Duck burgers, mac and cheese, and cesar salad (as well as a hilarious kitchen disaster)!

Hello, it's been a while since I've posted, but I've been keeping rather busy, to be honest! Been faithfully taking pictures of food I've made and bought to keep you all entertained. Anyway, so the first order of business is for me to rant about this gorgeous duck burger I had at the country show, which is basically like a county fair in America, where they have lots of livestock, and food, and cider, and rides. Didn't go on the rides, but I had food, and took lots of pictures of cows and sheep, etc.

This duck burger, though, was one of the highlights of the day! It was a patty made of duck meat, obviously, with a nice plum sauce on a bun. It was greasy, but in the best kind of way, and tender and all around amazing. I forgot to take a before picture, but here's one when I remembered a few bites in. You try waiting when something smells that amazing!


That night we went pubbing with some friends, "we" meaning Paul and I, and "friends" being Dave, Bero and Gower. We went to the White Heart in Pirbright, which is a pretty quintessential English village (complete with a red telephone booth, pub and duck pond!) and had a delicious but expensive meal. I had a venison cottage pie which was FANTASTIC. It's basically venison (deer meat) in tasty gravy combined with carrots and onions, under a mountain of yummy mashed potatoes.
Paul decided to go American on us and had a burger with bacon and emmental cheese.
A couple nights later, I believe it was Thursday night, June 3, I was asked to make some tea for the family, so I decided I was going to go American on them and make a mac and cheese, but not your traditional goup! I was going to bake it with bread crumbs and instead of just using cheddar, I went half mature cheddar and half mexican cheese which is a delicious rendition of the American "pepper jack." Mother Turner wanted salad, so I was just going to do a plain one with a dijon vinaigrette (which is a Rattner family specialty) but we had been watching Jamie Oliver that morning and he'd made a fantastic ceasar salad, so Paul insisted we make our own rendition of that.

Both recipes were really quick and really simple. For the mac and cheese we boiled 3 cups of macaroni noodles in a large pan and got them to they were well done. While that was happening, in a sauce pan we combined 2 tbsp of butter, 2 tbsp of flour, and 1 cup of milk over low heat and mixed until it got relatively thick. Not sauce thick, but about the consistency of a nice vegetable broth, or light cream. So helpful, I know. It just wasn't too thick. You'll know it when it happens, I think. Anyway, then we took it OFF the heat and mixed in 1.5 cups of mature cheddar and 1.5 cups of the mexicana cheese, both which I had been meticulously grating while the sauce was thickening (you wanna shred it so it melts easier). We added the cheese large handful by large handful, waiting until the first bunch had melted into the mixture before adding the rest. Truthfully you can use any cheese you'd like for this. Think of your favourite cheese and just shred it up and use it. Careful to make sure your favourite cheese melts properly though! Haha.
My lovely sous-chef Paul! <3 Representing for my uni, as well! Sorry dad. Hehe!

After we'd strained the noodles, we mixed them into the sauce so that every noodle was covered (it's a 3 cups noodle to 3 cups of cheese ratio, so you should have no problem with this). Then, since we didn't really have bread crumbs handy, we smashed up a bunch of croutons that we were going to use with the salad and sprinkled them across the top after we'd dumped the mix into a oven-safe casserole. Sorry, that sentence was a bit backwards. Anyway, then we slid it into the oven which had been preheated at 180*C (350*F) and let it cook for about 30-40 minutes. This easily fed the 4 people at the table with lots to spare.
Then we prepared the ceasar salad. Paul chopped up the romaine lettuce leaves and tomatoes, adding some anchovies, chicken, 3 strips of bacon (chopped of course) and loads of parmesan cheese shredded. I made the dressing by putting 125 mL of olive oil in a measuring cup, followed by 50 mL of malt vinegar. Into that I put 3 tbsp of mayonaise (this is in the recipe I used, but you can also use egg for a more traditional dressing), a clove of squished garlic, 1 tsp of dijon mustard, 2 tsp of Worcestershire sauce (pronounced "wohrstershire"), a tbsp of minced canned anchovies (optional, but a classic ingredient which in my opinion made it all the more cesar-y) and a crap load of parmesan cheese, grated. It called for only a tbsp of cheese, but I added a considerable amount more because it added taste, thickness, and was a good substitute for salt since the anchovies are already incredibly salty.
When serving the dressing, however, make sure everyone stirs it before pouring it, though, cos the good stuff kept sinking to the bottom. Maybe too much oil?
Paul's lovely salad.
Plated and looking lovely.
Close up of the fantastic mac and cheese (if I do say so myself).
Who's a member of the Clean Plate Club? All of us were! :D

Anyway, this is a massive post, because lots of stuff happened and I was getting behind, but there was a pretty funny incident last night when I cooked as well. Two of the things my dad has passed down to me that he makes the best of are his recipes for guacamole and a healthy tuna salad. They are family favourites, and I was going to give them a whirl because Sara (Paul's sister) and I are deciding to try and eat a bit more healthily, cos I've been eating FAR too much here.

SO, I went to the store to get my ingredients with the lovely Mother Turner, and first we went to the slightly posh and expensive Waitrose, and... THEY DIDN'T HAVE AVOCADO! I was shocked and appalled, so we headed over to the slightly more modest but lovely Morrisons, which is also where Paul is a supervisor for the Oven Fresh counter. And then, another disappointment. The avocados weren't very ripe. I foolishly bought them anyway, as I was thinking I could still work with them, but it was the biggest rookie mistake of my life.

When I got back home to start cooking, I enlisted the help of Sara to help me mash and chop things for the guacamole. However, the avocados were so unripe, we could barely cut into them! We finally got them out of their peels, which was horrendously difficult and then brought out the hand blender to try and puree them or something. How silly of us, it just cut them into chips which ended up being flung all over the kitchen! We thought maybe add some boiling water? Nope, goop. We strained the mix and thought maybe if we added sour cream and put it in an actual food processeor? Haha, it turned into just little crunchy hard bits of green in a white cream. Ahh, how disappointing, but hilarious none the less. We now have ripening avocados for a later date. It really was funny in a very sad way.

So, we skipped on guacamole, and I set about making my tuna salad. I had chopped some white onion and tomato for the guac., so instead of wasting it, I decided to put it in the tuna mix. On top of that, I chopped carrot, cucumber, red bell pepper, and Sara shredded some lettuce before dumping 2 cans of tuna (drained) into a large bowl with the veg. We tossed that until mixed thoroughly before making my famous dijon vinaigrette, which used to be my dad's recipe. I used olive oil and cider vinegar (which I thought was an appropriate substitute for the red wine vinegar I usually use for it) and had a dollop or so of dijon mustard (grey poupon, very posh, hah!) I don't have exact measurements, but make sure there is about 3 times as much olive oil as there is vinegar and you're fine. I dusted the top of the jar I was using with oregano, and seasoned to taste with salt and pepper, and voila! A minute's work of dressing, which was amazing. I dressed the salad very generously (another thing I got from my dad, a heavy dressing hand) and set it out to serve. It was gone within minutes between 3 people. If there are more people eating, I'd use another can of tuna.

Very light, summery, and very healthy! Plus, afterwards we had a long walk, because I'd snuck in 2 crackers with goat's cheese on it for dessert! Yummm.
Mmm, goat's cheese! Salty and tasty and rich. Purrrfect.

(Oh, and by the way, the recipe for the mac and cheese and cesar dressing came from Raab's Clueless in the Kitchen)