Okay, so today was the day I battled Beef Bourguignon, which turned into an all day affair. I was up late last night catching up on work, so I could have the day off today and not feel guilty about it! I went to the grocery this morning to get all the things I needed to make this recipe that I’ve been yapping about. I came home and got things moving, prepped all the vegetables and meat and I was ready to roll.
I’ve said before how much I love the Food Network…. today made me wonder how they do it? Seriously how to they chop, cook, stir, grab ingredients and talk all at the same time!? This fascinates me, I guess its an art and you just become good at it over time. As for me, I was jumbling things around, thinking opps don’t burn, oh no QUICK I need a picture of this step, googling how many cups are in a quart and thinking wait what does that say/mean all at the same time…. huh? It was like a 3 ring circus, but I must tell you I had the best time, a wonderful relaxing Wednesday without a care in the world. Relieving some stress over the stove top is nice every now and then. Although my back hurts from standing in one spot on the wood floors all day, it was fun. My Aunt came over at one point this afternoon and was like what are you making? After I explained, she ran home and picked up her Julia Child cookbook for me, so that just put the cherry on top of it all!
Anyway, like I said before I was waiting for the right time to try out this recipe and today just happened to be a good day, so I’ll take you along through my culinary journey as try to master the art of French cooking one dish at a time! HA, right!
Seriously though if you have some time to dedicate to cooking your family a really good home cooked meal, give this one a try. My big Italiano crew raved about it tonight.
Oh yea, these daily blogs are rolling right along, it gives me a chance to reflect, slow down and go some place else for a while. I think it’s good for me. I don’t know how long I’ll keep up with the 5 day a week posts because I’m sure sooner or later I’ll run out of ideas, but I’ll keep sharing as long the ideas keep coming. Big news coming soon about some new packages!
(I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, I added more carrots, more mushrooms, etc.. I think its fine as long as you don’t mess up one of the big steps)
In the words of Julia Child…”Bon Appetite”
This is kind of odd, but you boil the bacon first before you saute it.
You MUST dry the meat first before you put it in the pan or it won’t brown. Supposedly.
Saute the vegetables in the bacon fat, then add in the meat and bacon back in.
Use a wine that you would drink. In this case it called for a full bodied red.
You then saute the pearl onions and mushrooms in butter to later add in to the main pot.
After 4 hours of slow cooking in the oven, this is what we ended up with. Beef that feel apart in the pot…tender, tender, tender!
