Justin's Birthday

Yesterday was Justin's birthday. I had the entire menu planned out from breakfast on through after dinner dessert. Let's start with breakfast. The night before I started making the dough for cinnamon rolls. I've heard tons of great things about the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls, and I coworker and I were just talking about them earlier this week. Pioneer Woman, for those of you who are familiar, was a city girl that fell in love with a rancher and moved out into the country with him. She cooks. And I mean cooks. Her recipes (found in her blog and cookbooks) do not disappoint. After I started reading through the recipe I realized 1) Anything with 2 cups of butter is going to be fabulous 2) This recipe yields 40 cinnamon rolls! I made 3 cake pans full, and still have dough wrapped up in the fridge.

They were pretty easy to make, just took some time and patience. After you heat milk, oil, and sugar and then add yeast,  you slowly combine in the dry ingredients. Let the dough rise, and then add the rest of the ingredients. At this point I had one ginormous ball of dough. I rolled out the dough in sections, pouring melted butter and cinnamon 'n sugar over the rectangular shaped blob. You roll them up, cut into pieces, and place into baking dishes. I found that the most paste-like the inner sugar is, the easier they are to roll up and stay into neat circles, rather than blobs. I decided to show you the nice circles and not the blobs. No one needs to see exactly how bad they were! They took about 16 minutes in the oven, and during that time I made orange marmalade frosting, just for Justin. I thought they were great, but don't look as appealing as they taste. I work on that next time!

Justin said he didn't want anything for his birthday (yeah, yeah, OK!). So what did I get? More kitchen stuff! Ok, so I profit from this too, whatever. We're married now. What's his is mine and what mine is mine. :) I got him a few new knives from W-S, a new garlic peeler, and microplane grater, and some Crane Coffee beans. You can never have too many knives. We have an old knife that I like, but it is getting dull despite the sharpening and Justin keeps yelling at me for using it. I suppose we might have to "misplace it" when we move out of the apartment. As for the garlic peeler - this is the most amazing kitchen invention of all time. We have had one of these, but it has disappeared. We had to peel garlic the old fashioned way for a month, so deprived. Pop in the garlic to the tube, roll it on the counter, BAM. Peeled garlic. Careful, get too carried away and you have mashed garlic, too!

So now for the good stuff. I also booked hour-long massages for Justin and I early afternoon. I did all the prep cutting and arranging of ingredients before we went. After we got back, I started getting the beef bourguignon ready. I have fallen in love with Julia Child. She is fabulous. I've watched several cooking shows of her on YouTube, and my grandmother has her complete set on VHS. Julia Child loves bacon. Don't be alarmed by what I'm going to talk about next. Vegetarians, skip down a paragraph or two.

Lardons. Yes, root word 'lard'. Bacon. I got slab bacon from our butcher. Again when I was buying it he asked me how thick I wanted it cut. Leave it alone - I need it slab! I used a generous 6 oz and cut it into 1 1/2" by 1/4" pieces. You actually simmer that bacon, and then saute it. Yum. After sauteeing the stew meet and onion and carrot, you combine it all into a dutch oven and add your juices.

Of course you have to use wine from Bourgogne if you are making Beef Bourguignon. I found this one at Whole Foods. So this is what it looks like when it is ready to simmer in the over for 3-4 hours.

Meanwhile, Justin is mixing wine from a kit we got for our wedding. They provide different combinations, and then you make a blend of your own. After you pick what you want, you can order it by the case from this company. Dangerous! So while Justin was pipetting wine and swirling and sniffing, I was making Gougeres. The first 'e' in the word has an accent, but I can't add it into Blogger. These are little cheese puff pasteries. This recipe is from our Bride & Groom cookbook from W-S. They described them as little, buttery snacks, great for appetizers or late-night snacks. And they did not disappoint. After nearly developing tendonitis from trying to stir this thick dough and adding one egg at a time, these cheese, butter, egg, flour, gruyere, and cayenne puffs were a great little snack to help the wine go down. I will be making these again, no doubt.

So those were in the oven, the beef is still simmering... time to make dessert. Chocolate pots de creme. (Yes another accent - I'm about to complain into Blogger.) Also from our Bride & Groom cookbook, these are made of 60% or more bittersweet cocoa bars, milk, cream, sugar, and egg yolks. That's it. You gently melt the chopped chocolate into the heated cream and milk, then gently combine it into the egg yolk and sugar paste.

Next, I poured the mix through a sieve into a glass measuring cup. This takes out all the bigger pieces of chocolate that didn't fully mix and any egg yolk that didn't get incorporated. Pour the chocolate mix into ramekins nesting in a water bath and bake lightly covered with fo

il for 1/2 an hour until set. Chill for 2 hours or overnight.

For a side dish I choose pancetta wrapped radicchio. Alright, so the radicchio would have been much healthier without the pancetta, or the olive oil for that matter, but hey - it was Justin's birthday. You have one life, I'd rather spend it eating good food. I wedged the radicchio, lightly drizzled olive oil and salt and pepper over, then wrapped it with the pancetta pieces. Ready for the oven to roast for 15 minutes or so.

So were are about 1 hour from dinner at this point. The next step for the stew is preparing the onion and mushrooms. The pearl onions were peeled and ends cut off, the mushrooms quartered. Sautee each, then the onions are covered and allowed to simmer another 40 minutes with a bay leave, thyme, and parsley. Next you remove the beef's juices through a sieve and discard the onion and carrot bits. Simmer down the juices until you get the consistency you want. After these are all done (and you've made either potatoes, rice, or pasta to serve under the bourguignon) you combine and serve!

It was great. The meat perfectly tender, all the right flavors, and great company. Justin said he was jealous I was making this dish first. I told him he could help, but he declined. It's his birthday, he deserves to just sit back.

After dinner - pots de creme. I made some espresso and then put some of the leftover whipped cream on top. YUM!!! The cold custa

rd and creme with hot coffee. Perfect after dinner combination. The recipe made 6, I'm glad there are 4 more in the fridge for me later!

So, overall a great culinary feat. I might have gained an pound or two, screw it. French cooking at it's finest. Thank you Ree (PW) and Julia for the inspiration, it turned out great. Happy Birthday, Justin!