An Ode to Julia

In sticking with our French theme lately, we decided to pair our French onion soup with a traditional coq au vin, a la Julia Child.  This dish has multiple components, and takes some time, but it's a hearty, delicious dish, perfect for these cold winter nights.

There are two components you can prepare in advance; the mushrooms and the pearl onions.  Let's start with the mushrooms.  Just saute your sliced mushrooms in some butter and oil.  They'll first absorb the liquids in the pan, and then release them.  Once they release the liquids and start to brown, you can season with salt and pepper.  Remove them from the heat, toss in some sliced green onions, and saute for a couple more minutes.  Then you can just set them aside while you prepare the rest of the meal.

Next, let's tackle the pearl onions.  Make sure you peel off the skins, and keep them whole.  Toss them into a hot pan with some melted butter and oil.  Roll them around every few minutes so they brown as evenly as possible.

While your onions are browning, you can make your satchel of herbs.  In a piece of cheesecloth, wrap up some parsley, thyme, and a bay leaf.  Wrap it up and tie it with some twine.

Once your onions have browned, you'll add in your liquids.  The recipe calls for stock or wine, but we decided to use a combination of the two.  We went with 1/4 cup beef stock and 1/4 cup red wine.  You'll also toss in you herb satchel, and season with salt and pepper.  Then just let them saute until the onions are tender and the liquid evaporates.   Once the liquid has evaporated and absorbed into the onions, you can set them aside.

Now, on to the main event!  Start by rendering down some sliced bacon in your dutch oven.  Once they've browned slightly, remove them from the pot and throw in your chickens to brown.

We opted to use chicken thighs this time around, but you can use whatever pieces you like.  Really let them settle into the bacon fat and get a nice, golden brown.

Once your chicken is browned on both sides, add your chicken back to the pot.  At this point, you can add some cognac and flame off the alcohol.  Since we didn't have any cognac on hand, we used some of the chocolate stout that we'd used in our French onion soup.

You'll also add in the red wine, enough stock to cover your chicken, a smidge of tomato paste, some garlic, a bay leaf, and a couple sprigs of thyme.  Then just cover your pot and let it simmer until your chickens are cooked through.  If you didn't cook your mushrooms and onions in advance, this is a great time to prepare them.

When your chickens have cooked through, remove them from the pot, and get ready to prepare your gravy.  Your chickens will look purplish since they've absorbed the wine, so don't be concerned when you pull them out.

You'll want to skim some of the fat off your liquid.  No one wants a greasy gravy!  You'll also want to fish out the bay leaf and sprigs of thyme.  Let this reduce down so you have a little more than 2 cups of liquid.  You'll also want to prepare a little gravy thickener.  In this case, it's 2 parts butter, 1 part flour.

Once your little slurry is combined and your sauce has reduced, whisk your butter-flour mixture into the braising liquids.  Let it simmer and thicken to your liking.

When you're just about ready to serve, add your chickens back into the pot, along with your mushrooms and onions.  Baste your chickens in the sauce for a few minutes so they heat through again.

We whipped up some mashed potatoes to go along with our chickens.  They were a great accompaniment to the chicken and the delicious gravy.

This is the type of hearty meal that warms you from the inside, perfect for these frigid days we've been having.

It's Pie Style Jack II: The Em"pie"re Strikes Back!

If you're like us, you've probably spent the week after Thanksgiving eating nothing but leftover turkey and side dishes.  In an effort to not just recreate our Thanksgiving dinner plates, we got creative and turned our leftovers into turkey pot pies!

We started by quartering a few potatoes and peeling a few leftover carrots, and popping them into the oven to roast them for about 15 minutes.  Since they typically have a longer cook time, roasting them first helps minimize the time your pot pies need to be in the oven.  Plus, it gives them a nice roasty flavor.

While those are roasting, you can make your dough to top your pies.  We kept it simple by combining 1 cup of flour with 1 cup of chilled butter, and a splash of vodka.  Try not to overmix the dough, as you want the butter to stay as cold as possible.  Once our dough came together, we wrapped it in some plastic wrap, and stuck it in the freezer to get it cold again.  This will help give you a nice, flaky crust.  If you're making your dough in advance, you can just keep your dough in the fridge.

Once the dough was chilling, we started building our pies.  We chopped up some fresh onion, and dropped them into our little bowls.  Then, each bowl got a healthy spoonful of our leftover green bean casserole.

Then we chopped up some turkey meat, and added those to each bowl.  At this point, the potatoes and carrots were also done, so we chopped those into smaller pieces and tossed them in the bowls as well.

The one thing that was missing was a bit of a gravy.  So we added in a few spoonfuls of our turkey stock, as well as a splash of milk.  Then give everything a little toss and turn in the bowl so it's all mixed up and coated in the stock and milk.

Then, just role out your dough, cut it into circles wide enough to top your bowls.  Make sure you cut slits in the top to so the steam can escape (clearly the 2 on the right were our first crusts).  You also want to beat an egg and brush each crust with the egg wash.  This will give you a nice, golden brown crust.

Be sure to place your pies on a baking sheet to catch any gravy that may spill out of your pies.  Pop them into a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes, or until your crusts are cooked through, and golden brown.

The crust was buttery and really flaky, almost like a biscuit.  It was the perfect topper for our pot pies, and a great way to repurpose our leftovers.

This is How We Casserole!

One of my favorite Thanksgiving dishes is green bean casserole, so when Justin and I were developing this year's menu, I was pretty adamant about including it.  Turns out it's really easy to make a dressed up version of the traditional dish.  We used this recipe as a guide, and were on our way!

Instead of using the standard, canned fried onions, we decided to fry up some shallots.  We thinly sliced 4 shallots (which you can do ahead of time, though it made our fridge smell like onions), and they were ready to be fried.  The beauty here is that you don't need to make a batter or coat them in flour.  Just heat a pan with some oil, and drop the shallots in.  Be careful not to drop too many shallots in the pan at once.  They crisp up pretty fast, and you want to be able to pull them all out before they burn.  Once your shallots are fried, you can set them aside while you cook up the rest of the dish.

Bring a big pot of water to a boil, and drop in your green beans or hericot verts, just to blanche them.  Make sure you have an ice water bath ready, so as soon as you drain your beans, dump them into the ice bath to stop the cooking process.

While that's happening, you can whip up your creamy mushroom sauce.  You want about 3/4 lb. of mushrooms.  Just get whatever kind of mushrooms you like, and slice them into bite sized pieces.  For our casserole, we went with shiitakes.  Melt some butter in your pan, and saute your mushrooms.

When you first drop your mushrooms into the pan, season them with pepper.  You'll see the mushrooms first release their liquid, and then reabsorb them.  When they've reabsorbed them, that's when you season them with salt.

Once they cook down, you'll sprinkle them with a couple tablespoons of flour.  Toss them around so the mushrooms are coated.  The flour will start to form a bit of a paste, but this will help to thicken your sauce.  Once the flour has cooked down a bit, add in your vegetable or chicken stock and some heavy cream.  You want a 3 to 1 ratio of stock to cream, so depending on just how saucy you want your casserole to be, you can adjust accordingly.  I don't like my beans to be swimming in sauce, so we stuck with 1 1/2 cups of stock, and 1/2 cup of heavy cream.  This was the perfect amount of sauce for about 1 1/2 lbs. of beans.

Stir everything together and let it simmer until it thickens.  Once your sauce has thickened, you can toss in your beans.  You want to make sure they get evenly coated in the sauce.

Then pour everything into your baking dish.  Make sure you transfer all of the sauce into your dish too.  Top it all with your fried onions, and pop it into the oven for about 15 minutes.

You want the green beans to heat up again, the sauce to be bubbling, and the onions to really crisp up again.  This from-scratch version of green bean casserole doesn't require much more effort than the traditional dish, plus it's a bit healthier since you know exactly what's going into it.  You can pick your mushrooms, and you're not getting all that extra salt or preservatives from the canned mushroom soup and fried onions.  Not to mention, it tastes extremely delicious!

We Got Game!

We were fortunate to be given a great treat from a friend--a venison tenderloin.  While thinking of ways we could highlight the natural flavors of this protein, without overcooking it, I was inspired by a family Fall favorite from my childhood.

We decided to do a refined take on a mushroom Swiss steak.  Since we had chilly weather here in DC last week, it was the perfect time to make this hearty dish.  And since our cut of meat was super lean, this method of cooking, which involves tenderizing and braising it, really helps to create steak that melts in your mouth.  Start by taking any silver skin off of your meat.  It is tough, chewy connective tissue that you don't want.  Simply pull up the membrane and use the tip of a boning knife to gently slice it free from the meat as you pull it away.

The other thing to prep ahead of time is the leeks.  As we always do, slice them up and toss them in a bowl of water to clean out the dirt and grit.  Since there are so many layers, the dirt can get trapped between them.  In the bowl of water, the dirt will sink to the bottom, and your leeks will be clean.

Now for the fun part.  Slice the loin into filets, season, and then pound them flat.  Don't be afraid to give 'em a good whack.  You can place a piece of plastic wrap over them to prevent meat wads from flying off your cutting board.  Then lightly dredge them in a little AP flour.  Be sure to shake off any excess.

Once you've got them nice and coated brown them up in your dutch oven or slow cooker.  You just want to get a little crust on them.  They will braise for a long time so you really just want a sear on them.

Remove your steaks from the dutch oven, and set them aside. Melt some butter in the dutch oven, and toss in some freshly chopped rosemary.  Be sure to scrape up any loose brown bits of meat juices and flour.  Then add in some onions, celery, and carrots---and you got a mirepoix going.  Let them soften until they become fragrant. 

Once the mirepoix has cooked down add your leeks and 'shrooms.  Once the mushrooms have released their liquid, season the mixture with salt and pepper, and they will reabsorb it again.  At this time, add in your beef stock. Turn it down to low and add back your steaks.

Now here is the hardest part...the waiting.  Keep your temperature low and braise your meat for at least an hour per pound.  You can let it go longer and it will get more tender as the muscle and connective tissue continue to break down.  Once your meat is nice and tender, you just need to thicken up your mushroom gravy.  We used a slurry of flour and water, and a little bit of heavy cream.

We paired this meal with buttery, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, and a little fresh flat leaf parsley to garnish.  The venison was amazingly tender, and the natural gaminess and earthiness of the mushrooms were so comforting as they ruminate in the gravy and buttery spuds.

Now I know we usually don'y post recipes, but I worked one up to share with my mom and sister:

4 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil 
1 cup sliced leeks
2 cloves garlic
2 stalks celery diced
2 small carrots diced
1 medium onion diced
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon rosemary
1 teaspoon italian parsley
1 1/2 pounds sliced mushrooms (I used cremini) 
3 Tbsp all purpose flour plus some extra for dreging beef steaks
3 cups low-sodium beef broth
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup heavy cream 

CSA Recap

Helloooo!  Apologies to our loyal followers...I know we've been a bit silent over the last couple weeks, and that was not intentional.  Justin and I were over in China for the last couple weeks, and had been planning to post a few things while we were gone, until I was reminded that China blocks Google and blogs.  Whomp!  Whomp!  We'll have a recap of some of the delicious things we ate while we were traveling, but I still need to get settled back in first.  So let's pick up where we left off...our CSA recap...

And here's how we used everything...

• Chicken Marsala & Roasted Turnips
• shitake mushrooms
• oyster mushrooms
• turnips
• green onions
• Steak Frites
• sweet potatoes
• Roasted Chicken (like this one)
• whole chicken
• Kale & Bacon Frittata (sorta like this one, but with squash on the bottom)
• kale
• squash
• green onion
• Pork Chops with Mango Salsa
• green onion
• romaine
• watercress

We ended up just eating the peanuts while watching some basketball, and the potatoes were used for some home fries for a weekend breakfast.  We'll get back on track with our regular posts...promise!

CSA Day AND Chicken Marsala

That's right...you're getting a two for one deal tonight!  So let's get things started.

Here's what we hauled in today...

We're really excited about this whole chicken.  The peanuts and potatoes will be a little trickier since they are both off limits with the Paleo diet, but since we allow ourselves one cheat day, we'll find a way to incorporate them into meals then.

Now...for tonight's dinner, we whipped up some chicken marsala and roasted turnips.

We started by making a "marinade" for the chicken.  I use that term loosely since it wasn't your typical saucy marinade, but that's how the recipe phrased it, so that's what I'm sticking with.  We started by slicing and dicing some green onion (since we didn't have shallots), white onion, garlic, thyme, rosemary (our little twist), and sage, and adding in a bit of grapeseed oil.  Then we layered in our chicken, making sure each piece was nicely covered in the aromatics.

The recipe says to cut your chicken into chunks, but we went more with cutlets.  So I stacked them up, making sure to get the onions and herbs in between each piece, and let them sit for about 10 minutes while we prepped the turnips.  We kept them simple and just roasted them up, similar to how we did the cauliflower here.  Once the chicken had a chance to marinate, we browned them in a pan, and then popped 'em into the oven just to stay warm (so turn your oven no higher than 200).

Using the same pan, we added the remaining onions and herbs to the pan to soften, and then added in the mushrooms.  We used both the oyster and shitake mushrooms that we picked up in our share.

Once the mushrooms have cooked down, add in your marsala wine to deglaze the pan.  Be sure to scrape up all the delicious brown bits that may be stuck on the bottom of your pan.  If you use a non-stick pan like we did, you won't have to worry about those stuck-on bits.

Once the alcohol has cooked off, add in your chicken stock.  Give everything a good stir, and be sure to season your sauce with salt and pepper.  Then you just let it simmer and reduce for about 10 minutes.  Up until this point, it was Paleo-friendly.  But we had to add a tiny bit of cornstarch to thicken the sauce.  The recipe called for arrowroot as the thickening agent, but we didn't have any on hand.  Considering there was only about 1/2 tsp of cornstarch, I'm going to say this was still Paleo-friendly.

Once your sauce has thickened to your desired viscosity, you can toss your chickens in so they can absorb some of the sauce.  Then you're ready to serve!