The Fumbling Foodie

Mothers Day Postponed One Week

I had to work dawn til disk last weekend and so was unable to treat my Sweet Lady Wife to the Mother's Day she deserved. She was very understanding and supportive but I know I had to make up for it this weekend.

Breakfast: Blackberry-Stuffed French Toast

This is from Gwen Ashley Walters wonderful Cool Mountain Cookbook. I've made this before and it is my wife's favorite.

















Spinach Salad with Blue Chees, Pecans, and Creamy Raspberry Vinaigrette

1/4 cup fresh or frozen raspberries
1 shallot, minced
1/4 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon fresh thyme
2 tblsp raspberry vinegar
2 tblsp rice wine vinergar
2 tblsp red wine vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup honey

Blend raspberries, shallot, thyme, and all three vinegars in the blender.

Drizzle in the olive oil and honey.







Sear-Roasted Salmon with Roasted New Potatoes

This is my favorite way to prepare salmon. Sear it in the saute pan on the stovetop over high heat. Then put it in the oven for a few minutes to finish.

My Sweet Lady Wife likes these potatoes so well I think I could serve them and get forgiveness for any sin.















Dessert: Chocolate and Banana Crepes

Crepes are an easy favorite in the Fumbling Foodie household. Smear some Nutella on half the crepe, add some sliced bananas and fold the crepe in half. Drizzle a little Nutella on top and add a dollop of whipped cream.

Sole Meuniere

My local supermarket had some fresh sole filets yesterday and that reminded me that I had not yet tried to make Sole Meuniere myself since the French cuisine cooking class. Now what to serve with it? It looked like they had just received a fresh shipment of apsparagus, so I grabbed that too.

Thumbing through the recipes I've collected off the 'net, I cam across Ruth at Once Upon a Feast's recipe for Leek, Mushroom, and Swiss Chard Soup. Ruth unfortunately left the mushrroms off the ingredient list, but as a 'shroom lover I figured half a pound would be enough. An interesting thing happened. As I got down to the final step where you are supposed to add the cup of cream, I first stated the soup. It had this wonderful earthy flavor that begged to be served as is. So the cream stayed in the fridge and we enjoyed a lower-calorie version.

One of the remarkable things about this meal is not that it was great-tasting and better than I've had in most restaurants, I spent all of about $27 serving this meal for four people.

Since I've hyperlinked to the recipes for the sole and soup, I'll put just the asparagus receipe here:

Roasted Asparagus

1 bunch thin asparagus
3-4 tablespoons dry white wine
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 450F. Break the tough woody base end off each asparagus spear. Place the asparagus in a large bowl. Sprinkile with salt and pepper. Add the wine and oil and toss.

Put the asparagus in a baking dish and place on a middle rack in the oven. Roast about 5 inutes until crisp-tender. Sprinkle a little shaved parmesian on tap and serve.

Mushroom-Stuffed Beef Tenderloin with Port Wine Sauce

I love Gwen Ashley Walters' Cool Mountain Cookbook. She has collected recipes from several great ski lodges, and everything in the Cool Mountain Cookbook is not only memorable and great tasting, it is also easy to prepare. I have yet to encounter a dud.

OK, so I was in the supermarket and their high-end beef tenderloins were on sale. And they looked really good. I don't cook much beef because the quality of supermarket beef is so hit-or-miss these days. These tenderloins looked really good though so I took a chance and bought one.

On the way home, I could here Adam chanting, "Grill!, Grill!, Grill!" but I wanted to do something different. Gwen Ashley Walters to the rescue again.

This recipe calls for Demi-Glace. I use More Than Gourmet's Demi-Glace Gold (I should join Amazon's affiliate program and take advantage of linking to them.) Mix it 4-to-1 with hot water, let it simmer a bit, and it is great stuff.

Mushroom-Stuffed Beef Tenderloin with Port Wine Sauce

1 slice smoked bacon, finely chopped
2 portabella mushroom caps, chopped
1/2 cup sliced white button mushrooms
2 teaspoons butter
1 teaspoon finely chopped garlic
2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
4 (8-ounce filet mignons)
Kosher Salt
Ground black pepper
Flour for dusting
1 cup ruby port wine
1 tablespoon finely chopped shallot
1 cup demi-glace

1. Preheat the oven to 400F. Add the bacon to a cold 10-inch skillet and heat over medium-high heat. Cook until bacon is brown. Stir in the mushrooms, butter, garlic, and rosemary. Cook until mushrooms are tender, about 5 minutes. Drain off liquid and place mushroom mixture into a food processor. Pulse a few times, finely chopping (but not puréeing) the mixture. Remove and season with salt and pepper.

2. Cut a 1-inch incision in the center (from the side, not the top) of the filet from top to bottom (I made a horizontal cut instead). Work the knife from side to side, trying to split the steak in half without actually doing so (to make a pocket within the steak). You don't want to cut through the sides and you don't want your incision too wide or the stuffing won't stay in.

3. Stuff the pocket with the mushroom mixture until full but not bulging. Lightly dust the filet with flour.

4. Heat a large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 tablespoons of oil and when hot, add the filets, searing both sides until brown, about 3 minutes per side. Move the pan to the preheated oven to finish (150-155F on an instant-read thermometer for medium to medium-well). When the filets are done, remove them from the pan, put them on a plate and tent with foil.

5. Put the sauté pan back on the stove over medium-high heat. Add the Port and deglaze the pan. Add the shallots and reduce by half. Stir in the demi-glace and cook until the desired consistency has been reached.

Shown here served with Pommes de terre de Hollande. Thank you Gwen, for permission to republish the recipe.

I Think I am On To Something!

I feel somewhat victorious (as opposed to Victorian) tonight: A fish dish without a cream sauce that my wife liked!

I poached the trout I filleted earlier today in champagne and then created a reduction sauce by adding some lemon and a teensy bit of butter.

On a whim, I served the sauce on the side. My wife's comment was, "This fish is really good, and I like it better without the sauce." Eureka! Perhaps it is the champagne-poaching, or perhaps it is the fact that the trout was pretty fresh (as fresh as one can expect here in the Arizona desert), or perhaps she just likes the flavor of trout. Regardless, her comment was, 'it doesn't taste fishy."

By the way, I have found an excellent inexpensive champagne for poaching: Cook's Extra Dry California Champagne. It is barely drinkable, but it works great for poaching and it is only $5/bottle at my local supermarket.

Trout Fillet Poached in Champagne

2 fresh trout fillets
3 cups dry champagne
2 shallots
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 bay leaves

Chop the shallots. Place the butter and oil in a saute pan over medium-high heat. When the butter foam subsides, add the shallots and bay leaves. Saute until the shallots are translucent. Add the champagne. Let the champagne come to a boil then add the fillets. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and let the trout poach for about 5-8 minutes or until done.

I served the trout with brown-braised onions and sauteed mushrooms straight out of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Tags: Fish

Coq Au Vin

Oh man, I have just eaten the best chicken I have ever made. We invited my parent over for dinner tonight. I have long wanted to make Coq Au Vin and decided that tonight would be the night. I used Julia Child's recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking and it was fantastic. I did not use a whole cut up chicken however, instead I used some boneless skinless chicken breasts and thighs I had in the freezer left over from another meal. Also, instead of making the brown-brasied onions and sauteed mushrooms while the chicken was cooking, I made them ahead of time:

Brown-Braised Onions

18 - 24 peeled white onions. I used pearl onions
1-1/2 Tablespoons butter
1-1/2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 cup beef broth
Parsley, Thyme, and Bay leaf tied up in cheesecloth (I use a large tea infuser instead of the cheescloth)

Heat the butter and oil over moderate heat in a saucepan. When they are bubbling, add the onions and saute, rolling the onions around so they brown as evenly as possible. (You cannot expect them to brown uniformly).

Add enough beef broth to cover the onions and add the herb bouquet. Cover and simmer until the onions are tender but still retain their shape and most of the liquid has evaporated. Julia says 40-50 minutes but it took only about 25 minutes on my stove. Remove the herb bouquet.

Set aside until called for in the Coq Au Vin recipe.

Sauteed Mushrooms

1/2 lb fresh button mushrooms, washed, dried, and sliced
2 Tablespoons butter
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Place the skillet over high heat with the butter and oil. As soon as the butter foam begins to subside, add the mushrooms. As soon as the mushrooms have browned lightly, remove from heat. Set aside until called for in the Coq Au Vin recipe.

Coq Au Vin

2-3 lbs cut up frying chicken (I used skinless boneless breasts and thighs instead)
4 oz bacon
2 Tablespoons butter
1/2 Teaspoon salt
1/8 Teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup cognac
3 cups Burgundy, Beaujolais, or Chianti
1-2 cups chicken stock
1/2 Tablespoon Tomato paste
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 Teaspoon Thyme
1 Bay Leaf
3 Tablespoons Flour
2 Tablespoons softened butter
Parsley

Cut the bacon into strips about 1 inch long and 1/4 inch wide. Simmer for 10 minutes in 2 quarts water. Drain, rinse in cold water, and dry. Put the 2 Tablespoons butter in a saute pan, saucepan, or casserole over moderate heat. Saute the bacon until lightly browned. Remove the bacon from the pan (leaving the bacon grease in the pan) and set it aside.

Brown the chicken in the bacon grease. Season the chicken with the 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Return the bacon to the pan. Cover and cook on a medium-high heat for about 10 minutes.

Uncover and pour in the cognac. Averting your face, ignite the cognac. Shake the pan back and forth until the flames dye out. Pour the wine into the pan. Add just enough chicken stock to cover the chicken. Stir in the tomato paste, garlic, thyme, and bay leaf. Bring to a simmer. Cover and simmer until chicken is tender (I used my instant-read thermometer. When the chicken is at least 165F it's done.)

Remove the chicken from the pan, leaving the cooking liquid in the pan. Raise the heat and boil the cooking liquid rapidly until about 2 cups remain. Blend the 3 tablespoons flour and 2 tablespoons softened butter into a smooth paste, then beat it into the cooking liquid with a whisk. Simmer and stir for a minute ot too. The result should be a nice sauce thick enough to coat a spoon lightly.

Reheat the onions and mushrooms if necessary. Arrange the chicken on a platter. Pour the sauce over the chicken. Arrange the onions on one side of the chicken and the mushrooms on the other and serve.

Serves 4 - 6