Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon (gone paleo)

Have you seen the most delightful auto-tunes ever? It is of Julia Child, and I watch it regularly because it makes me feel very happy.

I recently happened across a Julia Child cookbook at the library that listed all of the recipes from her PBS series. Rather than be organized by meal or category, the whole cookbook is organized by show. Boeuf Bourguignon was show # 96, and I made it last week. It is actually my first Julia Child recipe ever, and I found it easy, although lengthy, and absolutely delicious. This is a recipe you need to be around for - so make it on a day when you want to feel toasty with the oven on and putzy around the house. (Incidentally,  I thought about making Coq Au Vin, and after reading that recipe, realized it is basically the SAME as Boeuf Bourguignon, but with chicken.) I actually didn't totally know what either of these recipes were, even though I spent three years working at a French restaurant where we served both (my past vegetarianism kept me from actually eating them). But essentially, Boeuf Bourguignon combines slow cooked beef (or venison in my case), lots of red wine, onions, broth and mushrooms. It sounds so simple and not too exquisite, but how these simple things come together = totally delicious.

Part 1: Beef
6 oz bacon (not smoked)
olive oil
3 lbs. lean stewing beef cut into 2-3" chunks
3 c. "full bodied, young red wine such as Macon, Burgandy, or Mountain Red" (I used what I had, which was not any of those and it still was good!)
2 c. beef broth
1 T tomato paste
2-3 cloves mashed garlic
1/2 t thyme
1 bay leaf
salt

1. Preheat oven to 325.
2. Cut the bacon into sticks 1 x 1/4". Brown the sticks in a large skillet with a little oil and render out the fat. When browned, remove the bacon.
3. Set heat moderately high under skillet with oil/fat. When almost smoking, brown the beef a few pieces at a time - turning frequently to brown all sides. Place the beef, as it is browned, in a casserole or baking dish.
4. Pour browning fat out of skillet (I had used up all mine), pour in the red wine, and scrape up all the flavorful brown bits, then pour wine into casserole. Add the bacon and enough beef broth to almost cover the meat; stir in the rest of the ingredients and bring casserole to a simmer on top of the stove. Cover the casserole and set it in the lower third of the oven. Regulate heat (I had to turn mine down to 275) so the liquid simmers slowly for 2 1/2 to 3 hours or longer, until beef is tender when pierced with a fork.

Part 2: Onion and Mushrooms
1 lb. fresh mushrooms
1/2 T olive oil
1 1/2 T butter
1/4 t salt
18-24 small white onions 1" in diameter (I just used two large onions, chopped)
1 T butter
1/2 t salt
water

1. Trim mushroom stems. Cut the caps into quarters and the stems on the bias. Heat oil and butter in a skillet until butter foam begins to subside, add the mushrooms and toss over high heat for 3-4 minutes to brown the mushrooms very lightly. Remove to a side dish until needed, then toss with the salt.
2. Because I used chopped onions instead of whole ones I skipped some steps. She has you boil and peel the onions. For chopped onions: place chopped onions in a heavy saucepan; add the butter and salt and enough water to come halfway up the onions. Cover and simmer very slowly for 20-30 minutes, or until onions are tender. Set aside, saving cooking liquid.

Part 3: Sauce
3 T Butter
1 Onion, diced and boiled in water/butter*

*This onion is functioning as the thickener here instead of flour.
1. Boil a diced onion in a little bit of water and the butter so that the onion becomes translucent and the water boils off. It will take about 15 minutes. Blend it in the food processor until smooth.
2. When the beef is done, set the cover "askew" and drain the cooking liquid in a saucepan. You should have about 2 1/2 cups (I did not- way less for me!); if liquid has boiled down, add more beef broth. Skim off any fat and bring liquid to a simmer. Taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper as necessary. Add pureed onion and butter to broth, as well as onion water from earlier. This is the sauce!
3. Add onions and mushrooms to the beef, pour on the sauce, cover and simmer slowly for 5 minutes to blend flavors. The dish is now done! (If you are not serving immediately, let cool and refrigerate to reheat later.)
4. Serve the boeuf bourguignon in its casserole, or, if you wish, arrange on a hot platter surrounded by roasted cauliflower, on top of mashed cauliflower, or decorated with parsely.

Shrimp and Pesto Zucchini Pasta

I am obsessed with zucchini noodles.  My little julienne peeler is the best kitchen gadget I have purchased this year.  Besides a giant crock pot I guess:) I am constantly dreaming up ways to use my peeler to make fun vegetable dishes.  Ever since basil harvesting time I have been making an easy pesto sauce and adding it to my veggie noodles.  If you make a batch of pesto ahead of time and either freeze it or store it in the refrigerator, this is a fast and easy dinner option.  Today I decided to add a few shrimp to the dish, but I have used chicken before, which was also good.

I think the green color of the noodles and the pesto really compliment each other.  The little pink shrimp are a yummy and visually appealing addition to the dish.  After all, we eat with ours eyes first.

Pesto Ingredients
fresh basil leaves
pine nuts
olive oil
sea salt

Honestly,  I eyeball the ingredients. Add however much you like.  I like to roast the pine nuts on the stovetop for a few minutes to get their oils going and bring out the flavor.  Add the basil, pine nuts, and salt to the food processor.  Slowly drizzle in the olive oil as it is mixing.  I use Megan's earlier advice about picking an olive oil.  Try not to use extra virgin olive oil, it has a strong flavor that over powers the rest of the ingredients.  I use light olive oil instead.

Pasta Time!

Thaw the shrimp.  Cook them over medium heat in a little olive oil until tender.  While the shrimp are cooking, cut your zucchini noodles.  Once the shrimp are cooked remove them from the pan and add the noodles to the sauté pan with some olive oil.  Then, add a couple tablespoons of the pesto.  Cook a couple minutes until the noodles start to get tender.  Add the shrimp back in for the last minute of cooking time.


Bon Appétit!

SCD/Paleo Pumpkin Pie

When fall rolls around I always find myself craving pumpkin pie.  Naturally, the pie pumpkins have been plentiful at the market lately, and they have been calling my name.  I bought one a couple weeks ago and whipped up with this tasty pumpkin recipe that is remarkably similar to pumpkin pie.  I didn't make a crust, but you could easily add the mixture to any sort of crust.  You could probably use canned pumpkin, too, but there's just something so cozy about pulling a roasted pumpkin out of the oven.  Plus, you can roast the seeds for a great snack.

How to roast a pumpkin

Cut pumpkin into large pieces- around 4 pieces.  Put them flesh side down on a baking sheet and roast in a 350 degree oven for about an hour.  Once you can easily stick a fork in the shell and the pieces start to flatten out, you know it's ready.  Let the pumpkin cool until it's easier to handle.  Then, scoop out the flesh using a metal spoon.

SCD Pumpkin Pie

3 large eggs
1 can pumpkin puree (about a cup and a half)
1 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Preheat oven to 350 F. Generously grease a 9″ pie pan with coconut oil or butter. In a medium bowl, beat eggs. Add pumpkin and coconut milk. Stir to combine. Add honey, vanilla, salt and spice. Mix well. Pour into greased pie pan and bake for 1 hour until the top is nicely browned and the custard filling has set. Let cool and then refrigerate overnight. It’s very important to refrigerate and thoroughly chill the pie before serving as it helps the filling to set. If cut when still warm out of the oven, the filling is way too soft and more of a pudding than a pie.

I eliminated the honey and made my own coconut milk.  The natural sweetness of the coconut and pumpkin made up for the loss of the honey.  Over all, this is a super tasty fall dessert.

Happy Halloween!

Mish Mash and Paleo Meatloaf

Well, I seem to not be posting my meals lately, though I am eating lots of delicious recipes from last year, including coconut kale, bohemian brussels sprouts, lots of roasted delicata squash from my garden, and various venison steaks.

I did make this crock pot meatloaf last week...mostly because I had one of those weeks where I was not home long enough to cook but needed many meals, and why not let it all cook while I am away?! I love crock pots. It tasted great - it looked slightly strange because you get some excess liquid - but no problem.

The recipe I followed/modified is here from a blog called PaleoPot. All of the recipes are for a crock pot - so clever! And I thought the tomato topping was one of my fave paleo ketchup sort of substitutes. It was super easy and really good.

Meatloaf:
2 pounds of lean ground meat
2 eggs, beaten.
4 ounces of bacon, crisped and chopped.
1/2 of a med white onion, small dice.
2 stacks of celery, sliced thinly or chopped
1/2 small green pepper, small dice
2 tsp of dried oregano
1 tsp of black pepper
1 tsp of thyme
2 tsp of smoked paprika
1 tsp salt

Sauce:
1 small can of tomato paste (can also use 1/4 cup of tomato sauce)
2 to 3 tbsp of dijon mustard
2 tsp of smoked paprika
1 tsp of apple cider vinegar
salt to taste

1. Chop up your bacon and cook until brown and crispy.
2. In a large bowl combine your ground meat, beaten eggs, bacon, veggies and seasonings. Mix everything together by hand, forming a loaf. Place your loaf in your slow cooker and press it down so that the top is flat and you have about of inch of space between the loaf and the sides of the slow cooker. (this is where all that liquid fills in later.)
3. Mix your tomato sauce ingredients together and spoon them over the loaf. Use a spoon or a knife to frost the loaf’s top as evenly as possible. (I did this later after the loaf was done because I ran out of time in the morning - still was great!)
4. Cook on low for 4 to 6 hours.

*This also reheats super well and was good cold.

Roasted Chicken Thighs/Roasted Beets & Sweet Potatoes

Well, as fall descends, my work schedule shifts to later hours. Which means I want dinner to be pretty speedy and/or easy, along with tomorrow's lunch prep. Last night I ate steak and some roasted broccoli (20 minutes total, but only 5 of that involved any action on my part). This morning I put 4 chicken thighs in the oven, along with 2 small sweet potatoes (cut into wedges), and 2 beets. They all roasted in under an hour, and I got 2 lunches and a dinner out of it, plus some extra sweet potatoes for breakfast tomorrow. And all I have to do is reheat it for dinner. I love fall and roasting things!

Roasted Chicken Thighs
4 bone-in, skin-on thighs
Olive oil
Spiced salt (I like Sel de Cuisine from Mississippi Market)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Rub olive oil and salt rub over thighs (all sides). Place them skin side down in a cake pan. Bake for 40-50 minutes, flipping over halfway through.

Roasted Beets and Sweet Potatoes

While the chicken cooks, throw in some beets wrapped in foil to roast, and/or sweet potato wedges. I coated the sweet potatoes in coconut oil and sprinkled on a bunch of the Sel de Cuisine. They only take about 20-30 minutes, depending on the wedge size, and can be flipped part way through. You could do giant wedges, which would finish up about the same time as the chicken. The beets take the longest: about an hour. Once they are cool enough to handle, peel off the skin (I just waited til I got home later that day.) I made a simple salad a la An Everlasting Meal from a couple of posts ago: slice or chop the cooled beets and top with olive oil, vinegar, a nice salt, and roasted nuts. Mmmm.

Chicken thighs sans 1 (it was in my lunch already)

For the fast dinner: reheat the thighs under the broiler for a few minutes on each side. They get piping hot, and can be served with the chilled beets, or along with the sweet potato wedges (reheated or not) making dinner cook time about 10 minutes.

Paleo Energy Bars

I am going camping again - including some expected canoeing and portaging and traveling, so I have been on the hunt for a good granola/energy bar recipe to fuel my travel.

I settled on a slightly modified recipe from Paleo magazine that includes macadamia nuts, dates, coconut and dried fruit.  Really, it seems as though dates are THE ingredient for paleo energy bars - they bind the nuts and whatever else together. My second fave recipe was for chocolate date nut balls. Yum. These bars turned out super tasty - very granola-bar-ish. They do fall apart more easily than baked granola bars, but that seems minor compared to the tastiness!

Paleo Energy Bars

• 8 Medjool dates, sliced in half, pits removed
• 1/2 cup finely shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup organic currants
• 3/4 cup macadamia nuts
• 3/4 cup other nuts (I used almonds and brazil nuts)
• 1/2 cup dried cherries
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 tsp honey
• pinch of salt

1. Add all ingredients to a food processor and blend for about 1 minute or until everything is chopped into small pieces and starts to stick together.
2. Place mixture on a large piece of wax paper.  With your hands, shape into a rectangle, pressing and patting it until very dense and it sticks together nicely. I actually pressed mine into a wax-paper lined rectangular tupperware - whatever works.
3. Refrigerate for a few hours, until very firm.  Slice into bars and enjoy!
4. Store at room temperature for up to 1 week; in the fridge for up to 2 weeks; or wrap bars individually and freeze until needed.  To thaw, simply set on counter for about 30 minutes to bring to room temperature before eating.

*I wrapped these in wax paper and packed them in a ziplock baggie for my canoe trip. They are currently in the freezer until I leave!

Roasted tomatoes

I recently read An Everlasting Meal, and oh I could just read this book endlessly. I learned about it from my cousin Jenny, who does food writing/photos in DC - often about Slavic food, like this one for Georgian Eggplant Rolls with Walnut-Garlic Filling.  She also has a lovely blog called Eat with Pleasure that I find captivating.

The book is not really a cookbook, except that it also is. Author and chef Tamar Adler really is just writing about all the glorious ways to enjoy food - and while reading it, one's confidence is bolstered to do so while cooking without recipes, with joy and ease. The chapters are titled things like: How to Boil Water, How to Teach an Egg to Fly, and How to be Tender. Throughout it all she talks about how to make the most out of every ingredient (save parsley stems, salvage herbs, etc), while also doing things like baking a surplus of root veggies on Sunday to then make all kinds of delicious things with them throughout the week. It's really beautifully written and I found it so fun and creative. For example, in How to Season a Salad:

Because a salad can be made of anything, make one of an ingredient about which you get excited, or of whatever looks most lively, or of whatever you have around already...Cold, roasted beets, sliced or cubed, drizzled with vinegar, and mixed with toasted nuts and olive oil are a wonderful salad. So is roasted broccoli, tossed with vinegared onions and a light smattering of dried chile. So are green beans, boiled until just cooked, cold and sliced thinly, tossed with peanuts and crisp scallions and rice wine vinegar and sesame oil. So is boiled cauliflower or potatoes already salted, drizzled with vinegar and oil, with a big handful of chopped olives and capers mixed in. Anything, cooked or raw, cut up a little, mixed firmly with acid, salt, and a little fat, laid carefully on a plate, or spooned nicely in a bowl, is a "salad." 

This recipe/post is not really anything from her book, but it is inspired by her writing. I have had a surplus of cherry tomatoes this season - which really, I love cherry tomatoes and can eat them on pretty much anything. Lately my favorite is a salad of cucumber, blanched green beans, cherry tomatoes and tuna salad. But still, there are only so many a person can physically consume each day. So some go in the freezer (do you know you can just freeze tomatoes? it means when you go to cook them later they will have the peel on, but I hardly notice that for the ease that is just popping them in a freezer bag), and some get cut in half and roasted.

These roasted tomatoes can then just live in a jar covered in olive oil in the fridge for many weeks, or put in the freezer too. These are absolutely delicious with buttery eggs in the morning - they cause me to swoon they are so good. They would also be great on pizza, in salad, pasta, with sauteed veggies, etc. And after the tomatoes are gone, the left over olive oil is herb and tomato infused, which makes it tasty for putting on any other veggies or salad.

Oven roasted cherry tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes (as many as you have) - cut in half
olive oil
herbs: basil and thyme are good
salt and pepper

Arrange your tomatoes halves on a cookie sheet and drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with herbs and salt and pepper. Bake at 250 degrees for 2-3 hours, depending on the done-ness you like and the size of your tomatoes. *You can do this with slices of larger tomatoes too.  I like mine to still be soft, but dehydrated and without much liquid left. Remove them from the oven when they look right to you, and let cool. Put in a jar and cover with olive oil (will last several weeks this way), or freeze the whole tray and then put the tomatoes in a freezer bag.

For the eggs: make scrambled eggs with extra butter - melt the butter in the pan first, and pour in your eggs (with a little cream added in). Cook them until they are just barely done, and then serve them with the tomatoes from the jar, gently laid on top. It is divine!