but the main inspiration was to go to the somewhat-local lianhua supermarket and buy my duck legs. my local lianhua is terrible and cityshop is expensive AND doesn’t carry poultry beyond chicken. but at the larger, somewhat more foreigner friendly one down the road – lots of poultry to be had.

following on a combination of the beijing hao chi recipe linked above and the recipe culled from anthony bourdain’s les halles cookbook that i won’t bother replicating here – but let’s just say it involved duck, various types of citrus, some leftover red wine from the last time galbraith was here to watch “fargo”, various herbs and some oven time.

photos after the jump

here’s the duck legs post pan-searing

here’s the sauce preparation. red wine. orange slices. rosemary. shiitake mushrooms.

in the oven

and here served with homemade parmesan mushroom risotto.

here’s the best part – duck legs at lianhua? 7.5 rmb for two!

this would be my first time making this dish – and as my cousin has found out, it’s not quite as easy as stirring some stuff together.

here’s my mise-en-place consisting of grahem crackers, kraft philadelphia cream cheese, knox gelatin, jell-o brand lime gelatin dessert, vanilla, sugar and butter.

here’s my graham cracker crust – i still don’t think i’m doing this right. i think i need to crush the crackers more.

using the hand mixer. here this is 1 packet of knox gelatin, half a cup of sugar, 1 cup boiling water and 16 ounces of kraft philadelpha cream cheese.

here is the cheesecake mix poured into the graham cracker crust. the whole thing then goes into the fridge to set.

in the meantime, i start whipping up some lime jell-o. accept no substitutes! here in shanghai there’s all these euro-gelatins with german written on the package – but only the pure processed goodness of the kraft foods company will do for this cheesecake, yessir!

the making of lime jell-o consists of 1 cup boiling water, 1 box jell-o mix and 3/4 cup of cold water

ok, confession time. the first time i tried this i didn’t wait long enough for the cheesecake to set and i ended up with a slimey, cheesecake lake mess – it still tasted great, but it looked horrible. this below is my second attempt – and i STILL messed it up a little, hence the lake of cheesecake floating in the middle of my jell-o.

but the end result is pretty dang good, if i don’t say so myself. cooking with pre-packaged foods. yum yum yum.

UPDATE: i took the cheesecake to work – and even with 50% of the office gone for business travel or chinese new year it disappeared in a matter of 2-3 hour .. . some people even went back for seconds. it was right tasty. i’ll figure out how to keep the cheesecake lake from appearing next time.

this is a super tasty roasted thyme chicken dish with hollandaise sauce (yes! i even held the egg yolk over a double boiler and kept it at temperature!)

i really need to learn how to make a dish presentable.

after watching battle cheese, i figured homemade ravioli would be an easy choice – especially since the “making your own wrappers” can be short-cut-ed by using pre-made jiaozi wrappers. (i’ve made my own pasta before – it is a LOT of work and very time consuming. buying a pack of wrappers is a huge time saver)

i didn’t have a solid idea of what i wanted to use for the filling, but walking around city shop, i chose lardon (french streaky bacon), ricotta cheese and peas.

i was going to roast my own chicken, but the city shop in the basement of times square was selling fresh whole chickens for over 70 rmb per, while selling whole already roasted rotisserie chickens for 30rmb. i figured discretion was the better part of valor – obviously buying fresh meat in china, one would do a lot better to go to the local wet market, but i was pressed for time and will leave that for next time.

to start the meal off, i made a simple salad with rosemary roasted tomatoes topped with warmed goat cheese and a honey balsamic chili vinaigrette dressing.

i served the ravioli with a thyme brown butter sauce (don’t look up how it’s made. it will scare your cardiologist), topped with creme freche and lemon zest (i bought a new microplane when i was home. i want to go around zesting every citrus fruit i see now)

the verdict? well, the jiaozi wrappers worked pretty well. i would’ve added another dish – it really didn’t turn into a substantial dinner. it did, however, engender the most conversation on my facebook feed for a while.

with that in mind, we had everyone get together to watch the movie and to have meatloaf, mashed potatoes, broccoli florets with cheese sauce and cream of mushroom soup (prepared by colin). it was the first time i’ve made meatloaf – but it turned out quite well, except for it falling apart, so it became meat-pile, instead of meatloaf.

meatloaf cooking in the oven.

made with some stuff that’s really bad for you. let’s just move on. it is, delicious though.

there’s kyle making egg nog in the background.

the plate as served.

table set for 5.

a night of conversation and movies. actually we ended up watching the cable guy, star trek:amok time, a christmas story and fargo.

sadly, one of my icons of junior high hood came crashing down when the frugal gourmet was accused of sexual assault, and while no charges were ever brought, he pretty much fell from grace.

however, i continued to cook and watching food tv and cooking shows. as i got to university and was living on my own, i’d make myself a big meal on sunday and eat leftovers for a few days. as for cooking shows, i got into an interesting conversation about how one is supposed to cook and watch at the same time – but really the cooking shows are supposed to serve as inspiration. you know, get the viewer at home to say “that’s not that difficult; i can do that!” unless the show is iron chef.

so what’s my point?

it’s this. i found this awesome recipe for a mushroom and béchamel sauce based macaroni and cheese. the ultimate comfort food gussied up.

and here’s a photo – coming out of the oven

and then paired with a dad’s root beer. i actually have too much – anyone want to come over?