In this dish we took a caesar salad and we wanted a warm dressing so we used a hollandaise.  Instead of croutons we used Fried Green Tomatoes.  Poached the Shrimp in butter with a little garlic.  Grated the Reggiano Parmesan on top.  Different, yet simple.  At the same time a bit intriguing & not intimidating.

Grabbed this from an old Valentine’s day menu here at Green Pastures back in the

day when I was going through an old photo album.

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Here is a classic flambe you can do at home for Valentine’s Day

Crepes Fitzgerald

3 Tablespoons butter

2 Tablespoons brown sugar

1/2 jigger of orange juice

dash of cinnamon

1/4 jigger of strawberry brandy or strawberry liqueur

1/4 jigger Drambuie

6 fresh strawberries, trimmed and halved

4 oz. vanilla ice cream rolled in 1 crepe, keep in freezer until serving time.

In a flambe pan

Make a caramel saue with butter, sugar, orange juice and cinnamon.  Add the strawberry brandy and flambe it with Drambuie.  Pour the saue on top of the ice cream filled crepe and garnish with a strawberry flower and serve

Yields 1 serving

Follow up to the Quack Cake is the Boilermaker Cake

Independence Brewing Bootlegger Beer Cake with Corn Nut Filling and Balcones Baby Blue Corn Whiskey Butter Cream and Bootlegger Sauce.

Yes it was inspired by a boilermaker.  Pint of beer with shot of whiskey dropped in it and chugged asap.

No I do not recommend chugging the cake.

First we created the Quack Cake.  Chocolate Duck Fat Cake with Kumquat Preserves, Espresso Butter Cream and Black Pepper Anglaise. 

Fat replacement with the duck fat yielded increase in chocolate intensity.

Kumquat preserves intense yet well balanced citrus. 

Black pepper spices up the anglaise without those holiday flavors

This is recipe was brought to Green Pastures many years ago by the Maitre’d Mitchel Mays from time he was in the Navy.  There was a story of the freezer breaking down on the ship while in port and they salvaged the ice cream this way.

Usually served as a dessert but often consumed as an aperitif 

1 gallon  coffee ice cream

2 gallons  vanilla ice cream

2 cups  brandy

2 cups  coffee liquor

2 cups  rum

1.5 cups chocolate liquor

2 cups  hot fudge

Mix the above ingredients until the ice cream has melted.  Store in airtight container in the refrigerator.

Scoop small scoops of vanilla and coffee ice into a glass.  Pour sauce over the small scoops

As I adventure into the bee hive it gets more and more amazing.  They have been very busy capping off honey.  You can see the photo from today where nearly the entire frame is capped off.  The before picture was about 45 days ago and they were starting to cap it off.  

Today I did insert a new super in between the two boxes.  Separating the two boxes was fairly easy to do.  I am estimating the bees can cap off honey in that super in about 2 months.  We will see how the drought impacts us.

Even though I appear to be resistant to bee venom the concept of getting stung is not thrilling.  The more I hesitate the longer I take to get the job done.  

You can really see the impact of these great pollinators in your yard.  I can see they are going to have an awesome impact on our fruit trees this spring.  The apple trees should do really well.

Time to get some honey harvesting equipment.

10#    Wild Boar Shoulder, Ground coarse

   Hog casings rinsed well

1/4 C  Fresh Garlic Chopped

2.5oz  Salt by weight

2 T   Black Pepper cracked in pepper mill

1oz   Sugar by weight

36oz Shiner Bock Beer

2 T Celery Salt

2 T Onion Powder

Cube and coarse grind the boar.  Weight salt and sugar.  Add to boar with dry spices and mix.  Add beer and continue to mix.  As it mixes it begins to come together so that when use squeeze the boar it forms a shape in your hand.  Between 5-8 minutes.  A mixer with a paddle works well to do this.  Rinse the casings extremely well.  

Use a sausage stuffer to put the boar in casings. Smoke, Grill, Broil, Saute and enjoy.  

This recipe has no added fat which is traditional in sausage making.  This sausage does better when not overcooked.  Because there is not any added fat the flavor of the boar comes out and is not hidden behind conventional farmed pork fat.