Daring Kitchen - Gumbo (unofficial)

So "The Boy" and I have signed up for The Daring Kitchen for baking and cooking.  We are now officially signed up but was not for the June cooking challenge but we did it anyway to see how it would come out.  So enjoy unofficially.

Our May hostess, Denise, of There’s a Newf in My Soup!, challenged The Daring Cooks to make Gumbo! She provided us with all the recipes we’d need, from creole spices, homemade stock, and Louisiana white rice, to Drew’s Chicken & Smoked Sausage Gumbo and Seafood Gumbo from My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh.


We decided to try seafood gumbo and making our own shrimp stock.  Making the stock was probably my favorite part of this endeavor, because it made our house smell amazing for about three days afterwards.  The homemade cajun spice was out of sight and we will be using it for many things in the future.  Below is the prep work for the stock including peeling and devining shrimp (not that much fun btw).

The stock was a lot of fun to make and like I said above, you should have smelled this.  It doesn't look very appetizing but the finished product was worth the effort.  The only issue I had was finding shrimp with the heads still attached.  Next time I will just drive down to the coast and pick some fresh ones up.

Getting the rue down had me worried so I kind of cheated.  Alton Brown showed a method of doing the rue in the oven over time and the risk of burning it is significantly reduced.  I did this and it came out a perfect "brick" color but I forgot to take a picture.  After adding all of the ingredients into the pot it was just a matter of cooking.

We served with a slice of french bread.  What is not pictured is the mini shrimp po boys that were made with the extra shrimp we had.  Fried them up in a nice flour and cajun spice coating with some homemade cocktail sauce using fresh horseradish.  So without any further commentary - the finished product.

Being a bum

Haven't cooked anything more than a bowl of cereal in the last two weeks.  The Boy and I have plenty of ideas but not much gumption to get anything done.  The Boy has become really good at making tacos, which is a "throw down" meal for us when we want something fast.  We don't make it complicated, so meat (farm raised and grass fed) cooked with homemade chili powder, organic taco shells (we still have not got around to making our own) and a really good cheese.  I personally like Manchego in my tacos.  Somehow, he has got the baking of the taco shells down perfectly and they are always light and crunchy.  I like to add this really great sauce that you can get in every market in Costa Rica.  I am down to my last bottle, so if you are going let me know.

Anyway, we will get out of the no-cooking funk soon.  Plus we have a Daring Cooks challenge that needs to be done before the middle of the month.

Small Plates --Breakfast

The Boy and I have been talking a lot about making a small plates dinner and decided to start with a breakfast themed dinner.  We were hoping to try something simple - Melons, Vegetable Frittata, Chicken and Waffles, Biscuits and Sausage Gravy, finalized by Bacon Ice Cream and French Toast.
Come to find out, making that many different things is not that simple, but not terrible.  We did as much as possible prior to having to having to start all the important things.  See pictures below:

 Some lessons learned:

• Even though I had reduced the portions, it was still to much food.
• As much preparation prior to the main cooking is very important.
• Stay calm and methodical, it gets hectic.

Duck Prosciutto -- "Final"

Cut into one last weekend, very ducky taste, but good if you like duck.  Can't quite figure out what to do with it.  Seems like it would be very good shaved thin and put on an asian style pizza.  Anyway this was the first of I hope many experiments into curing meat.  The Boy want to try salami sometime.

Duck Prosciutto -- "Check Up"

Took them out and weighed them and they have lost approximately 20% of there weight and are coming along nicely.  Appearance is good and there is no odor at all other than the good smell of duck.  I think they will be done in another couple of days.

Horseradish Infused Vodka -- Part 2 (Final)

Check the Vodka after five days with the horseradish and decide it was plenty strong.  Removed the horseradish and placed back into the original bottle.  It tastes very good and got me thinking about making the ingredients to concoct a bloody mary martini with each common bloody mary ingredient being made into infused vodka.  Next on the list with be tomato vodka, olive vodka, celery vodka, and tobasco vodka.
Sounds interesting.

Horseradish Infused Vodka -- Part 1

Well this weekend, I am fairly time constrained, so I was looking for a project that would be interesting but not take much time.  I recently was at a russian bar in St. Paul, MN and had some wonderful horseradish infused vodka and decided to make some.  Now I have experimented with infusing vodka before making lemoncello, so I had an idea of how to start.  Peeled the horseradish and cut into "sticks" and placed in the vodka to set for 10 days.  Really did not have an idea on how much to put in, so that part is an experiment.