chicken breasts we had in order to stuff them with the plantains. According to Chef Daniel, the best way to butterfly the chicken is to slice the breast vertically down the center about half an inch deep and then slowly peel back the layer of chicken, working your way to the left and then to the right. Although our knives weren't the sharpest (probably because they don't want to give super sharp knives to potentially inexperienced tourists), we made quick work of the chicken.

The most interesting part was cooking the chicken. We stuffed the chicken breasts with the plantain spears and then - surprisingly - rolled them using saran wrap. I had NO idea it was ok to use plastic wrap to cook the chicken, but it turned out really well! By the time we had finished stuffing and rolling the chicken in saran wrap, the vegetable stock was finishing its simmer. Once it was boiling, we dropped the little chicken rolls into the stock and put the lid on the pot.

(Note: Steve and I liked this idea so much that we tried it ourselves, making feta and basil-stuffed chicken breasts for lunch one day. Turned out great! Only difficult part is making sure the chicken is cooked, because once you unroll it, there's no way to return it to the pot for more time in the pot.)

Since the chicken needed to cook for a bit, we strolled over to the hydroponic garden and Chef Daniel gave us a rundown on how he worked with the farm's produce every morning to figure out a menu. Combined with fresh-from-the-boat seafood, he said the hydroponic farm was the most consistent and best produce on the island. Surprisingly, Anguilla is dry and not conducive to farming, so hydroponic farming is the best bet for fresh produce.

When we got back, we pulled the chicken out, skimmed off the veggies and then dumped fresh peas into the pot to simmer for the pea soup. After that, we whipped together some banana bread (probably the least exciting bit of the class - banana bread is not difficult!).

Once everything was all ready, Chef Daniel booted us out of the kitchen with one last question - scallops or foie gras? He would put the finishing touches on the meal and then send it out to us at our table on the patio.

Steve and I, being the foie gras gluttons that we are, both jumped at the chance to indulge in rich, delicious liver. YUM.

Chef Daniel did not disappoint. We started with the pea soup, topped with a light creme fraiche and herbs (that, of course, two months later - I don't remember which ones). It was a tad bit bland and could have used a bit more flavor, but it was still yummy. Steve and I both agreed that the addition of ham or prosciutto or something savory would have kicked it up to being a really flavorful, excellent dish. However, it WAS served with a generous portion of seared foie gras, so I couldn't really complain THAT much.

For the main course, the chef sent out our plantain-stuffed chicken three ways - plain with microgreens, with vegetable stock and with a red pepper puree. I think the chicken itself needed more spice and flavor, but it was an overall good entree.

It was followed by our banana bread, topped with vanilla bean ice cream. Not terribly exciting or amazing, but it was a nice way to finish off our meal.

The cooking lesson was a great addition to our honeymoon and capped off our three days of true gluttony (with the chef's table two days prior and the tasting menu the day before). Chef Daniel was animated and very easy to talk with about cooking, different techniques, ideas and, much like my favorite French chef, had a great French accent.

I highly recommend the cooking class if anyone makes the jaunt down to Anguilla - even if you don't stay at CuisinArt! It was a lot of fun and great way to stay out of the blistering winds on the beach.

Cooking with Calphalon

Again, this is not an advertisement for Calphalon. But seriously - their Unison pots and pans are amazing. Simply AMAZING. I'm spoiled forever.

Since we decided this weekend would be our "stay in and get the apartment in order and relax before the wedding" weekend, we did a bit of cooking.

Friday night (which was the box unpacking, laundry and Calphalon night), we made breakfast for dinner. Except we ended up drinking Pimm's, beers, rose and a great pinot noir...so dinner was at 10 pm and a little buzzed. Just a little.

Future Husband made an egg scramble and I had a go at making a fancy version of egg in a frame.

Does anyone remember egg in a frame? My dad used to make it for me when I was a little kid and it sounded really good on Friday night. Especially because we had some parmesan and cheddar cheese left from other meals. So I thought I'd make egg in a frame the normal way - in the pan - and then sprinkle some shredded parm and cheddar on it and toss it under the broiler for a little bit.

Epic fail. The whole point of egg in a frame is to combine the bread/toast with a sunny side up egg. Apparently I cooked it too long in the pan and the time under the broiler cooked the yolk completely through. I even called my dad (and had my little sister wake him up) to make sure I was cooking it in the pan correctly. Sorry, Dad. Next time, can you just come cook this for me? Great. Thanks.

So Friday night was kind of a bust. Saturday held a lot of promise though! We had fajitas for lunch (so super easy to make and we already had the fajita fixin's) and Future Husband had beef marinating in the fridge.

Our goal for the night was to make steak frites. The steak wasn't an issue - Future Husband is a pro at cooking beef. The frites, however, were a challenge. We don't have a deep fryer and didn't know if we could get a true, crispy fry from pan-frying. We could not. But they still tasted really really good. Fried potatoes always do!

Future Husband had made garlic butter on Friday night for his eggs, so we used the rest of it for the frites. Plus more garlic to fry with them.

I got tasked with handling the fries, so Future Husband told me to slice them like McDonald's fries. Done.

He chopped the additional garlic and insisted that I take an "artsy" photo of the garlic with his knife. This also goes to show why I need Photoshop...and a dSLR. But the other photos without flash were just too dark. I think Future Husband just wanted to show off his fancy shun kaji knife, which I'm pretty sure he loves more than me.

So in the end they turned out like this...

Not crispy, but browned and delicious. Yum yum yum.

End result of the evening was this delectable meal...which Future Husband plated.

And now I'm going to the gym. For the next 3 days.

Happy Sunday!

Carrie

This is not an advertisement.

This weekend was a big weekend. We didn't go out or host a party or anything like that, but it was big nonetheless.

We sorted out the wedding gifts that had been piling up in the corners of the living room and unpacked all of the boxes of dinnerware, glassware and pots and pans.

Ohhh the pots and pans. Calphalon, I love you.

With that set came a colander (which apparently, according to the pamphlet, can double as a fruit bowl. Thanks for the heads-up, Calphalon.) and a dutch oven. They were bonus items. With the dutch oven came a Calphalon spoon and a lovely kitchen towel. I'm sold on the kitchen towels...our Williams-Sonoma ones are not as absorbent.

Future Husband (who I guess will just be Husband after Saturday? hmmm) got to unpack all the boxes. So this:

became this:

You can also see how lovely our kitchen is. I like to think of it as retro chic. Hah.

We eventually got everything put away and piled up our old pots and pans (at the bottom right of the photo) to take to Goodwill (a harrowing experience at best - don't people know how to drive?).

We also cleaned, did laundry, started packing and hung art/photos up. Which was good, because I was starting to believe that the photos would be leaning against the walls in their selected locations forever.

Two red canvases for the guest bathroom...

Two framed photographs by Steven L. Miller Photography. He's a local photographer who travels all over and has a stand at the Courthouse antiques market every Saturday. I would happily fill all of my frames with his work.

I also found out that my dream of adding French style to our apartment (which is, for the most part, pretty classic and a little modern - clean lines, lots of natural colors and white, dark wood, etc.) may come true! We got a Restoration Hardware advert in the mail on Saturday and Future Husband (gasp) actually found things in it that he liked! I was surprised, as he had always seemed a little hesitant when I talked of decorating in a French/Provence style.

He even liked the linen pillow covers with patterns from French burlap sacks, which I have been lusting after since seeing them appear countless times in the design blogs I follow. So we decided we'll get one of these...

 (Photo from Restoration Hardware)

He also liked these chairs, but we don't really have the space in our current apartment. So I guess we just need to buy a house in Provence and then I can decorate to my heart's content.

We should probably work on owning a house in Virginia first. Sigh.

 (Photo from Restoration Hardware)

So it was a productive weekend...and I figured I'd post about apartment endeavours first and then our cooking endeavours...which were also fun this weekend!

xo,
Carrie