Duck Tales (woo-ooo!)

The Alton Brown educational experiment continues.

Chapter 1: Searing

I am completely loving Brown's I Just Came Here for the Food because I am learning a lot, but also gaining a healthy dose of confidence (which I am finding is a critical ingredient to this whole cooking thing). Chapter 1 of the book is about searing, which, being a meat lover, I feel that I know a good deal about. Heck, before Kel and I moved into our home and got a grill my favorite way to cook a steak was a quick sear on the stove top and finish it in the oven for that perfect medium rare. I was almost to the point of skipping on to Chapter 2 (yes, I was overly cocky) until a recipe that caught my eye: Cast-iron seared duck.

I figured that it was time to challenge myself, time to take the bull by the horns (the duck by the feathers?) and try something I have 1. never cooked and 2. never eaten before. Let's do this!

So off to the West Side Market we go. 90 minutes later we leave with duck breasts, acorn squash, and some apple cider (along with other WSM essentials like a beautiful skirt steak and some Chinese Five Spice). The feeling I had leaving the market was sublime- I can't remember the last time I was so excited to cook something that was new to me. I knew that this was step one of my culinary education and I couldn't wait to get it started.

I was ready to cook. I had read the recipe for the duck and the side dish (apple cider roasted acorn squash) about 100 times so I knew them both backwards and forwards. Kelly has always told me that this was essential, but it wasn't until I read it in Alton's book that I took it to heart (sorry about the Kel). I figured out the timing of the dishes so they would both be done around the same time, I made sure the mise en plas was done before I started any cooking, and I checked the recipes one more time to make sure there would be no curve balls. I had never been so prepared for a meal in my life and that showed in the and product. Sure the squash cooked a little faster than what the recipe said, sure the hot skillet shot even hotter oil on my hand, and maybe a doubted myself for a brief moment before Kelly cut into the duck- but I never lost composure and I never once thought that we would be ordering pizza that night.

In the end we had a lovely meal - local duck, local squash (recipe found here), even the wine we drank was from a local winery. I thoroughly enjoyed the duck - oh my god is that crispy skin the best - and can't wait to make it again.

Maybe this halfway gourmet is taking a step closer to not-so-halfway. Only time, and a few more cooking adventures, will tell.

Some like it hot

Salsa be damned!

Even though salsa is America's favorite condiment I have always been a sucker for hot sauce. Even before I met my Southern wife who opened my eyes to the wonderful world of Tabasco, I was dousing everything in sight in that glorious spicy liquid. I would even smother things that in normal circumstances should never have hot sauce near them. I remember very clearly in my sophomore year at Carroll that I used to make instant StoveTop Stuffing in the microwave and then drown it in cheap "Louisiana HotSauce" (I'm sure if I tried that now I would probably gag).

So my love affair with hot sauce has been alive and kicking for quite a while, but I never even considered making my own. That is until one of my younger brothers gave me the idea. You see, Jeff started cooking a lot earlier than most kids I know. I remember him being very young making eggs and mixing them with ranch dressing and loving every bite of them. Anyway, Jeff and I were talking sometime last year and he mentioned that he was going to try to make his own hot sauce and I thought, "Duh, why didn't I think of that before?"

So, to make a long story only slightly less long than it already is, I've had three different hot sauce making adventures, and I think I finally made one that I would make again. Give it a shot if you are so inclined. 

**Important note** Making hot sauce is EASY and fun. Don't be intimidated and feel free to riff here and there. Make it your own...that's what creating in the kitchen is all about, isn't it?

Kevin's Poblano Hot Sauce

3 large poblano peppers 

1 medium white onion - diced

1 garlic clove- diced 

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

1 cup water

1/2 cup white vinegar

1tsp sugar

salt & pepper to taste

1. Broil the peppers in the oven until they turn quite dark. Skin, de-seed, and chop them once you take them out.
2. Saute peppers, onion, and garlic in a little oil until soft. Let cool.
3. And softened veggies to blender with water, vinegar, lemon juice, and sugar. Blend, baby, blend!
4. Add salt & pepper to taste.

The secret here is to strain the liquid a few times. I try to get a good blend going then force it through a strainer into a large measuring cup and then pour the strained liquid back into the blender for some more blending action. It's really up to you to get it to a consistency that you like. Mine is thicker than Tabasco which makes it great for dipping chips into or even drizzling over Triskets for a snack. I've had this on tacos, pizza, eggs, you name it!

Buon appetito (or maybe in this case I should say buen provecho)!

HWG Redux

{insert witty comment about not posting in six eight months}

So, it's been a while. A long while. And I start asking myself "why?"

I could give you excuses about not eating well (partially true) or being just too busy (not true in the slightest), but if you are reading this you can probably see right through one of my lies so I best not even chance it. The reason there has been no posts here is because I've been in quite a funk. Have you ever been in one of those lost, directionless funks that last for way too long? The kind that have you searching for meaning or at least searching for something to do so you aren't so bored? That's been my reality, especially of late. So I've decided to start my baby back up again. The blog I conceptualized last year and then let sit fallow for far too long. It's time for a fresh start.

New to Halfway Gourmet? Let me tell you what it's all about.

HWG is about food. It's not just about sharing recipes and the triumphs in the kitchen, it's about real people and the real food we eat. Sure, sometime we'll have a nice risotto for dinner but sometimes we'll be too tired to cook and order out from Sun Luck Garden or Rascal House.

Sometimes it'll be about the flub-ups (most likely when I am in the kitchen) like when I used up all the dijon mustard yesterday to make a marinade for the flank steak and leaving none for Kelly to use on her glaze for the salmon- thus forcing her to use the honey dijon mustard which was, well, slightly less successful.

No matter what, it'll always be real and hopefully educational or at least entertaining. I'll be taking the lead here, but from time to time Kelly will take a break from her insanely popular project 'Bama on the Brain and grace us with her presence.

If I haven't scared you away, check back for more soon. Getting back into blogging's going to be a bumpy ride but it should be a fun one.

The curse of the defined palette (or Ignorance is Bliss)

Damn you good quality food!

I never thought it would come to this, but it seems that my palette has changed. For the better? You tell me.

I went through most of my years on this planet with a very limited culinary view. Orange juice comes from a can. You can add anything to ground beef, throw it on a bun, and it will be delicious. Seasoning? What seasoning? And what the hell is a Yorkshire pudding anyway? I didn't know, I didn't care, and I was fine with it. But now everything is different and it took a quick dinner fix a few weeks ago to remind me of that fact.

My little brothers are sophomores at John Carroll and since it's only half a mile away from our house, we like to have them over from time to time. This time they wanted to bring over their PS3 and play some video games with me (an activity I will never turn down), so I decided to have them over for dinner as well. Not only would I make dinner, but it would be a dinner that we all grew up with and absolutely loved...the famous Souper Burger. It is a simple recipe: brown some ground beef with onion, add a can of cream of mushroom soup, squirt in a little yellow mustard, throw it all on a bun and you are good to go.

Jeff, Jon, and I were all ridiculously excited since we hadn't eaten Souper Burger for years, but Kelly was much more suspicious. As it turns out, Kelly was right. It looked and tasted exactly like my mom's Souper Burger so why did I have such a problem with it? Probably because the taste was nothing to write home about and the texture was like I mixed a pound of ground beef with a bowl full of snot.

This actually made me really sad. It was one of those moments where you realize that sometimes the simple things just don't make you as happy as they used to; another reminder that you are an adult.

But that still didn't stop me from eating two servings.

I have a crush...

...on Brian Boitano? I know, weird. But I'm sitting here watching his new cooking show on the food network called "What would Brian Boitano make?" and laughing my ass off. I guess if I was a full out gourmet, I wouldn't consider watching a cooking show by an ex-olympic cancer surviving figure skater. But I'm not full out gourmet, I'm only halfway. So there. So go set your DVR and watch Brian Boitano's show. You will be amused.

I'm so excited!

Kevin is in charge of dinner tonight. On the menu: turkey burgers on the grill and baked zucchini fries. He even bought the buns from the bakery section of the grocery store rather than the wonder bread ones from the bread aisle. Didn't you know I was a hamburger bun snob? Another wonderful foodie trait I gained from my mother.

More to report later and recipes to share... I've been tasked with checking the oven.

The Trials & Tribulations of a Man in the Kitchen

I'm terrified of cooking.

Do I cook? Yes. Do I like to cook? Yes, I love the feeling of creating something delicious from a hodgepodge of different ingredients. So why am I scared of cooking? It's because, well, my wife is just so damn good at it. Kelly has that innate ability to look in the fridge, pick out a few things, go to the cupboard and grab some spices, mix it all together and make something phenomenal. That, my friends, is not me. If I go to the cupboard in search of a meal, I'll end up with a bowl of cereal for dinner (which has happened).

No, I'm a recipe cook. You know the kind...anxiously locked in to a recipe, carefully measuring, never (and I mean NEVER) straying from the print on the card, and dirtying most of the dishes, pots, and pans in the kitchen (if you happen to live with a recipe cook, I am sorry...truly I am). Most of what I make turns out pretty well, but we all have our failures; the worst of which landed me in the hospital with a partially reattached thumb tip (buy me a drink, set aside an hour, and I'll tell you the story).

Lately, I have grown a bit in my culinary confidence. This summer I have made my own hot sauce and cooked scallops for the first time while making (very) minor tweaks the those recipes. I'm not going to win The Next Food Network Star any time soon, but if I make something that Kelly and I truly like that's a big enough victory for me.