Cooking with Julia

Last night I spent almost four hours creating Beouf Bourguignon, a famous Julia Child creation that was immortalized in the movie Julia and Julia.

A few lessons that I learned while cooking this legendary dish:
1. Read the recipe ALL the way through before even thinking about turning on the burner. If I had followed this elementary rule of cooking, I would have saved myself some tense moments and realized that I was missing half of the recipe! (I enlisted Justin to search the interwebz for the missing half of the recipe). This simple step would have also brought to light that I didn’t have enough beef stock, nor did I have a bay leaf. This was solved by substituting more red wine (I used a whole bottle!) and sprinkling Italian seasoning on top of the stew. Shameful I know.

2. Browning stew meat in bacon fat smells amazing but leaves a mess that is a hassle to clean up later. I think I still have bacon grease on my kitchen FLOOR!

3. Do not try to make two meals at the same time. I made filet mignon for dinner at the same time as the Beouf Bourguignon and it was difficult to coordinate the two, not to mention a hungry, whiney toddler in the high chair next to me!

The ingredients seemed basic, the instructions looked simple. However, while I was standing in Safeway’s meat aisle, I suddenly realized that I had no clue what in the heck a bacon rind was. I suppose I could have gone to an actual butcher’s shop to find proper bacon for the recipe, but seeing as I am a full time working mother, a half of slab of bacon from my freezer was deemed appropriate.

In light of my bacon discovery, I decided to take a few short cuts during the cooking process, hopefully Julia didn’t mind. Instead of boiling the bacon first, I just decided to brown it in a pan as I usually would. The reality is, I’m not a complete foodie and have no clue what boiling the bacon first is supposed to accomplish. Someone, please tell me. I also ignored the instructions on how to sauté the onions, I just used a little butter and actually lost count of how many onions I used. The recipe calls for 15-18 small onions and that just seemed like a lot to me. Instead of bringing the stock, wine, and meat to a simmer on the stove, I just shoveled it into my borrow Rachel Ray casserole dish and placed it in the oven; the extra step seemed superfluous.
So 2 ½ hours later, after eating the neglected filet mignon and putting my sleepy child to bed, the Beouf Bourguignon was finally done. It smelled amazing and after a tiny portioned taste test, I finally left it to cool (and later be put in the refrigerator by Justin) and went to bed.

In hindsight, although Julia had good intentions to help housewives learn to cook French recipes, I don’t think this recipe was intended for today’s housewives. You know, the ones that work 40-50 hours a week, come home, take care of the children, cook dinner, and try to have a life. We just don’t have 4 hours a day to cook dinner for our husbands. All in all, this was a good experience, but maybe better left to an occasion that is special in meaning or when I have the need to impress someone with my “Skillz”.
Tomorrow nights dinner? Takeout!