The Julia Child’s Weekend -Snatching Victory From the Jaws of Trouble
August 15, 2009 at 3:50 pm 5 comments
From Julia Child's Kitchen - Julia Child
I have been remiss this last week in getting the posts onto the blog. It was not my choice to “go silent” but but with friends here, food purchased and the weekend begun; my health decided to through me for a curve. Mid-night on Saturday brought a kidney stone into the equation, my first and hopefully my last. Nothing 6 hours in the E-room and then prescribed drugs couldn’t fix. Surgery on Thursday took care of the problem but we still had the much planned for and looked forward to Weekend of Julia Child.
For our regular readers (rr) you will remember that last weekend and this weekend were to be company weekends with lots of conversations and good food. Last weekend our friends the Knupps, came in from Virginia on their way to both of our previous hometowns of Chicago. Jim has contributed several recipes to our website at emealsforyou.com, mostly under the name of Capt Jim so we were looking forward to it being a cook’s weekend. We got through the Saturday night meal, Chicken Cacciatore with pencil points and homemade espresso gelato for dessert. My troubles began that night and luckily we arrived back from the hospital just before breakfast on Sunday. Thanks to the prescription drugs I was able to get through the breakfast of quick breads, sticky buns and date nut bread. Lunch was small plate sandwiches of grilled bread, spread with goat cheese, red peppers and ham. I will add the recipe in the near future. Dinner on Saturday was pan-roasted sea scallops with brown butter sage sauce and some beef medallions au poivre. A Lemon Tart finished the meal. The Knupps got on their way on Monday after a breakfast of pumpkin pancakes with syrup and ginger pancakes with pumpkin butter.
Thursday was the day our friend Jean came in to our much anticipated Julia Child’s weekend; a weekend of cooking everything “Julia” and going to see the new movie Julie and Julia. I have spent the last 20 years or so figuring how to make the recipes Julia Child’s would cook but with a few less steps and quicker to the table methods to make them more accessible to the average cook. Jean told me that we should do only Julia Child’s recipes and would be staying true to the recipes, no short steps. We unloaded my 9 or so Julia Child’s cookbooks and began. The first real snag in our plans was that the surgeon had scheduled me for kidney stone surgery at noon. Jean’s plane was due in at 12:30 but luckily was late by some 50 minutes. This just allowed my wife to drop me off at the outpatient surgery and make it to the airport to pick up Jean. They scooped me up on the return and then home where my wife and Jean put the first Julia dinner together without my help. Everything turned out great, garlic mustard breadcrumbs hugged the perfectly cooked lamb chops, accompanied by Julia’s Gratin of Potatoes alla Savoyarde. Being more myself on Friday I spent the day in the kitchen slowly, ever so slowly cooking Julia’s Beef Bourguignon, with homemade Julia’s noodles and Caesar Salad, also Julia’s recipe. Tonight we are onto Julia’s Steak Diane, mashed potatoes and Pear Tart Tatin.
I will endeavor over the next few weeks to get these recipes on the blog; all are available on our emealsforyou.com website. The photos is of one of the many cookbooks that were flying about this week; don’t want to stray too far from the wonderful Julia Child’s recipes.
Entry filed under: Rants, Semi-Rants and Non-Rants. Tags: beef bourguignon, Gratin of Potatoes alla Savoyarde., homemade Julia's noodles, Julia Child's weekend, Pear Tart Tatin, pumpkin pancakes, Steak diane.
1.
vicki | August 15, 2009 at 4:53 pm
just saw that movie, it was greeeaaaaattttt, dodnt know julia was so funny.was going to cook that for dinner, but i dont have a heavy bottom pot to put in the oven. oh wellll
2.
emealsforyou | August 15, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Didn’t see the movie yet due to problems described in post. What meal does she cook, I may be able to get you around the heavy pot issue.
3.
vicki | August 15, 2009 at 6:53 pm
beef bourginon, but i gave up on that for noww,hahahah i decided to make curry chicken instead. my ex husband had a kidney stone once so i can feel for you. im a novice compared to you so it will be nice to talk to someone with so much cooking experience, although my friends tell me im the best cook they know,hahahahah. thanks vicki
4.
emealsforyou | August 16, 2009 at 5:52 am
The Beef Bourguignon is fairly easy, once you have the beef browned. As to the pot issue; if you have a large oven roaster pan or even a large spaghetti pot, they will work well for this dish. You can brown the meat in a frying pan and then transfer it to the larger pot; de-glaze the frying pan with some of the wine and pour into the pot. Once you have it all entered into large pot, cook it on low heat for several hours. Use a lid or aluminum foil on top of the pot. Stir and check several times and you should begin to here the compliments from you friends begin to roll in. Good luck.
5.
recepti | December 5, 2010 at 8:04 am
As a Newbie, I am always searching online for articles that can help me. Thank you