Beef Bourguignon

When I was sick not too long ago, I spent about 4 days on the couch.  All I could do was watch TV.  Of course, I watched a ton of Food Network shows, including one episode of Tyler's Ultimate where he made Beef Bourguignon.  I think it was snowing out, and it just looked soooo good.  I love the Mushroom Bourguignon, but I thought it might be nice to share the beef version with our families, so we invited them over for dinner and that's what I made.  (Thanks to my sister Haley for the photo.  I was too busy rushing around to take any myself.)

After seeing the show on Food Network, I went to the FN website for the recipe.  Lucky for me, I read the comments.  A lot of people had no success with it, and those who did made several adjustments.  One commenter recommended going to Tyler Florence's website and getting the recipe from there, so I checked it out and found that it was similar enough to be the same recipe, but with some BIG differences.  I decided to go with Tyler's website version instead as it seemed to address many of the commenters' failures.

Fortunately, everything worked out well.  Everyone seemed to like the food.  Some of the pieces of meat turned out too tough, I think they were too big, but that's my fault for not cutting them smaller.  One thing I want to make note of is that I did not feel great after eating this.  It just felt really heavy and not very nourishing.  I'm probably going to move toward some healthier and possibly vegetarian choices very soon.

Roasted Scallops with Breadcrumbs and Bacon

Roasted Scallops with Breadcrumbs and Bacon

 
Roasted Scallops with 
Breadcrumbs and Bacon

Full disclosure: I did not make this.  It was made for me, which I enjoyed very much.  I wanted to mention it anyway because it was delicious :)  We had it with spinach and pasta and it was great.  It's nice to have a glass of wine with a home cooked meal that you didn't have to make yourself.

This was simple and so, so delicious.  Some frozen scallops, slightly old parsley and panko breadcrumbs that have been in the pantry for at least a year came together to make something special.  The bacon really made the dish.

To make it more substantial, we sauteed spinach and garlic, and served it all on top of some whole grain spaghetti.

Easy enough for a weeknight, nice enough for casual company.  And extra delicious when it's made for you :)

Pasta with Fresh Corn Pesto

As I write this, I have some bacon sizzling away on the stove, because I am making this for the second time this week.  Yes, it was THAT good.  What an awesome treatment for the amazing fresh corn we have here in NJ.  I normally pick up two ears from the market, or enough for the whole family if we want it down the shore, but I was happy to get the SIX ears needed for this Pasta with Fresh Corn Pesto almost as soon as I saw it.

And bacon!  Oh man, do I love bacon.  One of the few things I missed when I was a vegetarian several years ago was bacon.  YUM.  This recipe has you saute little pieces of bacon until crisp, then pour off most of the fat and use the rest to saute corn kernels cut fresh off the cob with garlic and crushed red pepper flakes.  You reserve some of the cooked kernels, using the rest in an amazing pesto with Parmesan.  We didn't thin the pesto at all when we put it on the pasta - we like our sauces thick and delicious.  We really couldn't imagine why anyone would want to water it down.

For anyone who loves the richness of cream-based sauces like alfredo, but wants to get in a serving of vegetables, this is a great recipe to try.  (Not that this could be considered healthy by any means...) The recipe notes actually state that even people who don't like corn (I didn't know anyone like that existed!) liked this dish.  The bacon is NOT optional by any means.  I feel that it is totally essential to the dish.  There is no way I would ever leave it out.  (I actually used twice the amount the second time around...) I feel the same about the crushed red pepper.  Yes, it was a little spicy, but in a flavorful and not overwhelming way.  You could cut it down, if you have to, but don't cut it out.

This is something I am going to make again and again and again.  I don't buy corn from the grocery store, only from the market, and sadly it will be winter sooner than you think and it won't be available anymore.  For now, I will be enjoying it as much as possible.

Turkey Couscous Meatloaves

For dinner I made Turkey Couscous Meatloaves.  This is one of many recipes that I find when perusing the vast depths of the internet instead of doing various relatively productive things.  I don't typically have an interest in anything named "meatloaf," or anything that is made primarily of meat, or anything that is made of turkey meat, but something about this appealed to me (probably the bacon and the glaze... more the fact that there IS a glaze rather than what the glaze is...) and for some reason, I happened to have a pound of ground turkey in the freezer, although I can't remember what possessed me to buy such a thing.

This was easy to make.  Granted, I did not shape any meatloaves, nor did I even defrost the meat.  That is not something I want to stick my hands in.  But that is why I have a live-in sous chef.  (Come to think of it, I did not chop the onions, I did not chop the sage... hmm, what DID I do?)

The cooked couscous helped to give the loaf more substance while the zucchini kept it very moist.  The bacon and glaze (essentially a barbecue sauce) gave it flavor, which ground turkey does not really possess on its own.

In an effort to make eating a pile of meat more appealing to me, I roasted some asparagus with a spray of olive oil, plus salt and pepper.  My oven was happy to multitask and waste less energy.  The asparagus was pretty good although it has been sitting in my fridge for several days.  I am sure looking forward to some fresh asparagus from a closer location than Mexico.

This recipe makes 4 loaves, and as there are only two of us, and I don't eat piles of meat often, I froze the other two.  I expect that they can be reheated in the oven and with a thermometer it would be easy to determine when they were done.  It will be nice to reach in and pull those out on a busy, exhausting day.  That is what the freezer is for.  After those two are gone, I might make this again, or maybe down the shore this summer for the family.

Thanksgiving 2009

I had fun cooking for Thanksgiving with my mom. It took days (literally) and was gobbled up in about 30 minutes (literally) but everything came out pretty great. Here is a little photo tour through our menu... unfortunately I didn't get pictures of everything, but I'll try to describe it all.

Appetizers

Bacon-Wrapped Water Chestnuts: I thought these would be gross - I hate water chestnuts. But between the bacon fat and the globs of honey, they softened up a lot and were really flavorful. There is no real recipe for this - just wrap water chestnuts with bacon, pop in a toothpick, and pile on the honey.





In addition to this, we also had brie with dried cranberries, walnuts, and thyme. I think some more stuff was out, but nothing too fancy.

Salad

Winter Green Salad with Sugared Walnuts, Crispy Pears and Pomegranate Vinaigrette: This is from Clean Food. The dressing was a huge success... it was made from pomegranate juice, a little balsamic vinegar, zesty honey mustard... delicious. I didn't use the sugared walnuts recipe from Clean Food because I had to make them for the stuffing anyway (see below), and that recipe was much easier. The tough part here was getting the pomegranate arils out of the fruit. Also check out my sweet Vera Bradley apron!

Main Course

Ham and Turkey: No pictures of the turkey, but here is the ham being slathered in brown sugar. There was some other stuff involved, but I don't know what. All I have to say is... yummm!







Sage, Walnut, and Dried Fig Stuffing: This is a 101 Cookbooks recipe, which I was so excited to make. As I mentioned earlier, I made the sugared walnuts (egg whites, sugar and salt) and used them also in the salad. I was so excited to have vegetarian stuffing with no meat in it! And although it was pretty dry (Mom even added extra liquid) it still tasted good. I would add more liquid next time though.




Wild Rice with Apples: This recipe is from Cooking Light - if not October 2009, another fall issue for this year. I was so excited to make this. It takes a long time though, and so I had to get dressed while I was waiting to bring it to a boil. I asked my mom to turn it down to a simmer after it boiled. A looong time later, I realized that she had turned it all the way up instead. Oops! There was no liquid left but it was completely uncooked. I managed to salvage it by adding a ton of extra liquid and cooking it much longer. Fortunately it turned out really good. It was a really interesting side dish and fit well with the holiday - the sauteed Pink Lady apples were so good.

We also had the typical sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce.

Desserts

Best-Ever Apple Pie: This is from a cookbook of my mom's - I forget the title, but it is actually quite interesting. I read it while I was supposed to be helping with the cooking. This woman traveled to farms all over the country to collect recipes. A lot of them are kind of disgusting (using ingredients like lard, etc.) but some are really cool. There are also sidebars about stuff like avocado farming, for example. Haley did most of this by herself - I helped a little though.

Tofu Pumpkin Pie with Gingersnap Crust: Another Clean Food recipe, but not as much of a hit. There was some flavor here that just wasn't really great, but it was OK. The gingersnap crust was very good though.







Mini Sweet Potato Tarts: Mom made these after she overcooked the sweet potato. I ended up taking over and scooping the stuff into all of the cups and putting on the sweet pecan mixture. I didn't try one of these (I don't like sweet potatoes, I will have to try them again someday) but they looked pretty good.