Comfort Food from Julia

It's inexplicable really...having no desire to eat something, does not deter one from making it.  Case in point: beef.

I may not actually crave eating beef, but that definitely does not mean I don't have longings to prepare it.  The Julie and Julia movie has kept Beef Bourginion front and center in my mind, I was just waiting for the weather to change to put a pot on. What's not to love? Browned bits on the bottom of the pan, with a bit of brandy to scrape them up...

A "bit" of burgandy...

And the last of the thyme from your summer herb pots...

A few hours of relaxing while oven does all of the work, and you have some pretty flavorful comfort food.  Bring on the cold weather.

Beef Bourginion

Ingredients:
8 ounces bacon, coarsely chopped
2 pounds well-trimmed boneless beef chuck, cut into 1 inch cubes
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1 large onion,  sliced
6 large garlic cloves, peeled (left whole)
3 cups canned beef broth
1/2 cup Cognac or brandy
1 750-ml bottles red Burgundy wine
1 pound crimini mushrooms
1 cup baby carrots
1/3 cup chopped fresh thyme
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon tomato paste

Directions:
•Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Saute bacon in heavy large Dutch oven over high heat until brown and crisp, about 8 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer bacon to paper towels. Season beef generously with salt and pepper; coat with 1/3 cup flour, using all of flour. Working in 3 batches, brown beef in same pot over high heat, about 5 minutes per batch. Transfer meat to large bowl. Add onions and carrots to same pot and sauté until light brown, about 6 minutes. Add garlic and sauté 1 minute. Transfer vegetables to bowl with beef.
•Add 1 cup broth and Cognac to pot; boil until reduced to glaze, scraping up browned bits, about 8 minutes. Return meat and vegetables and their juices to pot. Add wine, mushrooms, thyme, sugar, tomato paste and 2 cups broth. Bring to boil, stirring occasionally. Cover pot and place in oven. Cook until beef is tender, about 1 hour 30 minutes.
•Ladle liquid from stew into large saucepan. Spoon off fat. Boil liquid until reduced to 2 3/4 cups, about 40 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Pour liquid back over beef and vegetables. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and chill.) Rewarm over low heat before serving.

Teach Them While They Are Young.

It's important that families pull together to ensure the youngest members learn the important life lessons that will carry with them through life.  It starts with the right outfit really. Yes, I am 100% responsible for this one.

Then you make sure that Peanut watches the game...I'm proud to say that she sat her two year old bottom there for awhile and watched the Broncos kick some Raider butt.  There were some tense times during her infancy there when my brother used to say "You know, I really think she does like football...her eyes are always glued to the TV when the Packers are playing."  Luckily, these things can change.  It's all about teaching them right from wrong when they are little.

Someone once asked if I actually really do take hundrends of pictures each time I see her.  The answer is yes, because the majority of them look a lot like this one...

Or this one...

Or even this one.  At least she has personality.

It's only sometimes, when you snap that photo really quickly and she's not looking, that you get that real and perfectly delightful little Peanut smile.

Daring Bakers September, Lavash

The sleep state and what happens during dreaming is fascinating to me. I sometimes feel like I resolve more issues during sleep than I do awake. I very often wake up with some new idea or a solution to a work issue I'm having. It kind of stinks that I work in my sleep.

I've spent the past two weeks thinking that I needed to schedule my Daring Bakers September before I left for my business trip to Bozeman. That's coming up during this next week. So my I've been walking around convinced that this post was due next Saturday. And then, somewhere in my dream state last night I reconciled the posting date specified with the current date and woke up thinking I almost missed the post date. Yikes.

But in the end--I didn't...woohoo. Because this month's was D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S. Our hosts Shel of Musings From The Fishbowl (recipe) and Natalie of Gluten A Go Go went outside the box with a vegan, and optional gluten free, savory Lavash challenge. I'm so glad they did because I loooooove flatbread and had no idea it was so incredibly easy.

The most difficult piece of this recipe was rolling out the dough thin and even enough. Looks thin enough, oui? Mais non. Some portions were thin and crispy and fabulous. The other portions were a little more pita like, but still fabulous.

We also were given full freedom to choose our dip, as long as it was vegan. I was a bit nervous because I kept hearing about so many things that negated the "veganness" of a food. I would never have thought of the how bees would make honey non-vegan. In the end I went for one of my favorites, green olive tapenade. Simple and I think it's vegan with only kalamata olives, olive oil, garlic, pepper and fresh lemon juice. I even left out the parmesan and truthfully, didn't miss it.



I will definitely make this again and often. Fabuwonderifical challenge!

Cherry Blossom Fondant Cupcakes

I volunteered to make some cupcakes for an event...a decision that I always retreat after opening my mouth.  It's not that I don't enjoy baking, it's just that I never want to do it on a predetermined schedule.   While I considered making the SpongeBob cupcakes again as those were the catalyst for the ask, you have to be this cute in order to get me to make those again. Those were painful.

But in full SpongeBob spirit, I made more marshmallow fondant to attempt a bit of a copycat effort on cupcakes I'd seen at the bakery.  Soooooo much easier than the yellow sponge guy.

I really dig this marshmallow fondant stuff.  It's edible if one desires, can be popped in the microwave if it gets too stiff to roll out, and can be kneaded 100% of the way in the mixer.  As we know, I am all about that.

These cupcakes was just taking your favorite chocolate cupcake recipe and baking 24 cupcakes.  Then (here's the best part), you add the chocolate ganache.

Chocolate Ganache

1 cup heavy cream

1 heaping cup quality chocolate, chopped

 Melt in the microwave for 90 seconds and then whisk to combine.  Poke holes in the cupcakes and pour the ganache all over.  This looks a bit watery at first, but once the ganache hardens, you get a creamy ganache surprise in each bite.  It also makes the cupcake super duper moist.

Lightly frost cupcakes with a thin layer of cream cheese frosting so that the fondant has something to adhere to, grab one batch each of white and pink marshmallow fondant (recipe here) and start rolling.

Using a cookie cutter the same size as the cupcakes, I cut out white circles to cover the cupcakes....

Use a teeny-tiny-itsy-bitsy flower cookie cutter to cut out exactly eleventy hundred small flowers. Dab the smallest amount of water onto the back of each flower and place three on each cupcake.  One chopstick, a poking action in the middle to press the flower into the cupcake and simultaneously create a center and you are good to go.  A bit of melted chocolate piped in the shape of branches, and voila, cherry blossoms.  Or flowers with brown stems and no leaves, as my coworker kindly pointed out.  Close enough.

They make me giggle.  Really.  And I'm not really a giggler.

Harvesting the Zucchini

I've never met a piece a produce I didn't like, besides perhaps a brussel sprout, so when my coworker asked if I wanted a zucchini from her garden, I had my hands out before she even finished the sentence.

Imagine my surprise when she lifted an enormous tote bag and extracted the king of zucchini. Huge. More produce than a single girl could eat in a week, but I wasn't saying no to that challenge.

I photographed with teacup for a bit of size reference.

A zucchini of that girth made me think of one of my all time favorite cool weather foods....

While it's just the nights that are cool at this point, that was enough excuse to whip up a batch of eggplant parm, oh, with a bit of a twist. It was more like zucchini parm with a bit of eggplant. And of course, I chose to bake instead of fry....if you can't tell the difference....

Step one is slicing up the veggies and sprinkling with salt. Let rest for 20 minutes to extract extra water and bitter flavors and then rinse in cool water.

Crack 2 eggs and scramble in one dish. Pour 2 cups bread crumbs in another and season with 2 tbsp garlic powder, 1 tbsp salt, cracked black pepper and 2 tsp dried parsley. Dip eggplant and zucchini in egg mixture and then into breadcrumbs. Lay on baking sheet and then bake for 20mins at 400 degrees.

Layer bottom of casserole dish with 1/2 cup pasta sauce, add one layer of zucchini and cover with 1/2 cup shredded mozarella and 1/4 cup grated parmesan. Add 1/2 to 1 cup of pasta sauce depending on your sauce preference, and then cover with a layer of the baked eggplant. Repeat cheese and sauce layer and then add one additional layer of zucchini. Cover with sauce...and a layer of fresh basil. I know most like to chop the basil, but I love the flavor and it's so much more concentrated in it's full leaf form.

Top with a bit more cheese and bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

I am a big fan of homemade pasta sauce...anything to avoid processed food if it's easy enough. I don't know when I started adding balsamic vinegar to my sauce, but if you add it balsamic early, the vinegar cooks off and you just have a hint of that complex sweet balsamic flavor.

Tomato Sauce

3 15 oz cans of crushed tomatoes

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 medium onion, diced

1 carrot finely diced.

1/4 cup chopped basil

1 tsp brown sugar

3 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup red wine

splash of olive oil

1. Heat olive oil in large saucepan over medium low heat.

2. Add onions and carrots and sautee until tender.

3. Add garlic and sautee for 2 minutes

4. Pour in the tomatoes and remaing ingredients and allow to simmer for 30 mins.

5. Puree using a blender. I just pop a stick blender right into the pan and get most of the big chucks, leaving some smaller chunks.