Herself's Recipes

I never seem to be able to make the orange sauce for duck correctly. I saw a raspberry port sauce in a magazine last month, and although an improvement, it wasn’t quite right so I tinkered a bit and here is an easy, great tasting version.

2 Tablespoons of butter
1 clove garlic, minced
Over low heat cook the butter and garlic until the garlic is brown.

Add:
3/8 cup red cooking wine
2 teaspoons raspberry preserves
1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 Tablespoon mustard
1/2 c fresh raspberries

Simmer over a very low heat until the sauce is reduced by half.
Serve over or on the side of roasted duckling.

If you are cooking a whole duck instead of just a breast, wash out the cavity and season the inside with salt. Poke holes in the skin so the melted fat can run off the duck and put an apple, onion and orange (any or all) inside the duck while it roasts to soak up some of the grease and add flavor.

Sinful Raspberry Corn Muffins

This is a sweet breakfast muffin. I use both fresh raspberries and jelly, but you can use which ever is on hand rather than both of them. It is a very rich, moist muffin so it won’t need butter or anything on it.

Mix:
1 cup flour
1 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 Tablespoons lemon zest
1 1/2 sticks melted butter
3/4 cup of milk
2 egg yolks
1 egg

Mix well until well blended, do not over mix.

Mix in a separate bowl:
1 package (~6oz ) fresh raspberries
2 Tablespoons raspberry jam
1 teaspoon sugar

Mix until the raspberries are all broken up then gently swirl the raspberries into the batter.
Pour into oiled muffin tins.
Bake at 400′ ~ 20 minutes.

**Usually corn bread is baked in an already warmed up pan. So put a bit of butter or oil in the muffin tin and put the muffin tin in the oven while the oven heats up and you are mixing the batter.

Corn muffins are the official state muffin of Massachusetts. Corn bread ( muffins ) were discovered by the American Indians and brought back to Europe.

Cooks in New England use yellow cornmeal and add molasses or sugar, cooks in the South Eastern US use white corn meal and often fry the dough.