Boeuf Bourguignon – Pressure Cooker Style!!!

Tags

Beef, Boeuf Bourguignon, Carrots, instant pot, Julia Child, mushrooms, Pressure Cooker

I have previously posted a recipe for Boeuf Bourguignon that was inspired by Julia Child. It is delicious! In the past I have slow cooked it, but I thought I would try making this in my pressure cooker and voila, a delicious and quick meal is born! The pressure cooker not only speeds up cooking times, it infuses the flavor into your ingredients in a way that slow cooking or stovetop cooking does not. And nothing is as warm and soothing on winter night as Boeuf Bourguignon! It is also sophisticated enough to serve to company!

This recipes takes the total prep and cooking time from about 4 hours down to maybe an hour, plus. I have a pressure cooker with various functions, so was able to do everything in the one pot. If yours does not have this capability, you might have to do some of the initial steps in a separate pan on your stove top. Now you can have Boeuf Bourguignon on a week night! So here’s how I did it…

Boeuf Bourguignon – Pressure Cooker Style!

6 oz of bacon, cut into 1 1/2 inch chunks

3 pounds lean stewing beef cut into 2 inch cubes

1 large carrot, sliced

1 onion, sliced

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

2 tbsp flour

3 cups full-bodied red wine (I used a Cabernet Sauvignon. Remember, if you wouldn’t drink it, why cook with it???)

2 to 3 cups beef broth

1 tbsp tomato paste

2 cloves garlic, pressed or diced

1/2 tsp thyme

1 bay leaf

1 pound fresh mushrooms, quartered (I like to use baby Bella’s or crimini)

1 tbsp butter

Cook bacon in the pressure cooker, uncovered on the brown function. I waited until after I cooked the bacon to cut it into smaller pieces, so it was easier to turn and cook evenly. Remove bacon and transfer to a plate. I drained it over paper towels. Leave your bacon fat in the pot. Pat beef dry in paper towels. It will not brown properly if it is damp. Sauté the beef in the bacon fat a few pieces at a time until browned on all sides. As it finishes browning, remove beef and transfer to dish with bacon. In the same fat, brown the onions and carrots. Pour out any remaining fat. Return meat to the pressure cooker sprinkle on the salt, pepper, flour, thyme and toss. Pour in wine and then enough beef broth so that the meat is barely covered. Add onions and carrots. Stir in the tomato paste and garlic. Add bay leaf. Cover, set valve to pressure cook and pressure cook for 30 minutes.Towards the end of this cooking time sauté the mushrooms in a tbsp butter. Serve beef over noodles or rice and top with mushrooms.

Bon appetit!!!

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Thanksgiving Dutch Apple Pie – A Traditional Favorite

Tags

baking, dessert, Dutch Apple Pie, Thanksgiving, vegan, vegetaria

Yesterday I was a baking fool! First I made cranberry pecan muffins. These were only so-so, so I won’t burden you with that recipe! BUT then, I went on to bake an apple pie and chicken pot pie. Now these two recipes are worth sharing! Today I’ll start with the Dutch Apple Pie. This was my first time ever baking an apple pie! I decided to keep it basic and use a frozen ready made pie shell and went with a dutch topping, instead of crust. The pie was fairly easy to make and it was delicious!!! If you’re looking for a pie to serve at your Thanksgiving dinner, this is an easy version that can fit into your busy cooking schedule. Pies even freeze pretty well, so you can make it ahead and freeze for the big day.

Now I say this was pretty easy, but this is coming from a girl who was blessed to receive a Kitchen Aid spiralizer for Christmas last year. This particular spiralizer has a spiral slicing blade along with a peeling blade, so I did not have to peel and slice 8 cups of apples! Having to do this manually would make this pie more time consuming to make. If you don’t have a Kitchen Aid mixer, but you think you might make this more if you didn’t have to peel and slice apples consider investing in an hand crank apple peeler/corer that attaches to a table. We have an antique one of these and they work great!

Lastly, I cannot take credit for this recipe. This is a Betty Crocker recipe minus the portion to make your own pie crust. I substituted a frozen pie shell.

Dutch Apple Pie

1 frozen pie shell (set out and let thaw for 10-15 minutes)

Filling

8 cups peeled and sliced apples (I used about 5 medium sized apples)

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Topping

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup all-purpose flour

2/3 cup packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Preheat ove to 400 degrees. In large bowl, toss Filling ingredients. Pour into pie plate, mounding apples toward center.

In medium bowl, use pastry blender or fingers to mix butter, 1 cup flour and the brown sugar until a crumb forms. Sprinkle evenly over top of pie. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon granulated sugar on top.

Bake 45 to 55 minutes or until pie crust and crumb topping are deep golden brown and filling begins to bubble. Transfer to cooling rack to cool.

Enjoy!

Camp Cutthroat Starts Tonight People!!!

Tags

Alton Brown, Camp Cutthroat, Food Network

Tonight! Food Network! 10 p.m.!!! I can’t wait for Camp Cutthroat 2: Alton’s Revenge! I loved last summer’s episodes and am anxious to watch some more!

I hope you all enjoy! Happy Wednesday!

Corned Beef and Cabbage – Better Late Than Never!!!

Tags

Carrots, Cooking, Corned Beef and Cabbage, Food, potatoes, recipe, Slow Cooking, St. Patrick's Day

  
My youngest daughter’s birthday is on St. Patrick’s Day and she wanted to go out that day, so our traditional dinner of corned beef and cabbage was put on hold. But that’s OK!!! Corned beef can be kind of pricey and I was happy to get it on sale after the holiday. It tasted just as good a few days after the holiday! Better actually! Since it was Sunday, not Thursday, I had all day to pamper this meal. This particular version was the best version I’ve ever made. Tons of fantastic flavor and beautiful colors!

One difference you’ll notice, is that I choose to use red cabbage. Our German family, loves pickled red cabbage, so I kind of go that route with this dish. As I’ve mentioned in numerous posts, I’m not a huge fan of cooked carrots, so I opted to cook my carrots separate from my corned beef and cabbage. I did use some of the liquid from the corned beef, so I got the same fantastic flavor, but everything else did not take on the flavor of the carrots. I just simmered these in a separate pot. They took on the great flavors of the liquid!

I also chose to serve mashed potatoes. I had a large group, so the corned beef and cabbage filled my slow cooker. This is why I opted to go with mashed that I could cook in a separate pot. I actually included a couple of turnips too. I just boiled those right along with the potatoes and the mashed them all together with some fat free sour cream, fat free milk, fresh garlic, salt and pepper.

You’ll also notice the wedge of Irish soda bread. I blogged that recipe yesterday. It was incredibly good and so easy to make!!!

Slow Cooked Corned Beef and Cabbage

4 pound corned beef brisket with seasoning packet

3 1/2 cups beef broth

3 bay leaves

3 garlic cloves,pressed or diced

1/2 yellow onion, sliced

1 1/2 heads red cabbage, shredded

3 cups fat free chicken broth 

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 1/2 tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp pepper

In slow cooker, add corned beef, garlic, onion and beef broth. Put seasoning packet from corned beef and bay leaves in cheese cloth packet or herb infused and submerge in broth in slow cooker. Cook on low for 8 hours. Add red cabbage and chicken broth. Continues to cook for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, uses a slotted spoon to transfer cabbage to another pot. Spoon in about 1 1/2 cups of liquid from the slow cooker. Add vinegar, sugar and pepper to cabbage and simmer for a few minutes. 

While cabbage simmers, remove corned beef from slow cooker and slice against the grain. We like to serve our corned beef with various types of mustard. I really liked mine with a Hawaiian Honey mustard we had on hand. Dijon is really good too!

Enjoy!

Pillsbury Irish Soda Bread- An Easy and Delicious Bread

Tags

baking, Cooking, Food, Irish Soda Bread, recipe, St. Patrick's Day, vegetarian

 This recipe was originally shared by http://pennysfoodblog.com/. I baked some personally last night and our family loved it! It was so easy to make and didn’t take much time at all. It doesn’t need time to rise and other than breaking the butter up in the dry ingredients with forks, I mixed the dough in my KitchenAid mixer prior to kneeding briefly. This was a perfect addition to our belated St. Patrick’s day dinner. Its texture reminded us of biscuits and my kids loved this stuff! I baked mine in my 8″ cast iron skillet and it popped right out with no trouble!

And some delicious Irish Soda Bread that went along with our St Patrick’s Day dinner. There are already a couple of soda bread recipes on my blog but this one was especially good, almost like a cake instead of a bread, so good with some butter and strawberry jam.

Pillsbury Irish Soda Bread
2 1/4 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter
1 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon melted butter

1 Heat oven to 375, 350 for dark pans. Grease 8″ round cake pan. Combine dry ingredients and mix well. With pastry blender or fork, cut in 1/4 cup butter until mixture is crumbly. Add buttermilk and mix well.

2 On a well floured surface, knead dough 5 – 6 times until no longer sticky. Press dough into prepared pan. Cut an “X” 1/4″ deep on top of loaf. Brush with melted butter.

3 Bake 25 – 35 minutes or until golden brown. Immediately remove from pan. Cool 10 minutes before serving.

Recipe from Pillsbury

Turkey Burgers and Oven-baked Curly Fries – Getting Our Burger Fix the Healthy Way!

Tags

healthy, Oven Baked, Oven Fried, Seasoned Curly Fries, Turkey Burger

  
I love a good burger and fries, but lets face it, it is usually a fat & calorie packed meal. Last night I needed a fix, so I decided to put a healthy spin on an American classic. We had turkey burgers on whole wheat buns with lots of good toppings and oven-baked curly fries. These curly fries were well seasoned and had a nice little spice to them. It was a very satisfying, delicious meal.

For the turkey burgers, I used Jenny-O turkey patties and seasoned them with my home-made barbecue rub. I always keep some of this rub on hand for just such a night. It was rainy where we live, so instead of barbecuing our burgers I cooked them in my grill pan on the stove top. They still tasted great! For toppings we had tomato slices, onion slices, dill pickle slices, avocado slices, crispy bacon, mayo, Ketchup, mustard. Get creative and top your burger they way you please!

The seasoning for my fries was inspired by another blogger. I did add some salt though and decided to use my spiralizer and make curly fries rather than wedges, as they did.

Oven-baked Curly Fries

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp salt

3 large russet potatoes

2 tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a bowl, mix together first 5 ingredients. To make curly fries, use a spiralizer to cut potatoes. Cut potato spirals into small manageable sizes as they can be rather long. I chose to leave the skin on. You can also cut your potatoes into wedges. You may need to increase cooking times for larger cuts. In a large bowl, drizzle cut potatoes with olive oil and toss to coat. Sprinkle seasoning mix over fries and toss to coat. You may not need to use all of your mix. It just depends how seasoned you like your fries.

Spread potatoes on a baking sheet sprayed with non-stick spray. Bake for 30 minutes. For crispier fries, turn oven up to 500 degrees and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes.

Tip: I cut my potatoes into a bowl containing water to prevent potatoes from turning brown.

Seafood Paella – On My Food Wishlist!

Tags

Cooking, Food, Paella, pescatarian, recipe, Rice, seafood

  

I haven’t made this yet personally and frankly I don’t think I’ve ever eaten it either! This is totally on my Wishlist of things to try making. We are going to a huge Paella event in October at a local winery. Can’t wait for that!!!! 

Originally posted on TwinDays: Paella, a classic Spanish dish of rice cooked with fish or meat. From Mexican Quesadilla in our last post, we now going to Spain haha. We cooked Paella!  Paella is a rice dish from Spain that has become very popular and is known around the world. It originated from the region called…

https://dreamrecipeblog.wordpress.com/2016/02/26/seafood-paella/

Co Co County Wine Company – Great Wine and Good Times!

Tags

Beverage, Co Co County Wine Company, Food, Wine

 
Here in Northern California, we are fortunate enough to have abundant access to a wide variety of excellent wines. This past Saturday we had the good fortune to join a friend’s birthday celebration at the Co Co County Wine Company. I can’t believe we didn’t know this place existed. We had such a great time!

This place is a quaint little wine bar that serves local wines. Many, if not all of the wines, are from Contra Costa County. We enjoyed a bold, hearty red blend, Bloomfield’s Devil’s Daughter.

You can buy wines by the glass or bottle. You can also buy a flight of 3 wines for the price of a glass of wine, so you can try a variety wines to better decide what you might want more of.

They also serve beer and they have a couple light bites available for purchase. They have a meat and cheese platter and a garlic popcorn that you can munch on. Don’t expect dinner here though.

On some weekend nights, they have live bands. The band playing the night we were there was excellent. We really enjoyed their covers of classic rock songs. There was dancing and a good time being had by all!

If you’re in the East Bay Area, I highly suggest you try this place out. The are located at 633 First Street in Brentwood, California.

 

 

  

Pesto and Feta Stuffed Chicken

Tags

Chicken, Cooking, Feta, Food, pesto, Pesto and Feta Stuffed Chicken, recipe, stuffed

  

This pesto and feta stuffed chicken looks so delicious and fairly easy to make! I can’t wait to give this one a try!

OK so I just finished this post and it’s gone…. So you get to see my second version.  Not sure what happened to it I had just saved it and the only thing that was left was the last picture i put in and the title.  So here we go with round two of this. […]

https://theartofallthings.wordpress.com/2016/02/26/pesto-and-feta-stuffed-chicken/

Parchment Paper – Why Have I Never Used This Baking Wonder Before???

Tags

baking, Clean up, Cookies, Cooking, Food, Parchment Paper

I’ll admit it! I just discovered the wonders of parchment paper! Has this food blogger been living in a cave you ask? I don’t know, but in case there are other cave dwellers out there, I thought I would write this post. I am here to tell you that parchment paper rocks and will make your life easier!!!

I never ran across a recipe that mentioned parchment paper. My mom never used it or had it in the house when I was growing up, so I was in an ignorant state. I kept seeing people use it on cooking shows, so I figure maybe this stuff won’t burst into flames in my oven. Low and behold, it didn’t catch on fire!

So how do you use this stuff? Basically, you use it to line pans during baking, so things don’t stick and/or clean up is significantly reduced.

My daughter was baking florentine cookies for her Italian class. Something went wrong and when she baked them it turned into more of a thin brittle. Thank goodness, we put parchment paper down on the cookie sheet first! That brittle would have been a bear to scrape off the cookie sheet, but it lifted right off with the parchment paper. It still tasted great, by the way!

A couple of weeks ago, I made buffalo wings for the Super Bowl. Luckily, I had the presence of mind to line my stoneware baking pan with parchment paper before putting the wings on the pan. These made a wonderful, juicy mess when baking, but my handy dandy parchment paper caught all the mess and all I had to do was throw out the paper and my pan was still sparkling clean. Look at me saving wash water in drought-ridden California!!!

So give yourself a break! Buy some of this stuff and make your baking life a breeze! Cave dwellers unite!!!