The finished product – Grilled Duck Breast with Charred Greens, Grapes and Celery

We recently purchased a new cookbook called “Slow Fires” by Justin Smille, chef of Upland. In reading the summary and the comments about the book on Amazon, we thought it would be a challenging but very wonderful cookbook.

Slow Fires by Justin Smille

Well if the first meal we prepared from this cookbook is an indicator of what is to come, it may surpass our Boulevard cookbook as one of my favorite cookbooks. The recipe took two days to prepare but the resulting meal was unbelievably favorable.

The meal is a combination of three separate recipes:

Grilled Duck Breast With Charred Greens, Grapes, And Celery
Garlic And Pine Nut Emulsion
Charred Greens With Green Grapes And Celery

How to Plan The Meal

• 1 day before: Rub duck and soak pine nuts.
• 90 minutes before: Make garlic and pine nut emulsion.
• 1 hour before: Temper duck and set up grill.
• 30 minutes before: Grill duck and greens. Prepare charred greens salad. Arrange platter.

This meal is really worth the time and effort and if you follow the detailed instructions, it is a can’t miss dinner. Serve it with a full bodied red wine to maximize the experience.

¡Buon appetito!

Last night we prepared an excellent Salade Lyonnaise, which was timely as Jo Ann has lots of frisée in her garden.

Salade Lyonnaise from Mark Bittman of the New York Times

The mixture of the bacon and shallots with the tangy frisée was outstanding. This recipe came via the NY Times Monday food email and totally changed our menu plan for the day. I am so happy that it did!

Poaching the eggs

The Bacon diced and ready to cook

The shallots and bacon are just about ready for the salade

The Basis for the February 2016 meeting of the Culinary Conquistadors

The February 2016 meeting of the Culinary Conquistadors was held at Jo Ann’s and my casa yesterday and the group had a great time.

The menu consisted of the following:

Appetizers

Shrimp Spring Rolls by Brenda and Joel
Fresh Fruit and Brie Cheese by Jo Ann

Soup

Lemongrass Coconut Chicken Soup by Eileen

Salad

Layered Salad with Green Goddess Tofu Dressing by Rita

Main Courses

Chicken with Asian Mole by Jo Ann and Jon
Corinne Trang’s Sweet and Spicy Asian Mango Salsa with Grilled Shrimp by Jo Ann and Jon
Bacon-Cilantro Fried Rice by Deidre and Jason

Desserts

Double Chocolate-Ginger Shortbread
Butter Shortbread Cookie Dough
Five Spice Shortbread
Jennifer’s Science Fair Coconut Shortbread
All of the above were prepared by Jennifer.

Of course we had lots of different wines as well as coffee latte or espresso afterward.

Photos

Here are a sampling of the various dishes prepared. Sorry but since I was having to take care of all the Asian Mango Salsa with Grilled Shrimp which came together at the last minute, I had no time or chance to do any food styling of these images. They are as they were served.

I hope you enjoyed the event and if you were not at this gathering but would like to join the group at one of our upcoming monthly meetings, please send me an email.

Lemongrass Coconut Soup

 

The Layered Salad Already Tossed

 

Marinating the Shrimp Prior to Grilling

 

The Shrimp Ready to Serve

 

Mango Salsa

 

Asian Mole After Cutting With Chicken Stock

 

Asian Mole with Chicken

 

Bacon-Cilantro Fried Rice

 

Jennifer’s Shortbread Cookies

Beauty and the Beast?

It has been an unseasonably cold late December and January this year.  We have not been able to get out on our road bikes since mid-December but yesterday everything is feeling like the weather is returning to normal. It was invigorating to be outside riding again, I just hope this will continue and not just be an early taunt by Mother Nature.

On a secondary note, we are seeing lots of these signs going up in Morelia.  It is great to see Michoacán supporting safe biking.

One Meter Clearance