The soon to be Mrs...had a special day today. The next step in her career...so I thought she deserved a special meal the night before. I asked what she wanted and she simply said "Pasta with a Homemade Sauce". That translated to me to be Duck Ragu with Pappardelle....and whatever else "fun" I picked up at the store. We usually cook together but every once in a while we do the "the other person is not allowed in the kitchen, it's a surprise" deal...tonight was my night in the kitchen. When we do this, the other usually picks up the wine...it's kind of a "hint". So I said "Pick up a nice bottle of Chianti"


Since she wasn't allowed in the kitchen, excuse the poor pictures...and some missing ones...I had to use my "easy" lense by myself. Also, I made the pictures "Small" but click them if you want to see bigger...

First, I'll start with my first course...I spotted these ingredients at the market, and just had to. Local Heirlooms and Jersey Reds....








I remember we had a discussion regarding caprese a little while back. I'm here to confirm....don't even bother making or offering it at a restaurant if the tomatoes aren't local, fresh, and tasty!!!! The DIFFERENCE is...night and day. This was, by FAR, the best caprese we have ever eaten. THE best. Undescribable....no...really...you have no idea.

Questions:
- How do I keep chiffonaded basil from darkening? Knife was sharp...what's the trick. I remember reading about tearing, vs. slicing, etc. but don't remember the details.

Ok Ok now on to the main course.....now I made the app. while the main was cooking, so it's a little out of order picture wise...but you get the idea)

here is the Mario Batali recipe I used.

Pasta:
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 cup virgin olive oil
2 eggs
1 to 4 tablespoons cool water
1/2 cup pomace olive oil, for frying Sauce:
4 duck legs and thighs, skin removed
4 tablespoons virgin olive oil
1 medium Spanish onion, chopped into 1/4-inch dice
1 medium carrot, peeled and finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
1 stalk celery, chopped into 1/4-inch dice
8 ounces red wine (Chianti preferred)
1 pound canned tomatoes, peeled whole
1 cup chicken stock
1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms

Stir together flour and salt and add olive oil, stirring with a whisk. Add eggs and mix with hands until sticky. Add water 1 tablespoon at a time until dough stays together. Knead 5 to 8 minutes until pliable. Cover and allow to rest 15 minutes. Ragu:
Wash duck legs and remove all fat. Pat dry.
In a thick bottomed casserole or Dutch oven, heat olive oil until smoking. Add duck legs and cook until brown on all sides and remove, about 10 to 12 minutes. Add onion, carrot, garlic and celery and cook until softened, about 7 to 9 minutes. Add wine, tomatoes, chicken stock and dried mushrooms and bring to a boil. Add duck legs and return to boil, lower heat, cover and allow to simmer for 1 hour. Remove duck legs and allow to cool. Pull all meat off the bones and return to pot, without the bones. Simmer uncovered for 30 minutes, or until quite thick. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.
In a large pot, bring 6 quarts of water to boil and add 2 tablespoons salt. Roll the pasta dough out to its thinnest setting and then cut by hand into pappardelle, about 1 to 11/4 inch thick.
Heat 2 cups duck ragu in a 12 to 14 inch saute pan until quite hot. Boil pappardelle until cooked, about 1 minute and drain well. Put hot pappardelle into pan with duck ragu and toss well. Pour into serving bowl and serve immediately.

Some notes/questions before we start:

- I cheated and bought fresh pasta sheets from the market...and cut the pasta from them. While I love to make fresh pasta, I like to make it when I have a helper otherwise things get "messy" fast....and I don't have a kitchen-aid, just a hand power and hand crank.

- be sure to reconsititute/rinse the mushrooms if using dried...get all the grit out.

- Duck legs are harder to skin than I thought.

Ok let's start...




- The stuff on the right is the skin, and the fat (and some meat, where I couldn't help it) My question is...I was smart enough to freeze it....but what can I use it for in the future? any "duck skin" dishes?

I skipped photographing the next step. But I simply heated my Le Creuset to a good temp, heated some EVOO until it just about smoked....and browned on each side for 6 minutes...ish..on each. then removed.


While they were browing I prepped my Mirepoix (and sliced garlic)



When the duck legs were done, I removed and put the mirepoix in for about 8ish minutes? until soft...




then I added the wine, stock, rinsed mushrooms, and tomatoes (with juices) and brought to a boil....

I used an 8.99 bottle of chianti...unfortunately no 2buck chuck available, and other than carlo rossi jug wine this was the only option....no worries..the rest will go to use.


No pictures, but remember to rinse....


and use low sodium...

and San Marzano (if not using fresh local)




Bring to a boil, add the duck legs back in, bring to a boil again, then cover and simmered for about an hour...



In the meantime....open this up...

the bottle the Mrs. brought home.

after about an hour...I removed the duck legs, and took all the meat off the bones with a fork. (and tried not to eat it)




put it back in...and uncovered reduced it for about a half-hour (here is where I made and we ate the "amazing" caprese)





Skipped the step of cutting the pasta, but basically I bought fresh sheets from the market, and just cut them....pretty simple. had the water already boiling.

Strained well, and dumped right in the pot of sauce....if you're making a lot...and want to save the sauce, do as the recipe says...


the final product.......



Some closing notes:
Dinner was ~35$...that included the 8.99 chianti, but not the one the Mrs. brought home. I had the porcinis, carrots, celery, and garlic...everything else I bought. It is enough for 4-6 people easy....I took leftovers for lunch that I'm about to eat. 35/4=8.75 per person...thats not too bad at all....

I started at 6, and we ate at 7:45-8...in between was an hour or so of watching TV.

For dessert, I picked up some small ready made marscapone/coffee/chocolate tart things for 1.50 each at the market.....nothing special. No pics...sorry.

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No descriptions necessary for pictures in most cases, just a little background....

Fiance and I took a week and went to West Virginia. What is in West Virginia you ask? Nothing. Why did we go? Because "nothing" is in West Virginia :D

We packed up the cooler and headed out. The first two nights we spent in a crappy campground, due to that's where we spent the day white water rafting (what a blast!)...the rest, we spent at a "unique" campground.

The campground is in the Laurel Fork Wilderness area. It is basically a camping "oasis" in the middle of a mountain valley....about 20 miles (depending on which way you come in) of rough (for a mustang), dirt, single-lane, 10-15mph road to get to it....so about an hour drive from the nearest paved road, and about 1.5 hours to the nearest "Store" of any kind. You basically drive for an hour into the woods, then come to a clearing, with nice, clean campsites....you put your 8$ a night in the locked slot....and setup. The only amenities are an (actually REALLY clean) outhouse...no showers, electric, cell phone reception for that matter. there are 15 total sites at the campground and we.....were the only ones the whole rest of the week. Talk about peaceful. We camped right on a crystal clear brook/stream (that served as our amenities).

Every night we looked forward to a bottle of wine, some cooking, and sitting by the fire....after that, we looked forward to breakfast!



Here are some pictures...Nothing special, but something about cooking in the middle of nowhere, with no access to the store, with limited supplies, etc. makes it taste really really good.

On our way up we pulled into this gas station, unfortunately it was like 10:30am and nothing was ready, but it smelled amazing....





Disclaimer: No, I'm not hardcore enough (on this trip) to load a charcoal grill up in a 135k mile on the odo 6cyl mustang, nor was I lugging cast iron or the like. If ya wanna see that kinda hardcore, I took a motorcycle trip to the "real" wilderness up to Goose Bay Labrador (google it) and was a few hundred miles from civilization at some points.....and all i had was that gigastove and some titanium campware!











Guess who is about to go take a drink?



yep, Darling fiance.(you can almost see her feet in the second picture)

after that, she needed more than just wine....something more classy..









Ahh, nice and "full"...

...until breakfast...





even the animals like my cooking..



ok, that was the "fancy" campsite...you know the one with showers....and people....ick...now we are off to the "real" campsite.

imagine this place, being over an hour away from the nearest paved road....all to yourself.







I tought how to make the perfect s'more....She thought that there were no "tricks" to it...she quickly learned...and savored the perfect s'more. Maybe I'll post in the recipe section.. haha.

breakfast..again?









Ever try to regulate heat/fry an egg with one of those burners? geeesh!! I'm a pro now!



We skipped dinner that night, and just went right for smore s'mores and some jiffy pop over the fire...

breakfast.....again?



I was going to whip up a "camping eggs benedict" but didn't have any lemons or cayenne pepper to attemp a camping/double boiler hollandaise...haha.



She uses that 6.99 santoku for for EVERYTHING.

driving to the campsite days earlier (trust me once you make that 20 mile, 10-15mph drive in...you don't wanna leave), we saw these guys....



and I suddenly craved an angus steak....so 1 day we made the ~3 hour round trip to get some steaks, (and we needed to reload on firewood, a mustang can only carry so much!)

We saved them for our last night there.....and had a "last night feast"




Most expensive bottle of wine at the only liqour store within 1.5 hours..









No fancy pan sauce here....(altough, I thought about it, but decided pan searing on a non-stick was not a good idea)



just a knob of butter.



We had another friend for dinner too...



He was eating all of the crabapples that the squirels were knocking down (all. through. the. night.)



Thanks for letting us share!

Again, nothing special, but boy was it good!! simple and good.

for tons more pictures of our entire trip, some more food pictures....etc...
go to
My SmugMug Album

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