It's a winner!
One main thing that this experiment is teaching me is that having the right tools to cook with is most important. This purple casserole/dutch oven is a main character. I got it for my birthday at Sams, $39. There's a bright red one at Target for $59. Purple is great.
This recipe uses red wine. Trying to buy wine caused great stress for this good Mormon girl! I was about to go into Sam's liquor department and buy a bottle... in BOULDER. I ended up going to Safeway and buying a bottle of cooking red wine. I had approximately 10 minutes from the time I got home to when I had to leave to take a daughter to the doctor's. I made everyone help do a part of this dish, popped it into the oven for 3 hours and off we went for a strep test.
Oh my holy heck! First your house smells this wafting aroma of beef, bacon, mushrooms, onions, and wine (I guess that's the smell I was smelling). Second, the taste was indescribable. Savory. Mouth watering. Tender. Get the picture? I served it up with french bread toasted with olive oil and hot buttered noodles. How can I ever make beef stew again without using this recipe?
This is my first recipe made from Julia Child's Cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1. A simple omelet. Filled with a saute of mushrooms, onions, and Swiss cheese. It really was easy to make, the secret was getting the olive oil hot enough so that the eggs would not stick. Then, slip the omelet out of the pan and onto a buttered baking dish. Add whipped cream, grated Swiss cheese and melted butter. Pop that into a oven with the broiler on high and let the cheese melt and get a little toasty.
Can I say that I'm glad no one in my family was around, so I didn't have to share. It was an unbelievably a part of heaven. Who would've thought to add more butter with whipped cream.
I loved this movie with Amy Adams and Meryl Streep. I grew up watching Julia Childs on PBS, my own little girl opinions were, "How can anyone watch this drunken woman cook?". But, she captivated and fascinated me and I did watch, and I don't think she was drunk.
After watching the movie, I vowed to buy Julia's cookbooks and do the same thing as Julie. Who doesn't want to learn how to cook like a master chef? I mean, Hell's Kitchen is one of my favorite shows! I went to Barnes and Noble to buy my birthday present last month, but each of her cookbooks was $30 (volumes 1 and 2, paperback!) And then, I walked by the clearance rows of books. There sitting front and center was a blue gift box with a pretty flourish on the front, no words. I walked by and didn't look inside the gift box. After spending an hour, trying to decide if I should buy this $30 paper back cookbook, I went back and looked inside the blue gift box. It was a set of both volumes of Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" hardbound and best yet, the set was only $25. I bought all that they had, 2 sets. It was meant to be. It almost feels like my mom was guiding me to the book, we were both fans.
I can promise as I go thru these books, I won't be doing aspics, calves brains, fish, truffles, lobster, or anything gross.
The title of this blog is a quote in the cookbook and my daughter's and I laughed, "What an oxymoron! Of course you need butter!" Bon Appetite!
