Quack & Vac

We didn't wait very long to break the vacuum sealer and immersion circulator out of their packaging to give them a whirl.  It was just too hard to resist!

We picked up a couple duck breasts for our initial test drive.  This was perfect for our test run because we've made this dish pretty successfully in the past (despite the occasional duck fat spill from substandard bags breaking).  We started by scoring the skin, and seasoning them with salt and pepper.  We also threw a couple sprigs of thyme and rosemary into the bag for additional flavor.  

Once everything was in the bag, we sealed it up.  I don't know why we waited so long to get a vacuum sealer, because this little machine is so magical.  Just slide the bag's open end into the machine, close and lock the lid, press a button, and in less than 10 seconds, you have a vacuum sealed pouch.  It couldn't be simpler! Not only will it come in handy for sous vide cooking, but it will help us better preserve our various ingredients.

We clamped out immersion circulator to the side of our stock pot, which was filled with water, and placed our ducks into the pot.  Several sources online recommended cooking duck breasts at 135 degrees for 2 hours, so that's what we went with.  We programmed our circulator, and within 5 minutes, it was up to temperature.  We popped in our duck and covered it with some aluminium foil and we were good to go.

After 2 hours, the alarm sounded, and it was time to pull out our duck breasts.  We wanted to crisp up the skins, so we took them out of the pouch, and placed them skin-side down in a hot pan.  The fat rendered out even more, and the skin was perfectly crisp.

We pulled them out of the pan, and let them rest for about 5 minutes.  You don't want to lose all those juices when you slice into it!

Cherries are a popular compliment to duck, but we didn't have any on hand.  What we did have was some extra cranberry sauce.  We just added a little butter and brown sugar, and we had a slightly tart and slightly sweet sauce!  As a side dish, we whipped up one of our favorites, the kale-sunchoke farro hash.

Sous vide is such an easy technique that leaves you with perfectly cooked meat every time.  With our new toys, it's going to be so much easier to play around with different meats, root veggies, and even eggs.

Hey, Ho! Chorizo!

I know we've been a little quiet over here at 2 Hungry Hearts, but we've been trying to unpack and dig ourselves out from underneath all these moving boxes.  We managed to tackle the kitchen first, and make enough space so that we could start cooking again.  Fortunately the timing worked out pretty well since we're in between CSA share seasons, and have another couple weeks before the Fall CSA starts up.

To christen our new kitchen, we decided to whip up a quick and easy frittata.  Frittatas are a great way to clean out the fridge and use up those little bits of veggies that you have left in your fridge.  We went with a Spanish-inspired frittata, filling ours with chorizo, kale and manchego cheese.  To compliment the frittata, we made some purple potato homefries and a simple salad.

We got the potatoes going first, dicing them up along with some onions and garlic.  You can throw them all in the pan together and let them cook up.  It will take a little while for the potatoes to get crisp on the outside, so you'll want to start these first.  We cooked ours in a little olive oil, and added some salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, and some smoked paprika, which paired quite nicely with the chorizo.

So while your potatoes are cooking, you can get to work on the frittata.  It's best to use a pan that you can also stick in the oven.  We started by browning up our chorizo.

Once that was cooked, we removed the meat from the pan, poured out some of the excess grease, and then tossed in our kale.

While the kale was sauteing, I whipped up about 7 eggs and grated in some manchego cheese.  As soon as the kale was wilted, we added the chorizo back in, and added the egg mixture.  Once the eggs have set in the bottom of the pan, you'll want to pop the whole pan into the oven.  The twist here was that we added some sliced tomatoes on top and let them roast in the oven, along with some extra cheese!

After about 8 minutes, our frittata was cooked through, and we were ready to eat!

The smokiness of the chorizo was balanced out nicely by the acidity of the roasted tomato.  It was a quick and easy meal that would also make an excellent brunch item.

CSA Recap

Helloooo!  Apologies to our loyal followers...I know we've been a bit silent over the last couple weeks, and that was not intentional.  Justin and I were over in China for the last couple weeks, and had been planning to post a few things while we were gone, until I was reminded that China blocks Google and blogs.  Whomp!  Whomp!  We'll have a recap of some of the delicious things we ate while we were traveling, but I still need to get settled back in first.  So let's pick up where we left off...our CSA recap...

And here's how we used everything...

• Chicken Marsala & Roasted Turnips
• shitake mushrooms
• oyster mushrooms
• turnips
• green onions
• Steak Frites
• sweet potatoes
• Roasted Chicken (like this one)
• whole chicken
• Kale & Bacon Frittata (sorta like this one, but with squash on the bottom)
• kale
• squash
• green onion
• Pork Chops with Mango Salsa
• green onion
• romaine
• watercress

We ended up just eating the peanuts while watching some basketball, and the potatoes were used for some home fries for a weekend breakfast.  We'll get back on track with our regular posts...promise!

CSA Day AND Chicken Marsala

That's right...you're getting a two for one deal tonight!  So let's get things started.

Here's what we hauled in today...

We're really excited about this whole chicken.  The peanuts and potatoes will be a little trickier since they are both off limits with the Paleo diet, but since we allow ourselves one cheat day, we'll find a way to incorporate them into meals then.

Now...for tonight's dinner, we whipped up some chicken marsala and roasted turnips.

We started by making a "marinade" for the chicken.  I use that term loosely since it wasn't your typical saucy marinade, but that's how the recipe phrased it, so that's what I'm sticking with.  We started by slicing and dicing some green onion (since we didn't have shallots), white onion, garlic, thyme, rosemary (our little twist), and sage, and adding in a bit of grapeseed oil.  Then we layered in our chicken, making sure each piece was nicely covered in the aromatics.

The recipe says to cut your chicken into chunks, but we went more with cutlets.  So I stacked them up, making sure to get the onions and herbs in between each piece, and let them sit for about 10 minutes while we prepped the turnips.  We kept them simple and just roasted them up, similar to how we did the cauliflower here.  Once the chicken had a chance to marinate, we browned them in a pan, and then popped 'em into the oven just to stay warm (so turn your oven no higher than 200).

Using the same pan, we added the remaining onions and herbs to the pan to soften, and then added in the mushrooms.  We used both the oyster and shitake mushrooms that we picked up in our share.

Once the mushrooms have cooked down, add in your marsala wine to deglaze the pan.  Be sure to scrape up all the delicious brown bits that may be stuck on the bottom of your pan.  If you use a non-stick pan like we did, you won't have to worry about those stuck-on bits.

Once the alcohol has cooked off, add in your chicken stock.  Give everything a good stir, and be sure to season your sauce with salt and pepper.  Then you just let it simmer and reduce for about 10 minutes.  Up until this point, it was Paleo-friendly.  But we had to add a tiny bit of cornstarch to thicken the sauce.  The recipe called for arrowroot as the thickening agent, but we didn't have any on hand.  Considering there was only about 1/2 tsp of cornstarch, I'm going to say this was still Paleo-friendly.

Once your sauce has thickened to your desired viscosity, you can toss your chickens in so they can absorb some of the sauce.  Then you're ready to serve!

Easter Feast

We spent Easter weekend down in NC with Justin's parents, taking in some sun, catching a glimpse of the ocean, and just relaxing.  It was a nice little getaway.  But we didn't stay out of the kitchen for too long.  Since we had to drive back to DC on Sunday, we decided to do Easter dinner on Saturday night.  After an impromptu happy hour on the balcony, we got cookin'.

We tried to keep the menu pretty simple and with spring in mind.  We started the meal with a pea soup.  It's supposed to be a chilled soup, but we ate it at about room temperature, and it was perfect.  The sweetness of the peas was balanced out by the mint, which gave it a refreshing punch.  We couldn't find morel mushrooms, so we used chanterelles instead, and they were delicious!

For the main course, we went with lamb chops (of course!), with a curry cream.  Shout out to my aunt for the recipe!  The lamb gets marinated in some white wine and whole grain mustard.  The curry cream is really where it's at!  It's a simple mixture of whipping cream, paprika, tumeric, cayenne, fenugreek leaves, garlic and lemon juice.  Fenugreek can also be called kasuri methi, and is a common ingredient in Indian food.  Because the rest of our menu was more spring like, we did add a bit of mint to the sauce, to help tie everything together.

For side dishes, we went with asparagus wrapped in pancetta, and the kale/farro/sunchoke hash that we've made a couple times before.

The saltiness of the pancetta was balanced out by the citrus sauce that was drizzled over the top.  And although the kale-sunchoke hash was a bit of the hearty side, relatively, it really helped round out the meal.

We had good intentions to make a dessert of coconut macarons and ice cream, but we all fell into food comas following dinner.  Dessert will have to wait until next time.

CSA Recap

Happy April!  It's time once again for our CSA recap.  Here's what we picked up...

And here's how we put the deliciousness to use...

• Lamb Sausage & Broiled Tomato Salad
• lamb & pork sausage
• romaine
• tomatoes
• Chicken & Kale Curry
• kale
• tomatoes
• green onion
• Chili (very similar to this one)
• ground beef
• Lettuce Wraps
• green onions
• shitake mushrooms
• bibb lettuce
• Pork Chops, Roasted Turnips & Salad
• turnips
• creasy greens

We ended up just eating the apples as snacks/part of our lunches, and the bacon is in the freezer since we still have some from the last share that we need to eat.  Stay tuned tomorrow to see what we pick up next!

Chicken & Kale Curry

It's always tough for me to get motivated to cook dinner on a Friday night.  I'm usually tired from the work week, and would rather just go out or order in.  But we're watching what we eat, and it can be difficult when you go out since you don't have complete control over what goes into your food.  Luckily we found a simple recipe for a chicken and kale curry.  I don't think it took us more than 30 min. to throw this bad boy together.

Start by mixing together your spices; curry powder, tumeric, coriander, ginger, salt & pepper.  I didn't have any dried ground ginger on hand, but I did have a jar of wet ground ginger in the fridge, so we used that instead.  And instead of black pepper, we used white pepper, which is often found in Asian cooking.  Then just toss in your hunks of chicken and evenly coat them with your spice blend.  You can let it sit and marinate while you prep your veggies.

Speaking of veggies...you'll need to dice up an onion and some tomatoes, and de-rib your kale.  To make it even easier, you could just use grape or cherry tomatoes and toss them in whole.  But we had the tomatoes from our share, so they just got diced up.

Once that's done, heat your pan with a bit of coconut oil.  If you don't have any, you can use whatever oil you have on hand.  But the coconut oil helps impart a subtle coconut flavor on the dish.  Toss in your onions and let them cook for a few minutes, until soft.  Then throw in the chicken and let it brown up.

Once the chicken is browned, add in the kale and let it wilt down.  It should only take a few minutes.  Then you can add in your tomatoes.  Once the tomatoes have had a chance to cook down a bit, you can add your coconut milk.  This will thicken as it simmers, and becomes your sauce.

At this point, we tasted everything and decided to add a dash of cayenne for some heat, and a little more salt.  Once the sauce has thickened to your liking, you're ready to serve!  We topped it all with a little green onion and called it a night.

Using the coconut milk, as opposed to coconut cream, let the spices be the star of the show.  The coconut was very subtle, while still adding nice flavor to the dish overall.  It's a great, quick, Paleo-friendly meal that we'll be adding to our rotation.

CSA Day!

It's that time again!  Woohoo!  Here's what we hauled home today:

Lots of good stuff to come as we jump back on the Paleo train.  Stay tuned!

CSA Recap

I know we've been a bit M.I.A. these last couple weeks, and we kind of fell off our Paleo wagon.  But with a new share coming our way tomorrow, we're ready to re-focus and get back on the Paleo train.

Here's what we made with our last share:

• Butternut Squash Soup & Salad
• Butternut Squash
• Bibb Lettuce
• Green Onion
• Granny Smith Apple
• Ode to Ray's Hell Burger & Sweet Potato Fries
• Ground Beef
• Bibb Lettuce
• Sweet Potato
• Whole Roasted Chicken & Baked Sweet Potato
• Sweet Potato
• Green Onion
• Brunch
• Kale
• Spinach
• Green Onion
• Fuji Apple
• Granny Smith Apple
• St. Patrick's Day Feast
• bacon
• potatoes
• Salmon with Spinach & Kimchi Brussels Sprouts
• spinach
• green onion

We still have an apple, a few green onions, and a couple potatoes left, but I'm sure we'll find a way to incorporate them into some upcoming meals.

Cheat Day Brunch

Since we lost an hour of sleep last night, we ended up sleeping in a little later than planned.  It was too late for breakfast, but we weren't ready for lunch quite yet, so we decided to make a fantastic brunch right at home.  You know how us DCers love our brunch!  With our new Paleo diet, we designated Sundays as our cheat day.  We didn't stray too far from it for brunch, but there were definitely a few ingredients you wouldn't find in the typical Paleo plan...ricotta, parmesan, flour.  We started our day with a frittata, filled with greens and bacon, and some apple pancakes, which were more apple than pancake.

We first got to work on the frittata by cooking up some bacon.  Once it was nice and crispy, we took it out of the pan, so we could cook up the other ingredients in the rendered fat.  The extra fat that we didn't need at the moment, went into a dish nearby, to be added back in later.

Next, it was time to saute the shallots in some of that bacon fat.  Once those were softened, we tossed in the greens.  We didn't want to use all of our kale, so we used a bit of kale and a bit of spinach.  These were also cooked up in the bacon fat until they had wilted.

While that was going on, I mixed together the eggs, parmesan, and ricotta.  Once those were thoroughly mixed, we added in half of the bacon, and the cooled greens and shallots.  You don't want to add them to the egg mixture while they're piping hot, otherwise you'll end up with scrambled eggs.  We also added in some black pepper, crushed red pepper flakes, and some dried parsley.

Once everything is mixed together, you'll pour it back into your pan.  Spread the mixture out evenly, and top it with the rest of your bacon and more parmesan cheese.  Once the edges have set, you're ready to throw 'er in the oven to finish baking for about 20 minutes.  When she's done, she'll look like this...

Now, for the pancakes!  I made these while the frittata was baking in the oven.

Start by peeling, coring and slicing your apples into rings.  We used the fuji apple and one of the granny smith apples.  The batter was simple...just some flour, eggs, milk, melted butter, baking powder and cinnamon.  Since we always like to put our own little twist on recipes, we also added in some pumpkin pie spice (since we didn't have any nutmeg on hand), and some chopped pecans.

Once your batter is mixed, just dunk your rings in the batter so they're completely coated, and place them in the pan to cook up.  One thing we learned after the first batch...if you decide to add nuts to the batter, its probably best to spoon them into the hole of your apple rings.  This will allow the apples to sit flat in the pan, and cook up more evenly.

But that's the fun part about cooking...it's all about trial and error, learning as you go, and making adjustments along the way.  That first batch may not have looked the prettiest, but they still tasted pretty darn good!

In the end, we had a delicious brunch.  The frittata was a savory dish, balanced out by the creamy ricotta. While the pancakes were sweet and tart from the apples, which still had a nice crunch to them.  And brunch wouldn't be complete without a bloody mary!  The only thing we were missing was a slice of cantaloupe at the end to make it a complete brunch.