Jeanette and I recently saw the movie “Julie and Julia”, with Meryl Streep’s brilliant portrayal of Julia Child, and Amy Adams as the blogger who attempted to cook through the entire set of recipes in the book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in a year. The movie was great, and even better, inspired Jeanette to make it the theme of this month’s Cooking Club! This is the kind of 3D filmmaking I can get behind!
Desiree – French Bread – The perfect companion to the soup and the Bourguignon sauce. We wish you were here to taste it!
Jessica – Vichy Carrots - Who knew that carrots cooked in sparking water could taste so crisp!
Jason – Brussel Sprouts Braised in Butter - This is officially the only way I plan on eating Brussels sprouts in the future. Excellent!
Greg – Potato Leek Soup – Awesome soup man! Despite not having the proper tools for making this tasty warm and hearty soup, it came out great! Couple this with your amazing butternut squash soup and I’m thinking tou may be our official go-to soup guy!
Paul – Some amazing tower of homemade ice cream, a sugar cookie-like crust and fire! Needless to say, I need the official name of this tower of tasty goodness.
Jeanette – Boeuf Bourguignon – Takes like 4 hours to make and you can taste all the work that goes into it too. Simply amazing!
John – Upside Down Martini (JC’s favorite drink) and a variety of French Wines. – This may be the crispest and easiest to drink martini I’ve ever had. Thanks Julia!
As I’m starting to expect from our expert team of CC’ers, everything tasted amazing. I learned that properly prepared vegetables can taste like a high-end delicacy, 4 hours of cooking can culminate in something truly mind blowing, and that ice cream can be set on fire. Now that’s how you celebrate a Saturday night!
As if to start the new year off right, the Millers’ hosted this month’s Cooking Club with Jason choosing th excellent theme of tapas. Big things come in small packages, especially well seasoned small packages it seems; this entire theme would be better labeled as “TAPAS!” as every dish was an explosion of tasty Spanish flavors.
Here’s the rundown on the delightful dishes sent from the gods to destroy any remaining diet-based new years resolutions.
Whoever came up with the original/ancient idea behind “Dates Wrapped in Bacon with Marcona Almonds” must have made some form of culinary Faustian Pact. Personally, I consider it a soul extremely well spent.
Thanks to Greg for hosting yet another great Cooking Club with the theme Cherries and Cranberries. Unfortunately, we went on vacation right after we went to this event, so I don’t have a massive writeup to go with it, but since a picture is worth a thousand words, I figure this qualifies as a small novel. Tasty and sweet things abound!
While driving through the oppressive pitch black of an early autumn evening, our vehicle began to sputter to tune of an empty gas tank. Using the last of our momentum, we were able to pull to the side of the road in front of a quaint looking farmhouse (or so we presumed, due to the chicken clucks emanating from the backyard.) Walking to the door, we could see shapes flashing by the windows, surely nothing human could move that fast! Knocking on the door we were immediately welcomed by three squealing blurs that could only be identified as a type of pixie or fairy. Spiders were quickly thrust into our hands and the smells of something delicious came wafting out of the kitchen. As I had suspected, we stumbled across a nest of ravenous foodies!
Thankfully, in preparation for our long journey north, we had laid in a stock of tasty goodies stashed in our vehicle. Scraping off some form of white furry four legged beast I could only assume was part sasquatch, I ran to the car and produced our stash of cupcakes and an improbably spider-shaped yet tasty loaf of pumpkin bread. As is their custom the foodies effortlessly conjured up delicious morsels of tasty yet ghoulish looking food and wicked looking drinks that seemed spawned from the imaginations of a mad scientist or murderously creative bartender. Serving dishes hovered back and forth across the table, veering wildly to bypass the massive black-taper filled candelabra. Their contents disappearing rapidly to the sounds of lips smacking and ominous “Mmm Mmm MMMM’s”
Thus satiated (and therefore rendered safe), we were able to make polite conversation with the foodies before retreating to our vehicle and the relative safety of the Southern Lands. It could be my imagination, but I swear we just had a Cooking Club Event!
We had an excellent time earlier this month with the Morrisons and Christensons celebrating my birthday. After a tasty breakfast, my mother had the excellent idea of going to the Edina Realty fall festival near 50th and France. Aside from the biting cold wind, the kids had a great time with free horseback riding, face painting, balloons, hot cider and free pumpkins!.
