Burgundy Is the Colour of My True Love's Dinner

This stuff is so good you'll want to eat it for every meal until it's gone.  And you will.  I served it over noodles, but on mashed or roasted potatoes would also be delicious - or even by itself with crusty sourdough to dip into it would be a winner.  Rich, beefy, and savoury... nom... I think I need seconds now.

Beef Burgundy

8 ounces bacon
4 pounds beef chuck stew meat, fat trimmed, cut into 1-inch cubes
Fresh ground black pepper
1 large onion, chopped fine
2 carrots, peeled and chopped fine
8 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
2 teaspoons thyme
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
4 tablespoons tomato paste
2 1/2 cups Pinot Noir or other red wine
1 1/2 cups beef broth
1/3 cup soy sauce
3 bay leaves
3 tablespoons Minute Tapioca

Cook bacon in a large pan (I use a Dutch oven) over medium-high heat until crisp.  Using tongs, transfer bacon to a paper towel.  Pour half of bacon fat into a small bowl, and leave the rest in the pan.

 Someone always becomes very attentive when there's bacon involved

Dry beef chunks thoroughly with paper towels.  Season with pepper.  Heat pan containing bacon fat over medium-high heat until just smoking.  Cook beef until deep brown on all sides.  Transfer browned beef to slow cooker insert. 

Add reserved bacon fat to empty pan and heat over medium-high heat until shimmering.  Add onion and carrots and cook until vegetables begin to brown, about 5 minutes.  Add garlic and thyme and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.  Add tomato paste and stir until it begins to brown, about 45 seconds.  Transfer mixture to slow cooker insert.

Return now-empty pan to high heat and add 1 1/2 cups wine, beef broth, Worcestershire sauce, and soy sauce.  Simmer, scraping up brown bits, until pan is clean, about 1 minute.  Transfer mixture to slow cooker insert.

Stir bay leaves and tapioca, and crumble bacon into slow cooker insert.  Set slow cooker on low, cover, and cook until meat is fork-tender, about 9 hours.

When ready to serve, discard bay leaves.  Bring remaining 1 cup wine to a boil in a pan over high heat and simmer until reduced by half, about 5 minutes.  Stir into slow cooker.  Serve.

Minecraft Cake!

 That is all.

Well... not all.  Here are some construction shots:

I dressed up two boxes of mix to turn them into three orange-infused layers

Stuck 'em together with buttercream

And then thinly iced the exterior.  I refrigerated it overnight before applying the fondant.

Fondant was rolled out, measured with a ruler into 1-inch squares, and cut with a pastry scraper.  They adhered well onto the buttercream.  I tried to get the edge lines and corners straight and use the flat surfaces for making up any difference in spacing between the tiles.

And ta-da!

It was a damned HUGE cake.  And we enjoyed every bite.  For weeks.

What To Do With That Leftover Buttercream?

Well, you make oatmeal cream pies, of course!  I found a recipe that doesn't have a lot of sugar - with all that buttercream you don't need an overly-sweet cookie.

Oatmeal Cream Pies

Makes about 7 good-sized pies

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
Leftover buttercream frosting, about 2 cups (or less)

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth.  In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together.  Stir this into the butter/sugar mixture. Stir in the oats.

Chill the dough for about a half hour and preheat oven to 350F.

The cookies should be two inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  Dip the flat bottom of a glass in flour and gently press each cookie flat on top.  You'll need to re-flour after every press.  Bake them for 10-12 minutes, taking them out when golden at the edges but still a little undercooked-looking on top.  Let them sit on the hot baking sheet for five minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool.  

Match the cookies up according to size so they pair well.  Let cool completely before dolloping buttercream on them and sandwiching them together.  It's best to chill them a bit to let the buttercream harden slightly.

Recipe - omitting raisins and nuts - adapted from here.

Noodling Around

I made this up from what I had available in the kitchen.  You could easily alter the veg or add diced meat and make something just as delicious.

Vegetable Noodles with Cashews

Sauce:

4 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

2 teaspoons chili garlic paste

2 tablespoon rice vinegar

1 teaspoon sugar

2 cloves garlic, pressed

1 teaspoon ginger, chopped

¼ teaspoon Chinese five spice powder

Thick noodles (Shanghai or similar) – enough for four servings

Broccoli florets (I used 3 medium heads)

1 medium carrot, chopped

½ cup cashews

2 tablespoon sesame oil

2-3 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil

Heat water for noodles and mix all sauce ingredients together in a small bowl.

Boil noodles according to package directions.  Rinse well and drain.  Set aside.

Heat peanut or vegetable oil in wok or large heavy saucepan over high heat until just smoking.  Add carrots, broccoli, and cashews, stir fry for 30 seconds.   

Add noodles and sauce; stir fry for 1-2 minutes until veggies are crisp-tender.   

Transfer to bowl; mix in sesame oil.  Serve immediately.

In A Slump

The unfortunately named slump is a dessert that has a bit of everything - fruitiness, creaminess, and cakeyness.  It's not the most delicate of dishes and is not for the prissy.  It's a wonderful globby mess that tastes fantastic!

Berry Slump

3 12-ounce packages fresh or frozen (thawed) berries – blueberries, blackberries, and/or raspberries

1 cup plus 6 tablespoons sugar

½ cup water or fruit juice of your choice - pick something complementary to your berries

3 tablespoons cornstarch dissolved in 3 tablespoons crème de cassis

12 ounces Neufchatel or cream cheese, room temperature

1 ½ tablespoons lemon juice

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

1 ½ cups flour

1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

¾ cup milk

3 tablespoons butter, melted

For filling: Bring berries, 1 cup sugar, and water or juice to boil in a heavy large saucepan, stirring frequently.  Add cornstarch mixture and bring to boil, still stirring.  Pour mixture into a 13x9x2-inch glass baking dish and cool (can be made 4 hours ahead.  Cover and keep at room temperature).

Preheat oven to 400F.  Using electric mixer, beat Neufchatel or cream cheese, lemon juice, vanilla, and 6 tablespoons sugar until well blended.  Drop mixture by small spoonfuls over berry mixture, spacing evenly.

For topping: Mix first four ingredients in a large bowl.  Stir in milk and butter.  Drop mixture by spoonfuls atop filling, spacing evenly.

Bake until filling bubbles and topping is golden brown, about 25 minutes.  Cool slightly before serving.

See?  It looks like an unholy disaster, but it tastes divine. 

(note - photos show a halved recipe as I didn't have enough berries for the whole thing)

Basic Shortbread

Shortbread is one of those nommy things you take for granted, and forget how easy it is to make even when you know how dramatically better homemade is from the store-bought stuff.  This recipe is a bit more involved than I've used before, but it works a treat and is still very simple.

The great thing about it is the latitude you have for variation - you might add a couple of tablespoons of orange or zest and extract, or lavender flowers, or a dash of almond extract along with some of the slivered nuts.  Shortbread is great to have with ice cream or macerated fruit, so you can tailor the type you make to what you'll be serving with it.

Shortbread

½ cup old-fashioned rolled oats

1 ½ cups flour

¼ cup cornstarch

2/3 cup confectioners' sugar

½ teaspoon salt

14 tablespoons (1 ¾ sticks) butter, cold, cut into 1/8-inch-thick slices

 

Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 450F.  Pulse oats in spice grinder, blender, or food processor until reduced to fine powder, about ten 5-second pulses (you should have ¼ to 1/3 cup oat flour).  In the bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, mix oat flour, flour, cornstarch, sugar, and salt on low speed until combined, about 5 seconds. Add butter to dry ingredients and continue to mix on low speed until dough just forms and pulls away from sides of bowl, 5 to 10 minutes. 

Place upside-down (grooved edge should be at top) collar of a 9-inch springform pan on a parchment-lined or nonstick baking sheet (do not use springform pan bottom).  Press dough into collar in even ½-inch-thick layer, smoothing top of dough with back of spoon or fingers.  Place a 2-inch biscuit cutter in center of dough and cut out center.  Place extracted round alongside springform collar on baking sheet - this can be your test piece.  Open the springform collar, but leave it in place.

Bake shortbread for 5 minutes, then reduce oven temperature to 250F.  Continue to bake until edges turn pale golden, about 10 minutes longer.  Remove baking sheet from oven; turn off oven.  Remove springform pan collar; use chef’s knife to score surface of shortbread into 8 even wedges, cutting halfway through shortbread. Using a wooden skewer, poke holes in each wedge.  Return shortbread to oven and prop door open with handle of wooden spoon, leaving 1-inch gap at top.  Allow shortbread to dry in turned-off oven until pale golden in center (shortbread should be firm but giving to touch), about a half hour. 

Transfer baking sheet to wire rack; cool shortbread to room temperature, at least 2 hours. Cut shortbread at scored marks to separate and serve. 

Adapted from here.

Sweet Diversion

After a warm morning's hiking around the South Yuba River this weekend, my son and I headed home via one of my favourite little California towns, Nevada City.  It was time for some ice cream from the delightfully old-fashioned Nevada City Chocolate Shoppe.  This place has become a staple for satisfying a sweet tooth when we're travelling in the area.

The place has a wonderful old-time candy store feel and is family-run.  Service is a bit variable, and the $10 credit/debit card minimum can be inconvenient if you're not prepared (there isn't a readily accessible cash machine around that I could find), but we've always enjoyed the ice cream and chocolates we've gotten there.

We love perusing the mix of sweets - some familiar, some strange, some yum, some "what the hell?"

We opted for coconut ice cream and rainbow sherbet.  I daresay we chose wisely.

It's Bacony, It's Cheesy, It's Puffy - What's Not To Love?

It's not nutrish, but it is most def delish.

Bacon and Cheese Danish

1 sheet store-bought puff pasty, cut into quarters

8 slices cooked bacon

About ¼ cup cheese – blue (crumbled) or extra-sharp Cheddar (grated)

½ cup sour cream

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

2 teaspoons spicy mustard

½ teaspoon paprika

Fresh ground black pepper

Egg wash for pastry top

Preheat oven to 400F.  In a small bowl stir together the sour cream, Worcestershire, mustard, paprika, and as much pepper as you like.  The consistency should be thick.  Put quartered puff pastry on a baking sheet.  Spread squares with the sour cream mixture, then sprinkle with cheese.  Place two slices of the cooked bacon on top of that, then bring two opposite corners together and seal.  Brush pastry top with beaten egg.

Bake for 15-25 minutes, or until golden brown.  Then eat them all before everyone else gets up and feign ignorance when they ask you what that heavenly aroma is.

I imagine some caramelised onions or a tomato slice on these wouldn't go amiss, either...  hmmmm...!

You'll Never Look At It the Same Way Again

And you'll never eat it with peanut butter again, either.