Tag Archives: i love cooking

Reine’s Xmas 2018 cooking

So I just looked back at my 2017 post, and it was so detailed! My 2018 post will have considerably less content, but I think that’s because a lot of it is really the same food, just slightly different.

I spent heavily on non-food activities in 2018 and I’ve got some very extravagant travel plans for 2019, so I tried to stick to a small, sensible budget of $200 on top of my normal weekly food spend. Me being me though, I ended up spending about $400… whooops!

So where did all that money go?

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Yo, does Reine even cook anymore?

Why hello 2017, and yes, I certainly do! It’s mainly one pot wonders since my time demands more compression than ever before.

So since I have a bit of time to travel for ingredients, here’s some Christmas and New Year fare.

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(Early) Christmas Roast Duck

Several weeks I signed up to a local farmer’s duck mailing list – they had plenty of chickens, but were waiting for the ducks to grow up and had limited supply, so they said I could put my email address down to express interest for a duck. I really had no plans to fork out $$$ for a lovingly hand raised duck, but it turns out their ducks were cheaper than their lovingly hand raised chickens! So I said yes to one when I found that my inbox contained this wonderful news, and picked one up – an added bonus being that this one still had its head attached, how cute! I just wish it also had its feet… oh well.

I was a little disappointed that it came frozen instead of fresh, however, that turned out to be a good thing since I didn’t plan to cook it till the week after. I had spent the next 5 days agonising on how to prepare this delicious being – halved, and cooked two ways? Lightly seasoned and just roasted? But then I remembered one of my favourite restaurant brands had a gorgeous roast duck dish – and I decided to take a chance and make my own version.

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