Busy Couple Days In The Kitchen

I've had a busy couple days. Thank goodness it was in my kitchen. Cuz if you gotta be busy, it's best to be busy cooking. That's my opinion anyway.

Yesterday I made "Salted-Caramel Budini." That's Italian for puddings. The recipe is courtesy of Tasting Table, adapted from Marcie Turney of Barbuzzo et al. in Philly. I didn't have four 8-oz. ramekins so I made eight 4-oz. ones. I've already had two of them, and I plan on eating another for dessert tonight. They're my new favorite dessert, and I'm pretty sure they'll become yours, too.

Last night I whipped up a batch of pear and ginger puree to make "Pear-Ginger Leather" today. It's still in the oven after almost three hours. Think it's going to take at least a couple more to completely dry out. Will let you know how it turns out. Next week I'm making "Plum-Cinnamon Leather." I found the recipes here.

Also cooking up now is goat shoulder stew. I found the goat at the Dupont Circle farm market this weekend. It came frozen so I defrosted it in the fridge the past couple days. I got it nice and brown on all sides in my Dutch oven. Then I set it aside while I sauteed some chopped onion. I added it back in along with garlic, carrots, potatoes, beef stock, water, bay leaves, salt, and pepper. It's been on the stove for two hours and it'll probably be on at least a couple more. Will definitely report back on this. I have very high hopes considering the AMAZING smell filling our apartment right now.

I'm realizing that I haven't spent any time on KFW writing about kitchen tools and cooking techniques. Allow me to start remedying that. The above recipes are brought to you by tempering, the Silpat, and the Maillard Reaction respectively.

Photos to come...

Lastly, I have an update. Our balcony garden didn't yield nearly as much as I'd hoped. Blame it on not having as much full sun as I'd originally thought. Out of 13 pots we got arugula and spinach, a couple radishes, no cucumbers or tomatoes, one (yes, one) tiny pepper, and herbs galore. Better luck next year (which seems to be what I've said the past few years; gotta turn this black thumb green).