Wednesdays are always catch as catch can because I meditate and Suzette often works late or goes out with a group of girl friends for drinks and dinner. This Wednesday was further complicated by the fact that Suzette is sick with a cold. So when I returned home from meditating at around I was not expecting much enthusiasm for food.
We had PPI roast duck, braised red cabbage from Sunday in the fridge and a salsa a sour cream mixture in a bottle I had made for guacamole on Tuesday, so I immediately agreed with Suzette’s suggestion that she make duck quesadillas. Quesadillas are becoming our default dinner for those nights on which we do not wish to cook a full meal, but want something hot and delicious. Also, this blog refers to leftovers as “Previously Prepared Ingredients” (“PPI”) because Suzette’s friend Debbie thinks the work leftover diminishes the importance of leftovers as a true ingredient and I agree with her.
Suzette sliced a ripe avocado and shredded a duck breast and we found a container of cheese curds from Old Wind Mill Farm and I fetched the salsa and sour cream mixture and flour tortillas from the fridge. Suzette then heated some butter in a large skillet and in another smaller skillet sautéed the shredded duck and braised cabbage (the duck and red cabbage recipes are found in February 19’s blog. The red cabbage’s sweet and sour flavor verged on the slightly sweet side).
After heating one side of two tortillas, Suzette flipped the heated side up and laid the duck and cabbage mixture and some cheese curds and salsa and sour cream mixture and avocado slices on the tortilla’s heated side and then put the heated side of the other tortilla, heated side down, on top of the layer of ingredients and then put more butter in the large skillet and browned the outsides of the tortillas by flipping them occasionally, thus producing a large round toasted quesadilla.
While Suzette was making two quesadillas, I made a Cesar salad of romaine lettuce, tomatoes, small wedges of cucumber and chopped onion slices. I used a PPI Cesar dressing I had made with some of the lovely white anchovies from Whole Foods, lemon, olive oil and an egg several days ago.
We then cut the quesadillas into quarters and ate the quesadilla with some PPI Fermè Julien rosè wine we had in the fridge. The dryness of the wine went well with the slight sweetness of the duck and cabbage combination in the quesadilla.
We enjoyed a really lovely, satisfying, healthy dinner made without much effort on a night when neither of us had much desire or time to cook. This is the essence of how we cook. We try to keep good ingredients, both fresh and prepared available to create dishes that suit our needs or whim without sacrificing any gastronomic quality.
For those just joining the blog, we hope this type of cooking will inspire you.
Bon Appètit
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