December 9, 2018 Breakfast – Eggs and Sausage on Sautéed Sweet Potato Slices. Christmas Dinner – Duck l’Orange, Sautéed Shreadded red cabbage and Brussels Sprouts, and Baked Whipped Potatoes, Parsnips, and Carrots

December 9, 2018 Breakfast – Eggs and Sausage on Sautéed Sweet Potato Slices. Christmas Dinner – Duck l’Orange, Sautéed Shreadded red cabbage and Brussels Sprouts, and Baked Whipped Potatoes, Parsnips, and Carrots

We were hungry for breakfast today.  We fried slices of the sausage I bought yesterday at Sprouts ant eggs and lay them on Sautéed slices of sweet potato.  Suzette created this preparation to avoid eating any bread.  I toasted a slice of bread and spread butter and Swedish orange and elderberry marmalade on it.

Luke is leaving this week to return to L.A. to work through the end of the year, so we decided to have our Christmas meal and gift exchange.

At 10:00 we started cooking for our special family Christmas Dinner.  Suzette put the duck onto a Spandex Vertical cooking rack in a Pyrex 9 x 9 baking dish filled to ¼ inch with water and roasted the duck at 425 degrees for twenty minutes and then reduced the temperature to 350 degrees for 1 ½ hours.

Suzette boiled the giblets and neck in water to make a broth and then I started making the sauce.

Sauce L’orange. From Epicurious

For sauce
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup fresh orange juice (from 1 to 2 oranges)
• 2 tablespoons white-wine vinegar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 to 4 tablespoons duck or chicken stock or reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon fine julienne of fresh orange zest, removed with a vegetable peeler

Make sauce:
• While duck roasts, cook sugar in a dry 1-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, undisturbed,



until it begins to melt. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally with a fork, until sugar melts into a
deep golden caramel. Add orange juice, vinegar, and salt (use caution; mixture will bubble and steam
vigorously) and simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally, until caramel is dissolved. Remove syrup from heat.
• Discard vegetables from roasting pan and pour pan juices through a fine-mesh sieve into a 1-quart glass measure or bowl, then skim off and discard fat. Add enough stock to pan juices to total 1 cup liquid.
•
Stir together butter and flour to form a beurre manié. Bring pan juices to a simmer in a 1- to 2-quart heavy saucepan, then add beurre manié, whisking constantly to prevent lumps. Add orange syrup and zest and simmer, whisking occasionally, until sauce is thickened slightly and zest is tender, about 5 minutes. Serve with duck.

I used dark brown sugar so the sauce was rather dark.  Here is a picture.

While I was making the sauce, Suzette shredded Brussels Sprouts and red cabbage in the Cuisinart and then sautéed them in olive oil.  We decided to add pecans, so I chopped 2/3 of a cup and Suzette sautéed the pecans in butter until browned and added them to the cabbage and Brussels sprouts.

The final dish we prepared was Baked Mashed Potatoes, Parsnips, and Carrots.

I sliced two onions into thin half circles that Suzette then caramelized and softened.

She then peeled 4 potatoes, 2 carrots, and 6 parsnips and  I diced them.  Suzette then boiled the vegetables and then whipped them and put the mashed vegetables into a 9x14 Pyrex baking dish.  She then put the caramelized onions on top of the mashed vegetables and baked the mashed vegetables until the onions browned.

The duck was ready by 11:45 and Luke called to say he would not arrived until 12:15, so I carved the duck into pieces and Suzette put them in the oven to keep warm with the mashed vegetables.

I removed about 1 lb. of meat left on the duck carcass and after a bit more TV we went to bed.broke up the duck bones and put them into a pot, covered them with water and cooked them to create a duck stock.

We set the table and I opened another bottle of 2016 Laurent Dublanc Cotes Du Rhone (Trader Joe’s $5.99), which was a pleasant wine, especially for the price.

After lunch, we moved into the living room and opened our gifts.  I was thrilled that everyone loved their Ember mugs that hold the temperature at a selected temperature.

We then heated water in the cups and drank tea with the a Danish cookies Luke gave me.  The temperature held.

Luke cleaned the Highlander because I am giving it to Suzette for Christmas.  She drove us to Tingley Beach parking lot and we walked through the Bosque for about twenty minutes.  I am gaining strength, but the right hip is still a problem.

I am going to a doctor’s appointment Tuesday.  Hopefully I will get a referral to an orthopedist and another MRI, as a Suzette suggests.

Luke and Willy left after we returned from our walk and we began watching TV until the evening. I made Posole, combining in a large pot, 3 lb. of fresh Posole, the duck stock, 2 T. of oregano, 2 T. of Chimayo Mild red chili powder, about 2 lb. of diced pork shoulder, 1 T. each of cumin and coriander
and ½ T. of cumin seed plus about 2 tsp. of salt and simmered the pot of Posole.
 I have also added some more water after the initial start to allow room for the Posole to expand.

     I decided to eat the PPI BBQ Chicken with PPI rice and Green Beans with a beer for dinner and Suzette made a chicken, guacamole, and cheese quesadilla with the fresh blue corn tortillas.

After watching a bit more TV, Including Sunday Night Football, we went to bed.

Bon Appetit