Caviar Anyone?

I'm exhausted!  haha.  It has been quite a busy and intense time of family, friends, reorganization and upcoming meetings.  The thought of some of this makes me tired.  But I am grateful to have made it through another year with strength to make it through this one too.

Now, having said that...a girl has to pamper herself for a job well done over the past 12 months.  Or just do it for any old reason at all...ha.  I decided that I was going to make one, huge extravagant dish.  But being as tired as I have been from travel and feeling off and on as if I were fighting the flu, I broke it into two "events".
My first "event" was a roasted, crispy skin duck.  I had never done a duck quite like this before.  And Lord knows I had never heard of a "utility duck" until I last week.  I kept thinking what could they possibly have the ducks doing before they met their end???  "Utility Ducks".....really??.  Well, they were going for about 2.00 a pound and was about half the size of  a regular duck.  Then I found out that they are usually missing some "part" and are sold for much less than the other ducks that made the cut  (no pun intended).

Anyway, it took about 2 hours to cook it along with some parsnips ( I hope I spelled that right), which I had never cooked before, dressing, gravy and broccoli. Fortunately, my little duck had all of its wings and things.  It was missing some of the giblets, but that was no big deal.  The bird was small enough for us to just cut the thing in half and share it.  It was very juicy (surprisingly so) seeing as it was on low broil the entire time it cooked.

Presto!

Well, as you can see... I forgot to change my table cloth.  Oh well....:-).  Maybe tomorrow.  Anywho,  today's adventure was black caviar; which I knew had to be kept on ice even while being served and only served with plastic, glass or Mother of Pearl utensil.  Otherwise, the metal of stainless steel or aluminium will ruin the taste.  I had a plastic knife handy.......:-)  

Smoked trout........Also to be eaten cold.

stuffed eggs......I made the mixture with cream cheese and spices and put a dollop of caviar on each egg.  Chris had some sourdough bread that he made into "toast points".  The idea was to put the smoked trout on a slice of toast and top it with some basil pesto....

        
And that was our first "exotic" dinners of 2014.

 Thanks for burping with us!  haha  Happy New Year!!