Amp and I spent some of this weekend doing something that we both enjoy, given the time to do so... Having a glass of wine (or two or three) while cooking together. This weekend, we made an Ina Garten Eggplant Parmesan recipe (from FoodTV) on Saturday and a Jacques Pepin Boeuf Bourguignonne (beef stew) recipe on Sunday.
Ina Garten's take on Eggplant Parm was not the classic Italian American fried mozzarella cheese fest, which we thought might be a nice change of pace (I make one of those cheese heavy versions, and it is good, but has a lot of cheese and a lot of frying). This recipe is three layers of pre-roasted eggplant, marinara, fresh mozzarella, goat cheese and parmesan, and fresh basil. We are converts to the oven roasting of veggies...
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| Layers of goodness |
A crispy panko bread crumb and garlic topping is the last step (along with Ryder cleaning Amp's fingers...)
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| Ready for the oven |
The recipe was easy if a little fiddly (time consuming), but gave a lighter and more eggplant-based end result than the version I have been making for years now. The kids agreed that this was the better version, and I have to agree. It was more about the eggplant and less about the cheese and sauce. Not that it wasn't plenty rich enough... The goat cheese gave a nice unexpected tanginess, and the panko topping gave a really nice crunch.
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| Half demolished... |
Sunday was for Jacques' beef stew. I adore Jacques Pepin, and would consider him one of the two or three greatest influences in my love of food and cooking. I probably have more of his cookbooks than any other author, and I treasure them all. Especially my copy of Chez Jacques, which has a "Happy Cooking" signature plate.
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| Chez Jacques |
"Happy Cooking!" Indeed.
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| "Happy Cooking" |
This was the target we were aiming for (and I think we came very close!).
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| Boeuf Bourguignonne |
Early stages - Beef, onions and garlic.
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| Beef Stew stage 1 |
Middle stages - Add a full bottle of good red wine (a reserve Spanish Rioja in this case).
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| Beef Stew ready for the oven |
The end result - Adding separately cooked pearl onions, carrots and crimini mushrooms, along with lardons of cooked salt pork (basically little batons cut from a big chunk of bacon).
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| Finished Stew |
This is definitely a weekend recipe (as was the Ina Garten one), but well worth the effort. It was rich and decadent. The cooking liquid in the "ready for the oven" picture above is no water, no stock, just an entire bottle of good quality ready wine. Yum....
We don't always have the time to spend on a pair of 3-hour dinners, but this weekend we did. One small benefit of 1 year of Covid19 stay-at-home time I suppose you could say.
Stay safe. Be well. And try to find any small silver linings you can from this time we are forced to spend staying at home.
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