New Meal Monday

We opened up the Everyday Food we'd had lying around since Jan and tried out a couple of recipes this week. Both were a decided success. For the main dish, we made Sole with Lemon Butter Sauce and on the side we made Spicy Corn and Peppers.

Both were tres yummy. The Sole had so much flavor it was amazing, especially compared with how easy it was to cook. I really liked the corn as well. It was not just your average frozen corn. It was nice and spicy and though I don't think it was a paticularly awesome match with the sole, it wasn't bad. We used a orange pepper instead of red, since a decent one wasn't available and it was soooo pretty.

Another Weekend Gone!

Well hopefully tomorrow, Matt will be gainfully employed by a giant national HMO. And in anticpation of the end to his vacation we really lived it up this weekend. We were busy busy.

Friday was an extra-special Friday cuz it meant I was DONE with my OSHA classes. 10 full hours of governmental boredom. But I had a horrible headache, so we stayed in and goofed around and watched Stargate.

Saturday we spent an extra-long amount of time and then went mountain biking. I'd never really done that before, and it's waaay different from road biking but I really enjoyed it (apart from banging the hell out of my knee on a rock) and I am sure I'll be back to the trails to improve.

Then we hung out with some friends for a little while and then we went to dinner with my parents and came back here to indluge in some Oreo pie and watch Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (again!). Continue reading “Another Weekend Gone!”

Boeuf Bourguignon with Egg Noodles

Ingredients
3 slices bacon, chopped
3 tablespoons butter, divided
16 white mushrooms, medium in size, wiped with damp cloth to clean, thinly sliced
1 cup frozen pearl onions, defrosted and drained
Salt and pepper
2 pounds lean sirloin, 1-inch thick, trimmed and cubed into 1 inch pieces
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup burgundy wine
1 1/2 cups store bought beef stock
Bouquet of 3 or 4 sprigs each sage and fresh thyme, tied with kitchen string

Herb Egg Noodles:
12 ounces wide egg noodles, cooked to package directions
2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves, 2 handfuls
12 blades fresh chives, snipped or finely chopped

Directions
Heat a large deep skillet with a heavy bottom and a lid over medium high heat. Add bacon to the pan and brown. Remove crisp bacon bits with slotted spoon. Add 1 1/2 tablespoons butter to the pan and melt into bacon drippings. Add mushrooms to the pan and turn to coat evenly with butter and bacon drippings. Season the mushroom slices with salt and pepper. Saute mushrooms 2 to 3 minutes and add onions to the pan. Continue cooking onions and mushrooms 2 to 3 minutes longer, then transfer to a plate and return pan to the heat. Add remaining butter to the pan and melt it, then add meat to very hot pan and brown evenly on all sides, keeping the meat moving. Add flour to browned meat in the pan and cook the flour 2 minutes. Add wine to the pan slowly while stirring. When the wine comes up to a bubble and you have scraped up the pan drippings, add the stock and bouquet of fresh sage and thyme sprigs to the pot. Cover the pan. When the liquid boils, reduce heat to medium. Cook covered 5 minutes, remove lid and add mushrooms, onions and bacon back to the pot. Simmer with the cover off until sauce thickens a bit. Adjust seasoning and remove herb bouquet.

Toss hot egg noodles with butter and herbs. Place a bed of noodles in a shallow bowl and pour beef burgundy over the noodles and serve.

New Meal Monday

This Monday's meal was Boeuf Bourguignon with Egg Noodles and Baby Spinach Salad with Swiss Cheese Crisps. Jess found the recipe in with 30 Minute Meals 2.

To cook the boeuf bourguignon I had a very hard time finding a Burgundy wine at the local liquor stores. I ended driving about 20 minutes away to Apple Jacks which had a decedent selection. While I like the wine, I think I might just pick up a California Pinot Noir next time. I also was unable to find fresh sage at our local grocery store (they were out), so I just used dried sage and fresh thyme. I also didn't bother making a bouquet, I just dropped the spices in the recipe. When making the salad, we had a lot of trouble making the fried swiss cheese and most of it burnt. As a result, we just put swiss on top of the salad unfired.

The boeuf bourguignon turned out very well. It had a lot of flavor and very nice sauce. We did overcook the meat a little but that was our fault. The salad was unremarkable, epically without the fried cheese.

Verdict: The Boeuf Bourguignon will be added to the cookbook but the salad will not.

Forgive me Blog, for I Have Sinned …

It's been a whole freakin' week since my last post. I sat down to post like 3x last week and never managed to get one out. Oh well. That's life.

Matt heads out to Cali next week to start work and I'll have the house all to myself. I've got some majorly mixed feelings about this. I'll miss him tons, but I'll only have my schedule to deal with and I think I'll be able to get more done.

A few links I've been enjoying:
* http://www.woot.com
* http://www.digg.com/deals
* http://www.iespell.com/
* http://www.impressrubberstamps.com/

New Recipe, Weekend Recap

First and foremost, there is a new recipe for Monday. It's part of my long-term obession with Macaroni and cheese … and it's from Alton Brown's show, Good Eats (one of my faves!). This mac 'n' cheese has a slightly different flavor and it's topped with bread-crumbs, which just give it that certain something …

It's probably not as kid-friendly as most other macaroni and cheese, but it's nice with a glass of wine and a crisp green salad … sort of comfort food with a grown-up gourmet twist.

Possibly good to make on Valentine's Day?? Continue reading “New Recipe, Weekend Recap”

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

from: Good Eats

Ingredients
1/2 pound elbow macaroni
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon powdered mustard
3 cups milk
1/2 cup yellow onion, finely diced
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 large egg
12 ounces sharp cheddar, shredded
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Fresh black pepper
Topping:
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup panko bread crumbs

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a large pot of boiling, salted water cook the pasta to al dente.
While the pasta is cooking, in a separate pot, melt the butter. Whisk in the flour and mustard and keep it moving for about five minutes. Make sure it's free of lumps. Stir in the milk, onion, bay leaf, and paprika. Simmer for ten minutes and remove the bay leaf.
Temper in the egg. Stir in 3/4 of the cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Fold the macaroni into the mix and pour into a 2-quart casserole dish. Top with remaining cheese.
Melt the butter in a saute pan and toss the bread crumbs to coat. Top the macaroni with the bread crumbs. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and rest for five minutes before serving.
Remember to save leftovers for fried Macaroni and Cheese.

The Strangest Thing …

On my way to work this morning, i noticed an oddly shaped object lying in the middle of the road. It looked like a yellowish shoe. Just one of them. About a quarter of a mile down the road, I saw its mate. And this time I could tell what it was … it was, indeed a shoe. But not just any shoe … the wooden type, like they wear in Holland. Now I have one thing to say about that. WTF, mate?

Non-Dairy Creamer

I wanted some milk in my tea, this morning (Harvest Peach, for those of you interested) so I dumped a bit of non-dairy creamer in there. It's not even close to the same thing as milk. Very disappointing. It clumped all up and made my tea nasty.

It made me think of the episode of Pinky and the Brain where Brain goes to work for some huge corporation and fakes an accident in the break room involving a microwave and non-dairy creamer (because no one knows how they work) that turns him into a mouse. Great episdoe. Really, that show was genius. Sadly, it has not been released yet on DVD. Yet I notice that they have not failed to release Batman the Animated Series on DVD. Thank God no one overlooked that.

Speaking of TV. I've discovered the hilarious new TV show, My Super Sweet 16. It's about these spoiled teens and their huge, ridiculous sweet 16 parties. It's the funniest show I've seen in a long time … funny because of the tragicosity involved in it. Point your Tivo to MTV and don't miss one side-splitting episode.