Beef Bourguignon

Boeuf Bourguignon was made well known in America by the famous Julia Child. It is a comforting, warm, meaty stew whose French name translates in English to "Beef Burgundy", but is most commonly known as 'Beef Bourguignon' (half English, half French). As the name hints, the beef braises in red wine (the 'burgundy' from the Burgundy region of France) over an extended period of time. This cooking method tenderizes the meat so much that it is possible to use a very cheap, tough cut of meat that would otherwise be undesirable. Because this beef stew worked so well with cheaper cuts of meat, it was classically the "poor man's" stew in France. Now it is just a great hearty meal; perfect for a chilly day when you want to come home and make the house smell warm and yummy and fill your tummy!


Shopping List (for 3 servings)

• 1 lb raw Beef, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1/2 large Yellow Onion, roughly sliced (or a large handful of pearl onions)
• 3 large Carrots, sliced into medallions
• 3 small Potatoes, cubed (or mushrooms)
• 1 teaspoon of minced Garlic
• 2 cups Beef Broth
• 1 cup Red Wine
• 1 can Green Beans, drained (or peas)
• 2 Tablespoons Corn Starch
• Seasonings of your choice: I just used black pepper and a couple sprigs of fresh thyme, and it was very flavorful, but you can add any seasonings you like; some other traditional bourguignon herbs are parsley and bay leaves.

(no added salt necessary as beef broth is already salty)

Typically, beef bourguignon starts by browning bacon and then sauteing the beef cubes in the rendered bacon fat. However, I have (obviously) skipped the bacon fat step. Instead, start by heating a tablespoon or so of oil in a wide dutch oven. When it is very hot (almost smoking), add your cubes of beef, and brown on all sides.
**Note, your oil needs to be very hot before you add the meat so that you can sear and brown the outsides and keep moisture inside that will cook tenderly as it braises in the stew later.

Add the beef broth, wine, minced garlic, and herbs/seasonings. Stir well. 

Bring to a boil, place lid tightly on pan, then turn heat to LOW. 

Let it simmer, covered and over LOW heat for 1 hour:

After 1 hour, you will have a thick, rich, flavorful base for your stew. Add your carrots, onions, and potatoes at this time:

Cover again, and continue to simmer for another 30 minutes or so (until your veggies are tender):

After your root veggies have simmered and softened, add the green beans for about 5 minutes (until they are heated through):

Mix corn starch into 2 tablespoons of water and whisk into a clearing of the stew broth. Carefully stir stew all together and let it simmer for about 5 minutes so that the broth may thicken a bit.

Beautiful! And it smells SO good too!

Serve with warm crusty bread

...and ENJOY this filling, tender, warming GOODNESS!

Alterations: You can use... 

• Pearl onions instead of sliced onions
• Peas instead of green beans
• Mushrooms as an additional veggie
• Whatever else you like! -Comment below to share your ideas :)

Creamy Rice Pudding

Recently, Peter and I went out for chinese food with my family and ended up with a bunch of extra rice. I feel like this happens every time we have chinese food. I hate to see it go to waste, so I usually like to make rice pudding with those superfluous servings of rice that they serve.


I love Kozy Shack rice pudding, so I found (what claims to be) the history and recipe behind it. I recreated it at home to be a slightly healthier version. This one is SO good that you might actually confuse it for Kozy Shack, and you'd never even know that it's a better-for-you version too!


The 'Kozy Shack' recipe that I found, uses whole milk and uncooked rice that simmers in the whole milk mixture to cook into the pudding. Instead, I used one part non-fat milk and one part half & half for the creamy base, and I used precooked rice so that you can use that leftover rice that always makes it into your fridge after a chinese food dinner.


Recipe (4 servings)

• 2 cups Half and Half
• 2 cups Nonfat Milk
• 1 Egg
• 1/3 cup Sugar
• 1/8 tsp Salt
• 1 1/2 cups leftover or precooked Rice
• 1 1/2 tsp Vanilla
• dash of Cinnamon

Combine your half & half and milk in a pot and bring to a simmer over low heat (about 5 minutes)

While your milk simmers, cream together the egg, sugar and salt:

Stir the egg mixture into the simmering milk. Mix well. Then add the rice into the pot and stir again.

Continue to simmer pot over low heat, stirring constantly

Simmer, stir, and allow to thicken for about 30-40 minutes

Eventually the rice grains will swell, and you should be able to see them in the mixture without even stirring it up. Then remove pot from the heat.

Stir the vanilla into the mixture:

Sprinkle just a dash of cinnamon into the pot (I just tilted the cinnamon shaker and gently tapped it twice to get this much):

Stir well:

Serve:

Eat:

Enjoy the sweet, creamy goodness:

OR, cool in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator...

and enjoy it chilled, Kozy Shack style!

Alternative Options: 

• Add 3/4 cup golden raisins into the pot for the last 10 minutes that it simmers
• Serve topped with raisins, chopped pistachios, or an extra sprinkle of cinnamon for a little garnish and extra flavor.

Angel Food Cake

I have always loved angel food cake because it is really light and not too 'sicky-sweet'.  Ever since I was a little girl I would ask for an angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream for my birthday.  This week, on my 25th birthday, it was no different :)

In fact, I love angel food cake with strawberries so much, that I even had it for our wedding cake!

I had never made an angel food cake from scratch before, but a year or two ago (I don't remember what inspired me at that time) I decided that store-bought varieties were too dry and I was going to make one myself. I must have looked through 30 different recipes to gather ideas that I liked. I had to have known at the time why I decided the amounts and techniques that I did, but now I have no idea why I have to mix it the way I do; I just follow the directions on the old torn piece of scratch paper that I wrote it on back then, and it faithfully yields the most moist, yet fluffy and perfectly sweet angel food cake every time!

Recipe: 

• 1 cup Flour
• 1 1/2 cups Sugar
• 12 Egg Whites
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar
• 1 1/2 tsp Vanilla

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Then sift together the flour and half the sugar (3/4 cup)

Separate the eggs, do not let ANY hint of yolk into your whites. Angel food cake is light and fluffy because the whites rise, but if there is any oil from the yolks then it will not rise quite like it should.

(don't waste the yolks, keep them to make ice cream, or creme brulee or anything else that may require yolks)

**Helpful Hint: Use a very big bowl for your whites, much larger than mine here, because eventually all of your ingredients will end up in this bowl. You will soon see that this one was not quite big enough and I had to transfer it all to a bigger bowl later.

Add the vanilla, cream of tartar, and salt.

Whip to a medium peak (when your 'peak' can stand up on its own, but not quite straight up- it should slouch over like Free Willy's fin)

Then add the other half of the sugar (3/4 cup) to your medium peaks, and whip again until firm (much stronger and stiffer than before.)

See how my bowl was not big enough! And this is without even adding the sifted flour/sugar mix yet!

Now add the sifted flour mixture to your firm-whipped egg mixture, just a little bit at a time...

...and fold in gently until it is well incorporated, but without breaking down the stiffness of your whites too much. It should look smooth, but still be pretty stiff, like this: 

Then carefully transfer it to an UNGREASED angel food cake pan (do not use a non-stick spray!). If you spray it, those oils will cause the same collapsing damage that the oils from the yolks would do!

Bake at 375 degrees F for about 40 minutes

When you take it out, let it cool upside down so that it doesn't fall in while it's cooling... like a bad souffle.

**Helpful Hint: my mom taught me that a wine bottle fits right into the center hole of the pan to hold it upside down while it cools. 

with a long skewer or rubber spatula (or anything non-metal that wont scratch your cake pan), loosen the edges of the cake and invert it onto your platter.

Then top with some of my sister's homemade whipped cream and just a few strawberries!

or maybe a lot of strawberries... and an extra bowl full for serving!

Kinley and 'Baby Blue Bear' are helping to put the birthday candles on the cake

Uh oh! Baby Bear's foot got into the frosting...

   

It was a difficult clean up job, but Kinley didn't complain:

...STILL workin' on it :)

My 25th piece of birthday cake!