Menu Plan, and First Time Roasting Duck!

I didn't have plans to go to Whole Foods on Monday, but it happened - because I made an unexpected trip about 45 minutes away for another errand, and why pass up the chance when Whole Foods is right there and there isn't one near home?

I was perusing the meats and poultry when I came across fresh duck! Remembering a recent Mark's Daily Apple post on roasting duck with a honey tamari sauce, I picked one up on the fly. Turns out, this was a very simple process, one I'll definitely repeat.

First, I Googled, "How to Roast a Duck", and the very first results, a detail and picture-filled tutorial from The Amateur Gourmet, were a good starting point for me. I scored the fat on the duck on each side (used a basic steak knife to cut cross-shaped marks in the fat). Then, I used my mini food chopper (~$10 at WalMart) to blend honey, tamari, and a bit of juice from a Clementine. (I didn't copy the MDA recipe but I liked the general flavor profile so it was good inspiration.) I poured about 1/3 of the sauce over the duck on a roasting pan, roasted it for an hour at 300 F, flipped the duck, poured another 1/3 of the sauce, roasted another hour, flipped and added the rest of the sauce, roasted another half hour, and then broiled at 450 for 5 minutes to get the skin dark and crispy.

So in all: 2.5 hours total roasting time, flipping and saucing the duck every hour, plus 5 minutes broiling at the end. A very hands-off dish, and for a dark meat poultry lover like me, absolutely terrific final results. I used some of the duck drippings to roast some home fries that went into my husband's lunch today, and he pronounced them delicious when I happened to call while he was eating.

Here's the rest of the scoop on this week's menu plan. I'm trying to get the carbs lower because it feels like Thanksgiving has sent me on a bit carb craving roller coaster lately, and I'd like get more of a handle on the cravings.

Wednesday:
Breakfast - Fried eggs, bananas for the girls
Lunch - Leftover grass fed ground beef with Trader Joe's organic vodka sauce
Dinner - Baked chicken, sweet potatoes (I may skip the sweet potatoes)

Thursday:
Breakfast - Almond butter cinnamon smoothie
Lunch - Maybe intermittent fast?
Dinner - Creamy tarragon asparagus soup, bacon on the side

Friday:
Breakfast - Mashed boiled eggs, "egg nog" (this is really just a shot of heavy cream with some nutmeg sprinkled on top)
Lunch - Veggie soup with bacon
Dinner - Beef in the crock pot