Monday through Friday

Monday: Chicken tacos with Mole sauce, black beans and corn...and Jasmine rice.

Tuesday: Maple glaze salmon, with mango and corn salsa.

Wednesday: Skirt steak, with smashed potatoes, spinach and garlic and roasted red spring onions.

Thursday: Roast chicken with bourbon sauce and broccoli.

Friday: Leftover chicken + leftover Mole = Chicken and onion enchiladas, with roasted cauliflower.

Wagshal's: Iberico de Cebo Secreto

Wagshal's imports Iberico de Bellota pork from Spain. This is called the Cebo Secreto cut. The secret cut because it's a hidden muscle, explains the butcher. Looks kind of like a skirt steak.

Cook it no more than medium rare, says the butcher. And then drizzle it with honey he says.

It is very rich. With spinach and sauteed apples. Dinner.

Wagshal's: New York strip

Waghsal's Market has been in D.C. for 125 years and I'm just discovering it? A very fine meat market.

A dry aged New York strip. Aged 79 days, she says. Not 80?, I say. Come back tomorrow, she says. 

One fine piece of cow.

Rare, rare, rare. With au gratin potato and grilled asparagus. Waghsal's NY strip. Dinner.

Garlic Duck Rolls

Duck breast, with toasted garlic and blackberry sauce...

Garlic...fried in some oil...

Duck fat, left over from duck legs, and pearl onions...

Pearl onions sauteed in the duck fat...

A duck breast...

Slice thin...

Dijon mustard and horseradish, mixed 50/50...

Mustard and horseradish smeared on duck slices, topped with toasted garlic and rolled up.

With white asparagus, pearl onions, radish sprouts and blackberry sauce. Garlic duck breast rolls. Lunch!

Roasted duck legs

Whole Foods had fresh duck legs. That doesn't happen very often.


Duck legs, jabbed a few times with the tip of a knife, tendon at the end of the leg cut through, some salt and pepper...


In a pan barely big enough to hold them, with just garlic and thyme, to start...


In 350-degree oven for 45 minutes, basted a couple of times with the garlic-y, thyme-y fat collecting in the pan...


After 45 minutes, fat drained off. I'll be keeping that fat.


And some red wine into pan, just enough to cover the bottom of the pan. Back in the oven for another 30 minutes or so...


And they're done. Crispy, mahogany colored skin outside, moist duck inside...


With sauteed garlic and spinach. Roasted duck leg. Dinner.

Jalapeno and green onion corn muffins

I've been making these muffins for years, always the day after having corn on the cob because we always have a couple of ears left over and I can't throw corn on the cob away.


Leftover corn from two ears, two green onions sliced up, and one small jalapeno or half a large one. (The thing about jalapenos is that sometimes they're really hot and sometimes not, so the heat in these muffins is either "meh" or "whoa." But always good.)


Baking, so precise measurements: 1/2 cup cornmeal, 1/2 cup flour, dash of sugar, dash of baking powder, dash of baking soda, dash of salt, ground pepper.


And a 1/2 up sour cream, one egg, and a 1/4 stick of butter, melted.


Wet ingredients mixed into dry...


And then the corn, jalapeno and onion mixed in...


And into muffin pan, coated generously with butter.


Baked at 425-degrees for 20 minutes, about.


Jalapeno and green onion corn muffins. Slathered in honey and topped with just a tad of Fleur de Sel. Tasty.

Honey pickled garlic

I stumbled across the idea of garlic pickled in honey on the Interwebs...


A couple of heads of garlic and some honey...


Cloves peeled...


And covered in honey. That's it.


And refrigerated for ONE WEEK. The Interwebs says the garlic will be mellow and sweet. I can imagine the honey will be might fine too. I have a week to figure out what to do with it.

Heirloom bean and potato stew

Some heirloom beans, courtesy my buddy Jim by way of his monthly basket of goodies from Chef's Garden. The recipe for bean and potato stew also from them.


Shallot, potatoes, celery root and garlic. (Ignore the onion. I decided against it.)

Sliced, diced and minced.


And a couple of carrots instead of the onion...


Diced.


Some mild Italian sausage, cut into chunks and browned before going into stew.


Garlic and shallot in butter first, for a couple of minutes...


Then the carrots, potatoes and celery root...


Beans, previously soaked for 6 hours, then rinsed and drained...


And from Jim, fresh bay leaves because hey, doesn't everybody have a friend with bay leaves growing in their back yard?


Beans and sausage dumped in pot. Water added...about six cups...along with salt, pepper and a couple of bay leaves.


And into the oven, at 350-degrees, for two hours...


And after two hours, it looks like this.


Some micro parsley and itty-bitty basil, also from Chef's Garden, chopped up and mixed into stew, and...

Thick, rich, heirloom bean and potato stew. Lunch.