Merry Christmas to all...

Merry Christmas, everyone. I got a Trapper Keeper. Yeah, that's right. I'm super stoked.

I am enjoying this so much.

You really should read it too.

You'll thank me, so you're welcome in advance.

I know, right?

I say so many of these, and now I feel like a dork.



But I do NOT, nor have I ever exclaimed, "Twinsies!"

I mean, get it together.

Boeuf Bourginon

So, my year of conquering my terror of raw meat has come to an end. Here’s what I made this year:

January: Beef roast
February: Tacos
March: Pork roast
April: Enchilada casserole
May: Linguini with shrimp
June: Ground beef gravy with mashed potatoes
July: Tilapia Meuniere
August: Chicken breasts with mushrooms in cream sauce
September: Beef noodle soup
October: Delmonico steak
November: Halupki

I really did learn to be less horrified by raw meat, and I'm cooking with it more and more often. This experiment was such a resounding success for me, I'm trying to think of other things I could plug into this model. A Kiefer Sutherland movie each month in 2012, perhaps?

For my final meat meal of the year, I wanted to do something a little more extravagant and special, and I wanted to cook the meal for my family. I decided on Julia Child's signature dish, bouef bourginon.

This dish required me to deal with two kinds of meat (bacon and beef) and took about six hours of cooking. In the end the dish was so delicious and I learned that complex recipes with 34 steps are not something to be afraid of. You just start at step one and keep going through step 34, and in the end I had a knock-your-socks-off dinner that my family loved. Here it is in pictures...

There were 4 or 5 steps just for the bacon that started the recipe. You had to trim it, cut it into lardons, blanch it, saute it, and drain it. Really, Julia?

Carrots and onions were the vegetables that simmered with the dish. (Mushrooms are added later, but only after they've been quartered and braised according to strict instructions.) Because I was serving this to my father, I had to pull all the onions out at the end, but their delicious flavor remained.

Look away, Kristen! I had to pat the beef dry so that it would sear properly. This was the scariest part in terms of raw meat, but I definitely noticed the effects of my experiment. I grabbed that bacon with my bare hands and I didn't wig out if beef juice got on me. A year ago I'd have passed out, which is a painful prospect on my mother's ceramic tile floor.

My seared beef. I had to sear it in small batches so it didn't overcrowd, which took patience, but it was worth it.

Next, the carrots and sliced onions are browned, and when they hit the sauteing fat, the kitchen really starts to smell amazing.

Seventeen steps later, I had something starting to resemble the final product. 95% of that sauce is strong French red wine. Mom was just hoping little Jules didn't get drunk off of dinner. Jen was uncorking the bottles for me and after I poured the first bottle in and told her I needed the second uncorked, she exclaimed, "The second bottle! Are you sure you read that recipe correctly?"

Some sprigs of fresh thyme and it's ready for the oven. Julia's recipe said to simmer it for 3 - 4 hours, but I read that French beef (which she used when writing Mastering the Art of French Cooking) was tougher than American beef and she later said that Americans need only simmer it for about 2 hours, so that's what I did.

While the stew simmers, the mushrooms are braised in butter and olive oil. Julia recommends that you shake the pan to coat the mushrooms in butter and oil. Once they've absorbed the cooking fat, they'll brown nicely.

After the stew is finished in the oven, your work is not done. You have to sieve out the sauce, skim the fat, simmer it, add beef stock if necessary, and then re-baste your meat. This is also the proper time to dip a spoon into the sauce, taste it, and say to yourself, "Yum."

A little more simmering and it's ready to go. I served this with mashed potatoes (thanks to Jen for mashing them) and it was dynamite. (Dad went back for fourths.) I was so relieved it turned out well after all that work. We gobbled it up so fast, I forgot to get a photo of it on a plate, so I leave you with this shot.

Thanks for following my adventures in cooking with meat. Bon appetit!

A little Nutcracker for the holidays, with a side of my mouth is hanging open because this is crazeballs.

Tinsel wreath tutorial

So, if you read yesterday's post, you'll remember that I had a blank space on the wall above my mantle that desperately needed some shiny redness. Enter the tinsel wreath. This project is so simple and so fun and it involves sparkly tinsel, which I think we can all agree is a plus.



You will need a wreath form, tinsel, straight pins, and about 5 minutes of your time.



I got a wreath form made of straw instead of the standard foam. I have no idea why. I started to unwrap the plastic from it, but the straw began to litter the floor of the craft room like a barn, so I just kept the plastic on. It matters not since it will soon be covered in tinsel. However, do not get a wicker wreath form because your pins won't hold the tinsel to the wicker.

Start by securing one end of your tinsel to the wreath form with a straight pin. Then proceed to wrap the tinsel around the wreath form, stopping every few times to fluff up the tinsel and make sure your rows are tight enough. If they're loose, just scoot the rows of tinsel closer together. This project is very forgiving.



My first string of tinsel (15 feet) got me almost halfway around the wreath. When you finish a string, simply use a straight pin to secure both the end of the previous string and the beginning of the new string to the wreath form. Then continue winding.



When you finish, secure the final end of the string to the wreath form with a pin. I'm using a floral pin here because I didn't have the other kind. Man, I need a manicure.



Now stand back and admire your handiwork and think about where you will put it. Sparkly!



Adding some much-needed red to the fireplace. But there's still something missing.



Thankfully, I had a few feet of tinsel leftover. That does the trick.



Fun. Easy. Sparkly. A delight.

Sparkles, sequins, and Christmas craftiness

So, here's how my Christmas decorating turned out. This year I decided to go monochromatic with the mantle, and red seemed the clear choice.


So, I dutifully gathered everything shiny and red in my apartment.



Not surprisingly, there was quite a bit.



But the wall above the mantle still looked too bare. Something needed to be done.



So I got crafty and whipped up a sparkly red wreath. It was quick and easy (tutorial to follow tomorrow) and it made all the difference.



Carrying on with my monochromatic theme, like a magpie I gathered every shiny silver object I own and created this on the dining room register. I was quite pleased.



For the shelf above the sideboard, I went with pastels. I was less pleased. It didn't fill out the space and it didn't pack the visual punch I wanted for that space, since it is visible from my front door. The solution was obvious.



The pastels moved to the register.



Blue, pink, and green ornaments pick up the colors of the sequined trees. I love sequins so much. I'd ensconce myself in sequins if it were socially acceptable.



The hand-blown glass ornaments I brought back from Venice are safe in a footed bowl, which is great since I'm too paranoid to hang them on anything.



And this ended up being my favorite part of the decorations. It's such a lovely, sparkly sight to see when I walk in the door.







May your days be merry and bright.

I'm pretty sure Dan should be kicked out of the family for this.

Decorating...

Pajamas x (Twinkle lights + hot cocoa + Amy Grant's Christmas albums + sparkly ornaments + chocolate peppermint candles+ baking cookies) = Merry merry merry!

70

Magical city

This past weekend we took Jules to New York City for the first time. She saw Times Square, the tree in Rock Center, the Christmas windows on 5th Avenue, and much more. Watching her experience it all was like being in New York for the first time again.

I'll post pics of her adventure soon, but until then, enjoy this beautiful video love letter to my favorite city by talented photographer and filmmaker Andrew Clancy:

A Year in New York from Andrew Clancy on Vimeo.

Wow. Nice job, West Virginia.

The Navy sub is the coolest.

The future is now.

So, what you're saying is, I don't need to have any skills whatsoever?



Check it out. A camera that captures all the information, so you don't actually have to focus while taking a picture. You can focus later, with the camera or on your computer.

Ansel Adams would have passed out.

Oh wow.

Tightrope + base jumping = Amazing

Eleven down, one to go.

November's meat meal was, by far, the most labor-intensive and scary: halupki.


The labor-intesive part: boiling cabbage and peeling off the leaves.



Then you have a nice big bowl of cabbage leaves and your kitchen smells like brussel sprouts, which is lovely if you like brussel sprouts, and I do.



The scary part: A big bowl of ground beef and pork, which you have to mix with rice, garlic, etc. I nearly fainted.



My very first halupki roll. I was so proud.



Soon I had a lovely mountain of them, and they were pretty, so long as I didn't think about what they were stuffed with.



Into the pot with tomatoes to be braised for three long hours.



And then gobbled up with mashed potatoes. A true western PA delicacy. I love living in an area where lots of Polish immigrants settled.

Anticipation

I just realized that exactly one week from this moment I will be eating a delicious meal with my family, or perhaps we'll have just fininshed it and begun packing up the stuffing to sell on the street (family joke) and started to peruse the game closet for the first board game that will be played. Probably decade trivia. Hooray! I can't wait for this week to go by!

I also just realized this means I only have one week to finish up the Cousin Christmas CDs. I need to get on that.

You see this sandwich as you want to see it, in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions.

Dinner tonight was a hot pepper cheese and potato chip sandwich.


This delicacy was imagined up by either Kristen or Alexa or possibly both of them together in one wild and crazy fit of mad GENIUS. You grab some squishy bread, add hot pepper cheese, pop on some potato chips--Pittsburgh style (if the cheese is super hot, go with regular chips, but if it's only regular-hot, go with Gibbles Red Hot chips), and then squish it down like Allison the basketcase in Breakfast Club when she made her Cap'n Crunch/Pixie Stick sandwich.

Yum.

288,000 jelly beans and 1 guitar

So very cool.

Courage

The way the light used to shine...

The skyscrapers that have been built up around it now block the light, but in 1929 this is how glorious it once was to stand in Grand Central.