March 2, 2012 Lunch – Ham sandwiches, Dinner – Roast Duck, Red Cabbage and Haricots Vert

March 2, 2012 Lunch – Ham sandwiches, Dinner – Roast Duck, Red Cabbage and Haricots Vert

It was a windy cold day so I was happy to eat at home today. At around noon, I fetched a fresh bolilla, some Mexican Ham, some Pecorino Romano, several Roma tomatoes, Romaine lettuce, a cucumber, mayonnaise, Genoa Salami and dill pickle spears from the fridges. I toasted the bread, spread it with mayo, and laid slices of tomato, ham, cheese, and salami on the bread.  I tore off leaves of lettuce and put them on the plate with the sandwiches (1 bolilla makes three open face sandwiches) and peeled and sliced 1/3 cucumber into spears for a lovely lunch.  Willy called and we talked for a while. Very pleasant.

Later in the afternoon Suzette called and I checked the weather.  Since the winter storm seemed to have passed to the east of Santa Rosa, she decided to drive home (1 ½ hours) from Santa Rosa.  I decided to cook the entire meal so I decided to keep it simple and cook Duck L’Orange and serve it with PPI red cabbage and the steamed haricots vert I had purchased at Pro’s on Thursday and the leftover Pennywise Pinot Noir.  I started by thawing a package of two duck halves at around 4:30 p.m.  Then at 6:00 I made guacamole with five avocados, 2 Roma tomatoes, a handful of fresh cilantro, 3 limes, ½ Jalapeño, 1/3 red onion, some salt and the last of the PPI tomato and sour cream salsa mixture and opened a fresh bag of corn chips for a snack. 

At around 7:00 o’clock after Suzette called to say she had made it through Clines Corner, the high point on the road and was about 50 minutes from home, I started getting dinner ready.  I took the PPI bottle of L’ Orange sauce, the green beans and red cabbage out of the fridge.  I put the sauce into a sauce pan, added the contents of one of the two bags of prepared orange sauce that came with the duck halves and turned on low heat under the sauce.  I then cut open the two cryovac packaged duck halves (Costco $13.99) and laid them on a Pam coated roasting pan and placed them in the oven at around 375° and set the timer for 30 minutes.  I then stemmed the green beans (Pro's $1.39/lb.) and put them in a bowl of water to clean and refresh them and after ten minutes poured the bowl of beans and water into the steamer. I then zested the peel of one orange (Pro’s Ranch Market 5 lb. for $.99) and one lemon (bought at Lowe’s Wednesday evening (4 for $1.00) and added that to the sauce so it would cook.  I then sectioned the orange and put the orange sections into the sauce to heat and cut the lemon in half and squeezed the juice of ½ lemon into the sauce.  After about ten minutes, I added about ¼ cup of Madeira to the sauce and after about thirty minutes added 1 Tbs. of Cointreau.

At 7:45 p.m. I turned down the oven heat to 350°.  Suzette arrived a little after 8:00 p.m. and I started the green beans in the steamer, handed her a glass of Pennywise Pinot Noir and turned on the microwave to heat the cabbage.  Suzette wanted to heat plates so I turned off the oven heat and took the duck out of the oven.  She put in two plates stacked on each other and in ten minutes, when she removed them the bottom one had broken in half from the thermal shock of the 350° oven.  By 8:30 p.m. we were sitting in front of the TV watching "Washington Week in Review", sipping Pennywise Pinot Noir and eating our elegant and simple classic French meal of Duck L’ Orange, Braised Red Cabbage and Haricots Vert. At 9:00 p.m. “The Social Network” was shown on the Encore Channel, so we scooped bowls of chocolate ice cream and squeezed Hershey’s chocolate syrup and whipped cream on it and some Cointreau and watched the movie for the first time and enjoyed our Friday night dinner and a movie date.

As we only ate ½ of each duck half, we now have two duck quarters left for PPI’s.

Bon Appètit