Duck is something I have only ever cooked once before, and not overly successfully when I did. I decided to tackle duck again when the poultry (including duck) theme was listed. After eating a duck dish at a restaurant in Rotorua on the weekend, I was convinced that I must be able to do a better job than they did! (They did not really do a very good job of their duck dish, so it wasn't that difficult of a target really.)
I had a look on the very useful internet, and found this tasty sounding recipe for Duck with Pears
When I went to the vege store to pick up some green veges, I was appalled at the price of broccoli - $3.50-$4.00 for one head of broccoli! What has happened in the last couple of weeks? I am sure it was bout $2 when I last bought it! This exorbitant price left me with a bit of a dilemma as to what veg to serve with the duck. After another look on the internet, I found this recipe for Peas & Spring cabbage with Pancetta.
As cabbage was one of the few reasonably priced green veges, I decided to try it.
It was really tasty, and we will have it again I am sure.
So, the final dish, served with mashed 
potatoes:
The duck was a bit overcooked, but even so, was still tender and very tasty.
The pears and sauce were good too, and the veges went really well as part of the dish.
4/5 from me - will try to leave the duck a bit pinker next time... if I can bring myself to cook duck again, having seen the crazy amount of fat that comes out of it - still, I suppose the fat is better out of it than in!
On a completely unrelated note - for any of you who do not follow Kyla's (normally inactive) blog, check it out. She is updating it while she is on holiday in Japan.
As I mentioned in the previous post, this weeks challenge theme was chosen by someone in Christchurch, finding that cooking after the earthquake posed new challenges in itself.
I chose to cook a recipe that Jill cooked for us a couple of weeks ago, called Chicken and Coconut Quinoa.
This is where she found the recipe.
It is a really nice dish, and at the end I 
added broccoli, cauliflower, beans and sugar snap peas to make it a truly all in one dish.
It was very tasty, although a bit of heat would have been nice. I only had smoked chipotle chillies rather than the chipotle in adobo that the recipe called for. I will try sourcing the correct chillies for another time.
Verdict: 4.5/5 - will definitely do this again as it is easy, tasty and everyone liked it!
Well, Kyla went to the Auckland Champs for cross country, back at Woodhill Sands. This time though, the course was shorter at 2.5km instead of 3.5km that the Kaipara and Norwest races were. It was a very fast race, and Kyla did amazingly well, finishing 19th out of 127 in her race! We are hugely impressed by her ability and stamina!
Food Challenges - Week 27 & 28
The challenge for week 27 was to use rice - 
either a variety we hadn't used before, or in a way we hadn't tried before. I had some cooked rice in the freezer, and found a recipe in the Australian Women's Weekly Rice Cookbook, that used the rice and rice flour in a kind of pancake. This was then placed over an ovenproof dish, and baked until crisp.
In these rice pancake bowls, we had a vege stirfry topped with pork fillet marinated in soy, honey, garlic and ginger. It was very tasty, and everyone enjoyed it. Score 3.5/5.
Week 28's challenge was to use Browned Butter.
I have never tried to use browned butter before, but saw Raymond Blanc cooking fish in browned butter, and then using the remaining butter in the pan to make a light sauce. So, that is what I tried to replicate.
I bought Gurnard, and cooked it in the browned butter, then removed it to make the sauce. I finely chopped shallots, and then added lemon juice, parsley and a little water to make the sauce. Salt and Pepper and the sauce was ready. We had the fish with homemade oven chips and a pea puree - basically fish, chips and mushy peas!
I would give this a score of 4.5/5
It was really tasty, and didn't taste overly rich considering the fish was cooked in butter and the sauce had butter too. The browning of the butter definitely gives it a very nice taste.
Next weeks challenge has been posted by "Cantabcook" who lives in Christchurch. She has decided that "One pot/pan meal" is the challenge - particularly relevant to a lot of people down there at the moment who are trying to minimise dishes!
potatoes:
