Julia Julia

I am just not getting tired of trying recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I also just finished reading Julia's autobiography, My Life in France, and I think I like her a little bit more now. I did find her a little uppity sometimes, but when she talks about food and what she ate... well it's then that the term "food porn" really means something.

She has a recipe for tomato sauce and I'm not sure what it was meant for. It probably says somewhere in the book, but I'm too lazy to check. To me tomato sauce equates to pasta and that's what I decided to use it for. I also improvised a fair bit because I am drowning in vegetables from my CSA and have resorted to making, soups, lasagnas and sauces lately because that seems to be the only way to use up a whole lot of vegetables in one go. On the plus side, I haven't had to purchase a vegetable in weeks.

I doubt Julia meant this to be doused on lentil flax spaghetti noodles--I'm sure she would have marveled that such a thing even existed--but whatever it was meant for, it made for a ridiculous pasta sauce. (Especially when I grated half a block of provolone into it...)

Julia's-probably-not-meant-for-pasta, pasta sauce
1/4 cup each diced carrots, celery and onions (I also threw in mushrooms, broccoli, zucchini and I wasn't too fussy about quantities. It all went in.) 
2 strips bacon, chopped
3 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp flour
1 L beef stock
2-19 oz cans chopped tomatoes
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp sugar
4 garlic cloves
bay leaf
1/2 tsp thyme
2 Tbsp tomato paste

In a large pot, cook the vegetables and bacon slowly in the butter and oil for about 10 mins without letting them brown. Stir in the flour and stir for about 3 mins. Add the beef stock, tomatoes and everything else except the tomato paste. Bring to a boil and lower the heat. Simmer for about 2 hours, uncovered until it gets nice and thick.

Julia then strains the sauce to create a nice smooth concoction, but I just used my immersion blender to do a bit of blending and left it chunky (make sure you take out the bay leaf). Stir in the tomato paste to add some colour. I then added some leftover chicken I picked off the bird and a whole big handful of provolone before serving. (This recipe makes a fair bit of sauce, so I froze half for another day.)

I guess this is the Italian-French version of tomato sauce. Who cares... in the language of food it's all good.

Eggstacular

Eggs benedict is one of my absolute favourite things to eat. I cannot go into a restaurant, see it on a menu and not order it. If I had to choose a last supper, then I think eggs benedict might be it. (I'd need like five last suppers though, because I'd never be able to choose just one. Do you think if I'm ever on death row I could request a week of last suppers instead of just one? Do people really get a last supper on death row?) I appear to be digressing.

This recipe is also from Julia Child and is what I like to think of as a jazzed up version of eggs benedict. Strangely enough, Mastering the Art of French Cooking doesn't give a recipe for benedict--I suppose it must have been a post-Julia creation. While traditional Benny uses hollandaise sauce, this version uses bearnaise and is absolutely amazing. The movie (Julie & Julia) and the pundits out there make it sound so hard to make bearnaise and hollandaise. I happened to have found it quite easy, and it turned out pretty spectacularly if I do say so myself.

Note: After going back and rereading re-reading the recipe, I realize I did a lot of things wrong. I must have blacked out halfway through, because I missed the entire mushroom section where I was supposed to add cream and wine to them apparently. Well, it may not be exact, but it was still spectacular--so either you trust me or you should go buy the book.


Oeufs en Croustades a la Bearnaise (I know there are some accents on those words, but I don't know how to make Blogger create them. Use your imagination.)
1 pkg. frozen puff pastry (of course, Julia makes her own, but c'mon)
1 lb mushrooms, quartered
6 eggs
Bearnaise Sauce
1 small shallot, minced
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1 Tbsp chopped fresh tarragon
salt & pepper
3 egg yolks
2 Tbsp cold butter
1/2 cup melted butter

Preheat oven to 350 F. Roll out a sheet of puff pastry and using a cookie cutter, cut six rounds. Place on baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes until they are puffed and golden. Remove from oven and set aside. In a small sauce pan, combine wine, vinegar, shallots and tarragon. Bring to a simmer.

Remove pan from heat and add egg yolks. Whisk until they are thick and sticky. Add 1 Tbsp cold butter. Place saucepan over very low heat and continue to stir egg yolks. You should be able to see the bottom of the pan between strokes. Remove pan from heat and add other Tbsp of cold butter to stop them cooking. While beating the yolks, drizzle in the melted butter. Continue beating until sauce becomes thick. Season with salt and pepper. Keep warm on a low burner, making sure to keep an eye on it.

In a large skillet, add a couple of Tbsps of butter (more butter!) and heat. Add mushrooms and sautee. In another pan with water and 1 Tbsp of white wine vinegar, poach the eggs to desired doneness.

To poach an egg, bring the pan to a simmer and crack the egg into a small bowl. Then before dropping it in the water, swirl the water with a spoon. Carefully slide the egg in and use a large slotted spoon to hold the white to the yolk for a few seconds. It takes practise and I still will make one really good one followed by one spectacularly bad one. Whatever, they all taste the same. Julia never apologized for mistakes in the kitchen and neither should you.

To assemble, take a pastry round and place an egg on top. Top with mushrooms and bearnaise.

Tartupcake

I'm a raging chocoholic, so much so, that if they had support groups to recover from chocolate, I'd need to go to one. Then I'd go home and gorge myself in a bathtub of chocolate and I wouldn't even care that I'd be eating stuff that my naked bum had touched. You remember that scene in the movie Chocolat where the guy eats everything in the window and wakes up covered in his own chocolately crapulence? I wanted to be that guy.

Anyway, my point is that as much as I love chocolate, I also adore any dessert with lemon. (I realize that wasn't a very good segue, but it's late and I have nothing else to give you.) These citrus cupcakes come from Martha. I know I had promised an all Julia week here, but it proved too hot outside to make the roast chicken I had planned for tonight, and I've reasoned that Martha is sort of the modern day equivalent of Julia. You know, if Julia ended up in jail and shoved a stick up her bum and was a raging bitch (I'm assuming).

These come from the big old 175 cupcakes book and I'm going to give them a review. They are OK. The cake is a little tough and dense and I can't really taste any citus in the batter--it's all coming from the glaze on top. The glaze itself is delicious and I ate a good portion of it with a spoon from the bowl. (Don't tell anyone OK?) All in all, there aren't any left in the house, so they must good enough.

As good as chocolate citrus cupcakes
Cupcakes
1 lb butter, softened
zest of two oranges
zest of three lemons
zest of three limes
9 eggs
2 cups sugar
3 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
Glaze
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
3 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp lemon zest plus more for decorating

Preheat oven to 325 F. Cream butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add zest and lemon and beat. Slowly add in eggs one at a time beating until each is incorporated. Sift flour and salt and slowly add to batter on low speed. Mix until ingredients are just combined. Scoop into lined muffin tins. (The recipe says it makes 36, but I got 29 small ones. Next time, I'd just make 24 slightly larger ones.) Bake for 25 minutes, turning them around halfway through. (Book says 20 mins, but mine definitely took longer.)

Let the cupcakes cool completely. Mix the glaze ingredients and drizzle on top of cupcakes. Garnish with a jaunty pinch of zest.

Then go eat one in the bathtub.

Well Julia, you sure can cook

In an ode to the legendary and oh-so-of-the-moment right now Julia Child, I have decided to have an all Julia Child week here. I actually own a first edition copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. (It's OK if you hate me a little for it--that doesn't make you a bad person.)

For over a year, it's been sitting on my desk, not with my cookbooks, but with my more precious books as though the other cookbooks weren't quite good enough to mingle with it. Like the difference between being a Park Avenue book and an East Village book. (I have no idea if that analogy is a real thing... I'm just piecing together what SATC taught me and making shit up as I go along here.)

But inspired by this weeks release of Julie and Julia, I decided to finally remove it from its place of honour and actually put it to work. I did, of course, see the movie on Friday as well and I thought it was cute. Meryl Streep is a freaking goddess and is just good in everything. Amy Adams was pretty blah and overacted. Her character was way too sweet--the Julie Powell from the book is angry and bitchy. This was something I could a) relate to and b) thought was much, much funnier.

I decided to try the famed boeuf bourguignon. I even splurged on some grass fed beef from the farmers' market and the veggies are from my farm share. I thought it was in keeping with the spirit of 1940s Paris where everything would have been fresh and local. Le sigh. My husband said this was the best thing I have ever made. I'd have to agree, but then I'm pretty full of myself.

Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon
3 lbs stewing beef
1 carrot, chopped
1 small onion chopped
6 oz bacon, chopped (she used a rind, but I just used regular stuff and skipped the boiling it in water part... I'm sure there is a reason for this, but I admit I took a few shortcuts)
1 bottle red wine
1 jar pickled sweet pearl onions (another place I cheated... I couldn't find pearl onions anywhere and I remember Anna Olson using this trick once for a coq au vin she made--it added a bit of tanginess to the dish that I think worked)
1 lb mushrooms, quartered and sauteed in butter (I had a revelation while making these that I will save for a later post--it was a little like finding Jesus at the age of 67 after you were once a hard core rocker that bit the heads off bats)
1 bay leaf crumbled
2 garlic cloves crushed
1/2 tsp thyme
salt and pepper to taste
2 Tbsp flour

Preheat oven to 450 F. In a dutch oven with 1 Tbsp oil sautee bacon to release fat. Remove with a slotted spoon and transfer to plate. Brown the beef a few pieces at a time in the bacon fat, adding more oil if you need to (I did). Now brown the carrots and onions in the fat. Add the beef and bacon back to the pot and season the whole thing with salt and pepper. Add flour. Give it a toss, cover and put in the oven for four minutes. Remove, stir and return to oven for four more minutes. (The finicky instructions like this wore me out a little. In fact, on the second round, I got so impatient waiting for four minutes, I took it out after two. I am going to foodie hell.)

Lower oven to 325 F. Return pot to the heat and add everything except the mushrooms and pearl onions. Bring to a simmer. Cover pot and put in oven for 2-3 hrs until meat is as tender as kitten kisses.

Stir in mushrooms and pearl onions and let it all heat through for a few minutes. I served mine with some pasta. Julia suggested they be buttered noodles... however, I figured I'd already met my buttter/bacon fat limit for one meal. Vive le France.

Knockoffs

I like to think of this dish as the knockoff Louis Vuitton handbag of Pad Thai. It's not authentic, it's imperceptibly wrong and yet, there is something satisfying and wholesome about it. It makes you feel like that twee twenty-something strutting down the street armed with hot pink cell phone, gladiator sandals and short denim skirt swinging an obvious fake and it makes life simple again. I can't explain why, it just does.

I don't really know what is in Pad Thai--it's not something I'd ever order in a restaurant because it actually sounds really boring to me. Noodles and sauce--big whoop. But it's Saturday and I had some noodles and dying vegetables in my fridge (the noodles weren't in the fridge obviously), so I threw this together.

(I'm not not even sure if the 'P' in pad is supposed to capitalized. One day I will wax anger at those who capitalize the names of food that should not be capitalized. It's spelled 'cheese', dimwit, NOT Cheese! Gah! I'm saving up for some tranqulizer first, so I can calm myself down afterwards. I have some issues.)

Anyway, for what it's worth, this is still just noodles and sauce with some veggies, but it's good. Sour and sweet and tangy and all that. OK, now it just sounds like something into which you're supposed to dip your chicken nuggets. Whatever.


Fake Pad Thai
Sauce
1/4 cup curry ketchup (you can use regular too, but I get this stuff from a local German shop and it's delicious)
2 Tbsp soy sauce
juice of one lime
1 Tbsp sesame oil
1 Tbsp sushi rice vinegar
2 Tbsp brown sugar
The rest
1/2 cup diced red onion
1/2 cup shaved carrots
1 cup snow peas, cut in half
1/4 cup green onions
1 pkg. stick rice noodles
1/4 cup chopped peanuts
2 garlic cloves, minced

Get some water boiling for the noodles. In a large sautee pan, heat some olive oil or sesame oil on medium heat. Add the red onions and garlic and sautee for a few minutes. Mix all the sauce ingredients and set aside. Add carrots to pan and cook for another minute. Add sauce and let simmer. Lower the heat and let sit until the noodles are ready.

When the noodles come out of the water, add the peas and green onions to the sautee pan. Add the noodles and toss the whole thing letting it cook for about 2 mins. Add peanuts and serve.

It's good for a Saturday night, even if it does seem a little healthy for the weekend. Make sure you finish it off with a big bowl of chocolate ice cream and a gin and tonic (or four).

Mojito Pork

I was watching the Food Network's grilling marathon yesterday where viewers (just like me!) ask questions of their favourite chefs like Bobby, Alton and Giada (I hate Giada with a passion akin to Al Gore's to fight climate change, but that's a post for another day.) One girl with hot pink hair lamented she was tired of grilling hot dogs on the BBQ and was looking for a way to do sweet dishes beyond just grilled pineapple.

In her homemade video plea, she asked Alton Brown for a BBQ cupcake, which got me more excited than it really should have. Well Alton fell far short of her request in my opinion when he presented her with a clafoutis made with grilled pineapple and pears. (Isn't that exactly what she didn't ask for?)

Anyway, with visions of dancing grilled cupcakes in my head, I decided to also fire up the grill last night. I was far less creative than Alton or the girl with pink hair and decided to do a small pork roast on the BBQ. I'd never done a roast on the coals before, but I figured it couldn't be that hard. This one is inspired by a classic mojito with rum and mint fresh from my garden.


Mojito Inspired Pork Roast
1 pork type thing be it tenderloin or shoulder or whatever you want (enough to feed everyone of course)
3 limes, juiced
2 Tbsp dark rum
2 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp ground ginger
handful chopped fresh mint

Heat your BBQ to medium. While it's heating, mix the lime juice, rum, honey, oil and ginger together. Take a knife and make small slits all over the pork and bathe it in the marinade. Let it sit for about 20 minutes, turning it in the marinade once in a while. Once the BBQ is ready, place the pork in the middle and close the lid. Baste with remaining marinade occasionally. Once the bottom is seared and comes away easily from the grill, flip it over and brown the other side. When all the sides are seared, turn down the heat to low and let the roast cook until it reaches an internal temperature of 145 F-155 F. Mine took about half an hour.

Once that's done, let it sit for a few minutes before slicing in. Sprinkle with some of the fresh mint before serving.

It may not be a BBQ cupcake, but it's good.

Volcano potato

So technically, these aren't really potatoes fondant. I used to make this recipe all the time, but I have no idea what happened to the actual instructions. The other night they suddenly popped into my head, begging to be made. I used Google, but it only turned up what are apparently real potatoes fondant--that is, perfectly cut and peeled cylindrical potatoes cooked in broth and browned.

Well only crazy people have the patience, time and/or energy to cut perfect cylinders out of their potatoes. (If you are one of these people then well... just get a life will you?) What makes this recipe of mine so appealing is that's so bloody easy. Kind of like a drunk cheerleader. I mean, that's pretty damn easy isn't it?

I never did find the actual recipe so I decided to go from memory and wing it. It's amazing what one can pull out of their ass when they really put their mind to it. Apparently, I'm more resourceful than I thought.

Pulled-it-out-of-my-ass (not literally, because that's just gross) Potatoes Fondant

1 bag of those small potatoes

chicken stock

kosher salt

rosemary

Get a pot big enough that you can arrange the potatoes in one layer along the bottom. Pour in chicken stock to go about halfway up the side of the potatoes. I even used homemade stock I whipped up from a leftover chicken carcass a few weeks ago. (Call Martha and tell her there's a new queen in the world of perfect.) 

Turn the heat on medium and cover the pot. Cook the potatoes for about 20 mins until they are pretty tender. Then take a potato masher and press each potato just so the skin splits on one side. (If you go nuts and end up turning them into car crash victims, that's OK, it'll still work.) 

Take the lid off the pot and allow the remainder of the stock to boil off letting the potatoes lightly brown on the bottom.

Remove from pot and toss with fresh rosemary and kosher salt. (I'm not sure why it has to be kosher, except that's what Ina uses in everything so it must be good. Anything blessed by a rabbi is A-OK in my books.)

The stock makes these very buttery and full of flavour. They go with anything and are especially good eaten straight from the bowl with your fingers.

Mazeltoff!

Couscouserrific

One of the joys of home ownership is spending a whole lot of time slaving away on the house, turning it into the ideal version of your dream home. Instead of marrying other people, we really should be saying vows to the bricks, mortar and 2x4s that make up our humble abodes.

This weekend, the backyard was our mistress as we slaved away countless hours laying patio stones, digging through a mountain of dirt, gardening and laying sod. (Truth be told, we're actually doing this all for our eight month old puppy that has had to be content with gravel and a parking pad as a backyard for the last six months, but we'll pretend it's all in the name of increasing the value of our home and so-called "curb appeal".)

Anyway, all that work meant very few hours in the kitchen. On Saturday, our stomachs were rescued by my in-laws who came by with gigantic and delicious burritos that managed to keep us going for a few hours. Otherwise, mealtimes consisted of grazing in the fridge and digging to the back to discover what might be lurking there. The one time I did manage to actually turn on the stove resulted in this wonderful, healthy and tasty roasted vegetable couscous.

Landscaper's Roasted Vegetable Couscous
1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 red onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 yellow pepper, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tsp fresh rosemary
1 1/2 cups whole wheat couscous
1 lemon, zested
2 cups stock
1 cup feta, crumbled
handful fresh mint, chopped
olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400 F. Place all vegetables and chickpeas on a large baking sheet and toss with olive oil, salt, balsamic and rosemary. Roast in oven for about 25-30 mins until veggies are soft. In the meantime, bring stock to a boil along with lemon zest. Once boiling, remove pot from heat and add couscous. Cover pot and let sit until veggies are done.

Once veggies are cooked toss couscous, vegetables, feta and mint in a large bowl. I drizzled a little extra of the vinegar over mine at the end, but I like things vinegary. It's good without that addition as well.

After all that, it'll be time to build the fence. You can do it. I believe in you.

This one's for you Edward & Lestat

I've always loved vampires. When I say that, I mean I love the thoughtful-human kind like Anne Rice and Stephanie Meyer wrote about and not the demon types that just drool and make weird scratching noises. You know what I mean...

Anyway, at the risk of being predictable, I present another pasta dish on the heels of yesterday's. This one is loaded with garlic, hence the vampire reference. (See what I did there?) And when I say loaded, I really mean it. This has three full heads of roasted garlic in it. I won't even make the obvious comment that you probably shouldn't make this for someone if it's only your second or third date.

Edward Cullen's garlic fettuccine
1 pkg fettucine noodles, cooked as you so wish
3 heads garlic
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
3 cups milk
1 tsp chilli flakes
olive oil
salt
pepper

Wrap the heads of garlic in tin foil after drizzling them with some olive oil and sprinkling with a bit of salt. Roast in a 350 F oven for about 20 minutes until the heads are soft and gooey. (Don't believe what people tell you about garlic becoming caramelized and sweet and not stinky after cooking it this way--I'm here to tell you that you will stink after eating this.)

In a small sauce pan, melt the butter. Stir in flour to make a paste. Cook for about 1 min. Slowly add in milk whisking to remove lumps. Slowly heat up the milk until it thickens (about 15 mins). Add in chilli. Once the garlic is done and cooled off a little, squeeze the cloves out into the bechamel sauce. (That's what you did with the milk there.)

Toss sauce with pasta and enjoy with a snifter of O negative.

I'm a huge fan of easy pasta dinners on week nights. Pasta is one of those perfect foods that basically prepares itself. I rank it up there with bananas and eggs--foods that come with their own packaging impress me. (Perhaps I am just easily impressed.)

And while I know the pundits would argue that white pasta is supposed to equate to death in this whole-grain world we live in, sometimes you've just got to let loose. On a side note I've recently discovered a pasta that looks and tastes like white pasta but is made with lentils and flax and has a whole whack of fibre. I am officially in love. This dish below wasn't made with that pasta, but rather the starchy-you-may-as-well-just-eat-a-donut kind. And it's good. It's also made with lots of cheese, and that's good also.

This is so easy that writing a recipe seems a little pointless. Bascially this consists of roasted red peppers from a jar (I know I should have roasted my own, but these are so much cheaper and easier.), some chilli flakes and mascarpone cheese tossed together with pasta hot from the pot so the peppers heat up, the chillis release their spice and cheese melts into a gooey sauce. Top with parmesan and you've got something special happening.