leftover night; homemade pho with duck

gotta love leftover night.  all those containers of stuff-do you even know what that is, or was?  after being out of town for a week, my husband roasted a duck out on the grill for our first dinner together after his return.  the smallest one i could find weighed 5 pounds so there was quite a bit left over.  he saved the bones for who knows what but i had ideas of my own.

while searching on the internet, i came across this great pho recipe for leftover turkey. a quick substitution of duck and a trip to the garden for some fresh greens, an hour later-dinner was born!  give it a try, it was worth every slurp...

gingerbread baby bundt cake; twd

when did they turn on the holiday season?  i could swear that it was summer yesterday and now, it is december.  wow...well, since it is tuesday, it must be time to bake with julia.  this week, our hostess, karen of karen's kitchen stories is proud to bring us gingerbread baby cakes.  luckily, it is a simple recipe that did not require much work.  since i have so much going on this month-pr event, a daughter graduating, a trip to san francisco for said graduation and oh yeah, the guy in the red suit comes this month too, doesn't he?  anyway, no time to spare and i will most likely be absent for the next roundup.  did i mention that i am trying to put together not 1 but 2 books???

so here it goes.  let's start with the obvious.  baby cakes are small cakes; these are supposed to be 4" rounds.  the husband is out of town for the week and i did not need a group of 4" cakes for just me.  i made half the recipe and baked it in a fluted pan.  the recipe calls for dark brown sugar, i only had light.  the recipe also called for espresso powder.  i only use whole beans to make espresso, i opted to add more cocoa powder and keep moving.  then i realized that i was out of molasses.  what the hell kind of baker is out of molasses in december????  apparently, this one right here.  i used beet sugar syrup.

okay, it is interesting in a strange, chocolatey, fruity kind of way.  and moving right along, visit karen's blog page for the recipe and all that.  visit the tuesdays with dorie page to see the hijinks of all the other bakers-most of whom probably had the proper ingredients and what not.  me, i'm pouring another glass of wine and plopping down on the couch with the cat.  i've had enough baking for today...

 (actually, it looks so chocolatey because i cut the recipe in half on everything but the cocoa powder-rrrrgggg!!!  but i think it works well)