Cassoulesque for Sunday Dinner

Cassoulesque Ready for the Oven

I used Field Roast Italian Sausage in this one, and Great Northern beans. I also started with Olive Oil and added some Wright’s smoke seasoning instead of using lardons or bacon. Otherwise, I pretty much followed the same process as I did when making faux Cassoulet before.

The photo above is how it looked before going into the oven.

I can’t claim that this version was vegan, since I did top it with chicken thighs for the carnivores, and some of the fat from that would have made its way into the beans. Plus, I added the Knox gelatin, which is not plant based.

Tasty, and I’m honestly not sure that it needed the Field Roast. The beans might be hearty enough on their own.

Ratatouille Casserole

Sunday Dinner – 23 September 2018

ratatouille casserole

Claudia is on a ten day green smoothie cleanse, so I wanted something for this Sunday that wasn’t too incompatible. This dish is mostly baked veggies, so I figured it would fill the bill.

I sautéed some onions and garlic in a cast iron skillet, deglazed with red wine, then added a can of tomato paste, some thyme and S&P. Then, off heat, I made concentric circles of yellow squash, eggplant, orange pepper, zucchini, and red pepper. Once the whole thing was in place, I drizzled olive oil over the top, and sprinkled with the same seasonings.

After about 45 minutes in a 375 oven, and a little grated Asiago, it was ready to serve, along with Penne, salad, and some French Bread with olive oil and HDP.

Ratatouille and Pasta

Grammy brought another nice pie for dessert this week.

Wine was a marvelous Cabernet Franc from Jacqueline Bahue.

We’re missing Aunt Pat during her travels, and look forward to her joining us at table again in a few weeks. I think she would have liked the “Traditional French” music station from Pandora that we had playing during dinner.

 

Beef Bourguignon

Sunday Dinner – 20 May 2018

This week for Sunday Dinner we had one of our decadent favorites, Beef Bourguignon. Claudia made a beautiful salad, and I baked a couple of peasant boules to go with the stew. The wine was a 2016 Pinot Noir from Cooper’s Art by Timothy Olsen.

The Beef Bourguignon recipe is more or less Ina Garten’s, with a little liberty here and there. I use Herbs de Province in place of the thyme, and also tend to leave it in the oven longer.

The bread was the basic recipe from Artisan Bread in Five that we’ve been using for several years now.

If you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at this dish, or baking bread, but were daunted, I’d recommend that you give these recipes a try. As long as you follow step-by-step, it’s pretty hard to go wrong.

For dessert, Claudia made this lovely cherry cheesecake. Yes, I know how lucky I am.

Cherry Cheesecake

Cassoulet

Sunday Dinner – 15 April 2018

Cassoulet

This is a dish that I’ve been wanting to attempt for some time, but the prospect of finding duck and preparing the confit was daunting. Fortunately, I ran across this article from the Serious Eats Food Lab explaining that cassoulet shouldn’t be prescriptivist, but is actually a “medieval peasant dish designed to make do with whatever was around.” Writer and Chef J. Kenji López-Alt explains that with so much flavor packed into the cooking liquid you can use chicken and won’t miss the duck. Moreover, in head-to-head tests fresh poultry was actually juicier in cassoulet than the preserved duck, since it was cooked only once.

I did take some other liberties with the recipe, substituting thick cut bacon for the salt pork, and leaving the vegetables in. I also left out the cloves and added a few other spices, and some diced tomatoes.

I started at about 9 AM, frying up a pound of hickory smoked bacon in the Dutch Oven. Once it was removed, I seasoned four chicken leg quarters with pepper, and cooked them in the bacon fat, two at a time, skin side down first for 6 minutes, then the other side for 3 minutes or so. Next I browned some mild Italian sausages.

I drained all but a few tablespoons of fat from the pot, and sautéed chopped onion, carrot and celery, adding a few cloves of minced garlic after a few minutes. Just a little red wine went in to deglaze, then came a pound of small white beans that had been soaking overnight in salt water, some bay leaves, thyme, rosemary, and paprika, a can of diced tomatoes, and a quart of chicken stock with three packs of Knox unflavored gelatin dissolved in it. This simmered, covered on the range top for 45 minutes.

The bacon and sausages went in next, and the chicken nestled on top before the pot was placed in a 300°F oven, uncovered. After a couple hours, I kicked the temp up to 350, and checked every half hour, disturbing the crust with a spoon. The chicken was plenty done after four hours, so I pulled it off to a plate and let everything else cook for one more hour before serving.

I don’t think I’ve ever tasted more tender, juicy or flavorful chicken, and this grownup version of “beanie weenies” is the heart and soul of comfort food – perfect for a dreary, chilly Sunday. We served the meal with Wulff Salad, a couple baguettes, and a very nice Cabernet Sauvignon from Bordeaux.

For dessert, Claudia made chocolate mousse with fresh whipped cream. Absolutely incredible.

Chocolate Mousse

When I think of “French Cooking” in the abstract, it seems so high tone and refined and snooty. But it turns out that my favorite French dishes (coq au vin, beef bourguignon, cassoulet) are all hearty peasant food. This meal did take some planning and quite a bit of work to prepare (more than two hours before it was assembled and in the oven), but it was certainly worth the trouble.

Our favorite local butchers, Southside Meats, do carry duck, so I’ll be tempted to try it next time. Although at 99 cents a pound, the chicken will be pretty hard to beat. 🙂

Quiche!

quiche-florentine

For a simple and delicious dish it’s hard to beat the classic French custard tart. Last weekend’s Wall Street Journal had an article about Quiche, and I didn’t wait long to make one.

Since this was a quick meal on a Tuesday evening, I used a frozen pie crust, and cooked it in the oven, but I hope to make my own pastry dough and bake one in the Weber Genesis soon.

We opted for Quiche Florentine instead of the more standard Quiche Lorraine, thinking that the spinach would be a bit more healthy than bacon. I chopped up a couple cups of fresh spinach and put them in the bottom of the crust, shredded a cup of Emmental Swiss on top, and then poured the custard mixture over it. Since I didn’t have whole milk, I used three eggs and 1 1/4 cups of skim, plus a little salt, pepper, Herbs de Provence and fresh grated nutmeg. It baked at 375 F for about 40 minutes. It turned out a little watery from the skim milk, so I’d definitely use whole next time and adjust the proportions to 2 eggs and 1 1/2 cup of the milk, which is how Julia Child’s recipe goes.

It was tasty, none the less. We served it with a mixed spring greens salad and a nice glass of Spanish Rosé, the perfect rustic and elemental meal for a summer weeknight.

Calling a dish “Florentine” or “à la Florentine” dates back to 16th Century France, by the way. Catherine de Médicis, from Florence, married the French Dauphine (heir to the throne), Henri. She brought her own cooks with her, and they brought spinach seeds, which had not been grown in France prior to their arrival. So “in the style of Florence” means “with spinach.”

The folks at WSJ Off Duty also made this podcast episode about Quiche which I thought was fun.

Make America quiche again.