Quack quack…slim pickings on the grocery shelf
Rei and I went to our local market at 7 AM Sunday morning to stock up for the week to isolate ourselves and practice social distancing.
On Saturday, Zeke and I drove down to San Diego to retrieve our son from SDSU. Classes went online and it’s only a matter of time until the students are asked to leave on-campus housing. This meant that we didn’t get to the store to stock up and needed to make sure we had provisions. Yeah, with Adam home, we’ll definitely need like six times as much food.
The market we typically go to (Key) was definitely picked over. We wandered the aisles (seeing only one other customer) to pick up ingredients for dinner for a few nights and make sure we had enough fresh ingredients to allow for some creativity.
While there were very few onions available (and no fresh garlic…the horror!), Zeke and I went to another local market (Mi Rancho) where the produce was abundant. They were completely out of TP and the beans, rice, and flour were pretty limited. At the same time, the meat, fish, and chicken were fully stocked and no one seemed to be panic buying. That’s a good sign? Well, it could mean a few things…they don’t understand the gravity of the situation or they can’t afford to stock up or something else entirely.
BevMo was completely empty (easy to social distance here) and we were able to stock up on the most necessary of items for time spent indoors (it’s raining) as a family and attempt to work/study remotely/online and adjust to a new way of living for the time being. It’s gonna be interesting.
That didn’t mean we had to eat boxed foods. As Rei and I wandered around the store, we intentionally chose items that were either abundant or that we knew others would not have as their first choice. Instead of reaching for a chicken or a steak, we chose duck. We should have looked at the price tag; we ended up with $50 worth.
Rei suggested duck with fizzy orange sauce and we agreed on mashed potatoes (there were plenty of potatoes in the produce area). One of the guys was restocking the asparagus so we chose that because, once again, there was plenty for others.
Zeke and I kept this in mind as we shopped (later in the morning) at Mi Rancho. We know that some of the people who shop there don’t have the financial luxury of stocking up so we only picked up a few things: tortillas, diced tomatoes, parsley, ground beef, sliced jalapenos (for nachos), and flour (oops, we got bleached and not unbleached because the flour was pretty picked over). Plus you didn’t even notice until later, but I don’t think it will matter that much with my bread.
Around 5 PM, I made the marinade for the duck and put it into the fridge for an hour. We got a little later start than we wanted as Rei was busy making a pair of patchwork pants (they are very cute) and I was hiding in the office trying to avoid the latest updates on COVID-19 and the effect on our society. Excuse me, I take offense to your calling my pants cute. They are ridiculous, thank you very much! They’re obnoxious and ridiculous and fantastic, not cute, thanks. They are definitely cute. I need to find some pics of what we wore in the 70s.
The marinade was simple but I screwed it up. It should have been orange zest, orange juice (from the same orange), salt, and olive oil but I accidentally added the orange soda to the marinade rather than waiting until it was needed for the sauce. I don’t think it made a difference. Nah, it was fine to me.
I got the potatoes started and Zeke and Rei finished them up and set aside. I accidentally overmixed them, so they got gluey.
After the duck marinated for an hour, I prepped the asparagus by placing on a baking tray, drizzling with olive oil and salt, and smooshing it all around with my hands.
We put the duck in the oven for an hour (we were so off with our timing) and about halfway through the cooking time, we put the asparagus in the oven.
Rei worked on the sauce which consisted of orange sections, orange soda, red wine vinegar, and Grand Marnier. Then they put the Grand Marnier and orange soda into a sauté pan and let it reduce. Once reduced, Rei added the vinegar and a pinch of salt followed by the orange sections. Once the duck was done, Rei added the juices from the pan and set the duck aside to rest, covered in foil. The recipe didn’t call for me to put the roasting pan juices into the sauce, but the sauce had reduced to pretty much nothing, and the duck juices would add a nice flavor, so win win! I think we’ve done this each time we’ve made the dish. The juices are just too precious to waste.
Overall this was a pretty simply meal even though it seems fancy. Adam doesn’t like sweet sauces but he liked the duck which was really well cooked (not well-done, just well cooked). The rest of us liked the sauce. It did take a few hours because of the marinating and then the hour long cook time but you can always do something in between. It was pretty easy, all said and done.
The recipe is from Rachel Khoo’s Little Paris Kitchen cookbook, one of our go-to favorites.
And with that I will toss it over to Rei who has a schedule for online/distance learning right now but we aren’t micromanaging and therefore have no idea what it is. Rei?
You are correct; I have a plan for what I’m doing when, but I’m not telling you what it is because then I’ll have to do it. (Just kidding; I’m actually going to follow it because I’m like that sometimes.)
Anyways, it’s pretty nice to be able to stay in my pajamas and snuggle up in my extra fuzzy blanket all morning (yes, that will become a regular occurrence, fight me). I’m also cooking a lot more, which is fun. Two days ago I made pork dumplings, which turned out well but I need to work on my cooking method, because when I steamed some of them yesterday, they weren’t fully cooked on the bottom because I used parchment instead of cabbage leaves. Next time I’ll poke holes in the parchment and it should be fine.
Who knows what we’ll do next? Char siu bao? Brioche hamburger buns? More custardy ice cream (oh holy fudgesicle that was good)? No idea. Also I forgot to take pictures except for at the end, so I’ll probably post the final product on our Instagram (thymeandchampagne — shameless plug).
Anyways, this is where I leave you to figure out what my math teacher wants us to do today! Until next time, ciao, and have a drewtynlre day!
Rei and Terri :D
PS: Wash your hands and don’t lick any door handles. That’s kinda gross.
