Old Faves, New Faves, Recipe Loved and Recipe Fail

   Since the weather in North Carolina plays ping pong between all 4 seasons during this time of the year, sometimes its hard to have a set in stone menu for the week.  Saying that, I have several meals that revolve around the weather.  Beef Burgundy is one such meal.  I have made Julia Child's recipe as well as Rachel Ray's.  Mine fall somewhere between the two and it is a serious family favorite.  The Yorkshire Pudding aka popover recipe is one that I have made for years and a recipe used by my mom.  However, due to our weather patterns, we grilled out  burgers at my parents' house on Monday. 
 Chimichangas on Tuesday, are a recent addition to our family faves that we tried last July.
   Wednesday brought a love and a fail of recipes to my collection.  Caramelized Onion & Bacon Smothered Pork Chops were fantastic!  My only changes to this were: boneless pork chops, beef broth and 1/2 & 1/2 in place of heavy cream.  Unfortunately, the Au Gratin Potatoes were the fail for the night.  The only change was 1/2 & 1/2 instead of heavy cream, all other directions were followed (including the rest time) - but it was still VERY watery.  I have never ran into this when substituting the 1/2 for the heavy cream.  After reading the comments, I did find where the author says 1/2 will not work for this but there were others who used heavy cream and it was still watery/soupy.  I have several more au gratin recipes that I want to try or already have tried, so I won't go back to this one to figure it out, because even though it was edible, we have others we'd rather eat.
   Thursday brought us back to a stand by as the steaks were marked down at the grocery store.  They were prepared simply; just sprinkled with kosher salt and pan seared until medium rare.
   As much as I love to cook, there are times that I would rather work on a project, especially if I am in a great flow so the week ended up with Pizza Hut and Hunger Games, but that is fine, because that is life.

My arm is tired of whisking, but that's some dang good mayo!!

Yesterday, I got a wild hair and decided to make my own mayonnaise. I had everything to make it too. You see, I had went to the local market earlier in the day and bought some produce. I love some fresh, local produce and I came home with these purple potatoes. I had envisioned turning them into  a purple potato salad to go with the pork spareribs I had cooking in the crock-pot. I decided to make JC's mayo before I started on the potatoes, which in turn was a very wise decision. I began with with the food processor recipe in the book. It didn't work. I tried to save my turned mayo with a teaspoon of dry mustard as Julia describes in her book. I pulled out half of my kitchen gadgets to help the save this unappealing liquid. I used my immersion blender, used a Pampered Chef hand crank food processor and regular blender. And just my luck, nothing worked. Defeat! I was ready to raise the white flag and accept the fact that I COULD NOT make homemade mayo. 

I don't give up very easily, so I began again. This time I pulled out a metal bowl and wire whisk. In hindsight, this is a heck of a lot easier to wash versus all the  gadgets thrown in the sink. I'm forewarning you that you will get an arm workout, but it's worth it. So, here I am whisking the heck out of this egg yolk and oil concoction and it thickens. It's turning into mayo! AND then, just as I am almost finished with the entire process, the power goes off. 

REALLY? Here I have a crockpot of ribs, that I still need to brush with BBQ sauce and put under the broiler, but I have no potatoes cooked for the potato salad or any other sides ready. I also have room temp mayo that needs to go in the fridge and a pile of mayonnaise failed equipment in the sink. ARGH. Did I mention that it's 104* outside?  But I have a nice jar of mayo that  I made myself.

Apparently the almost the entire military installation I live on, is without power. 6 out of 7 neighborhoods are without power, barracks are out, it's dinner time and all the soldiers are returning home from work. Great. I shove the mayo in the fridge and pray the power comes back on soon. An hour later, we're still without power and we take the dog to stay downstairs in the cooler part of the house with 2 large bowls of water. My husband & I load up the kids and off the local pizzeria we go. The hubby & I enjoy a couple of cold beers and some delicious NY inspired pizza with our boys while hoping the power has been restored. 

We arrive back home and we're 3 hours in with no power. It's still 90-some degrees outside and public works is trying to fix the problem. Let me say, I am so glad we have a sprinkler, because that's where the kids played until around 9:30 when the street lights came on. I was one happy lady. I go downstairs to wash the dishes and accidentally knock my food processor bowl onto the floor  and it cracks straight up the side. Sigh. Out to the garbage it goes with all of it's accessories and I go to bed, leaving a sink full of dirty dishes. 

I awoke early this morning to wash dishes and taste test my mayo. It really made me wish that I had made it earlier in my culinary adventures. It is awesome.  

Leftover Ingredients Make an Awesome Breakfast

     When trying what to figure out what to make for breakfast this morning, I remember that I had some ham and Swiss leftover from the Pinwheels I made last night.  Then I began trying to figure out what else I had to make something with.  (The inside of my fridge is pretty sad looking once you get past the Grandma's Chocolate Cake.) I then remembered that when I was watching 10 Dollar Dinners with Melissa D'Arabian last week she made this sandwich thingy with ham and Swiss.
      I couldn't remember the name of the dish, but I do know she made it with tomato soup. So, I sat down at my computer and began to search on Food Network.com.  I found the episode: Soup and Sandwich Savings which she made kale chips, tomato soup and the sandwich I was looking for: Quick Croque Madames.
     After looking at the ingredient list, the only one to give me worry was the sour cream.  I pulled 2 sour cream containers from the depths of the fridge which gave me the 1/4 cup it calls for-well, eyeballing the amount anyways.  My Swiss was sliced so I poured a little white wine in a dish and took my 4 slices and kinda flipped them around and then let them hang out while I was doing the rest.  I cut 4 slices of Italian bread I picked up yesterday for the Loaded Breakfast Casserole I will be preparing tonight for our breakfast on Christmas Morning. I  measured the mustard and garlic by eye.

     After following the directions and calling Joey to the table this is what I presented to him:

 

     This was his plate after several bites!:

     I am surprised he let me take a picture as he said it was too good for words.  Michael said it would be better as a top so he could eat it as a normal sandwich. Jamey even said it was pretty good.

      I might have to consult J.C. to see if she has a traditional Croque Madame Recipe. Yay!

 

Anniversary Dinner

Last Wednesday, my husband & I celebrated our 9^th wedding anniversary.

For the first time in 2 years (thanks to the U.S. Army) our traditions continued together. Monday night we watched How I Met Your Mother & WWE Monday Night Raw, we watched Billy Madison on Tuesday evening, which was our first date movie & enjoyed dinner together on Wednesday. We can almost turn it into a week long celebration. The only thing that was missing was the Blue Bell Wedding Cake Ice Cream. We had decided early on that we would be going out for dinner due to it being a school night and saving all we can for our trip home at Christmas. But, we had a nice candlelight dinner with two of the world’s cutest boys.

For dinner, I prepared Beef Wellington with mushroom duxelles for MtAoFC Vol. 1 by Julia Child (see I told you that you needed to buy that cookbook) and modified it slightly by using store-bought puff pastry sheets.

Alongside the Beef Wellington, I served braised Brussels sprouts with lemon-pepper and parmesan cheese. Super simple recipe, just steam frozen sprouts for 5 minutes in the microwave, cut in half, and toss with EVOO and lemon-pepper seasoning. Then place in a baking dish cut side up, sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese and bake along side the Beef Wellington and then broil for 5 minutes to brown the cheese. After dinner we snuggled up on the couch and watched Survivor, cheered on Cochran and enjoyed a sweet Pumpkin Whoopie Pie!

The whoopie pies were a first attempt for me and they turned out great! Thanks to the lovely ladies once again at Our Best Bites for the recipe. I hope you all enjoy these tasty recipes!

Further Proof I need a Le Creuset Dutch Oven!

Today, since I couldn't be in North Carolina to celebrate my oldest sister Mande's birthday, I decided to honor her in a different way. I'm not talking about sending her a card or posting a "Happy Birthday!" on her Facebook wall (which I did), but I did make a dinner in her honor.Earlier last week, while grocery shopping I bought all the ingredients for a recipe that I had never made before:

Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon

Yep, JC's timeless Beef Burgundy. One of Mande's favorite dishes that she likes to make is her own version of Rachael Ray's Beef Burgundy. She has since then been inspired to one day make Julia's version, but I beat her to it. (Sorry Sis!)
Let me say that the aroma that has filled the house all day while this has been cooking is amazing. It's a deep, earthy smell of root veggies, wine, thyme and bay leaves.
Almost as enticing as Christmas Scent, which is a slow simmered pot of cinnamon sticks, cloves, bay leaves and citrus. Mmmm...heaven. Cloves have that homey smell and reminds me of my Grandma Strick's kitchen. Ah, memories.
I didn't have the bacon rind as called for and used Merlot. I was limited in my choice of wines this time, but next time I will be swinging by the Oz Winery in Wamego, Kansas for a bottle of "Ding Dong the Wine is Red" next time I prepare this wonderful dish.
This dish is simple enough, ingredient-wise, but is labor intensive. I used too many pots and pans. I had a hard time making the Beef Burgundy in my small 2 1/2 quart stoneware casserole dish that I got a Pier One long ago, which is further proof I want a Le Creuset Dutch Oven! A cast iron casserole dish or dutch oven would have saved me from washing several pots & pans, since I couldn't put my stoneware directly on the stovetop. Then again, a $200 price tag on a 3 1/2 qt. cast iron dutch oven makes me a bit sick and doing a few extra dishes isn't so bad. But, I would love to have an Ikea Senior 3 quart Casserole for $39.99 (as pictured above) in the same color blue as the fancy overpriced one.
I browned the bacon and beef in my small cast iron frying pan, transferred it to my smallish stoneware casserole dish for part of the cooking process, transferred into my large pasta pot to simmer the wine and broth in, then bravely poured the contents back into my stoneware casserole dish & prayed it didn't overflow on the counter. It didn't, but I'll be the first to tell you this fills up an entire 2 1/2 quart dish. I set it back in the lower 3rd of my oven as instructed by Child and put a baking sheet underneath the dish to eliminate my worries of a bubbling mess on the bottom of my oven. Fears aside I went ahead and sautéed my Baby Bella mushrooms in butter and did the same with my frozen pearl onions in lieu of brown-braising them in stock. The Boeuf Bourguignon cooked for 2 hours and 45 minutes and finished up around 12:30. I took it out of the oven and let it cool....

......had a bowl for lunch......

and then put it into the refrigerator. When we were ready for dinner I set it back in the oven to warm up while I got the egg noodles ready. It took a good 20 minutes to heat through after a quick 5 minutes in the microwave. I served it over buttered egg noodles and alongside a salad with French dressing and a crusty loaf of French bread.

Delicious ~ is all I can say.

There's a bit of disappointment I have to share and it's that I'm not posting the full recipe on our blog. This is one cookbook that I believe that everyone should have or borrow and read through. Here's a real treat, Barnes & Noble just released the Nook e-book version of Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol. 1 for $19.99, so there's no excuse why you don't have a copy. If you're real desperate here's a link to the recipe on food.com. I have learned so much from reading through the different recipes in Volumes 1 & 2, My Life in France and reading one of my favorite books, Julie & Julia which I read back in 2009. I even did a review of Powell's book on my personal blog. I hope that this post has given some of you a bit of inspiration to attempt this timeless dish.

Bon appétit!