Daube de Mouton

Thanksgiving is the perfect time to cook and perhaps cook somethings that you have made before. However, this rule never applies to this household. There is a big competition between the husband and the wife (Bobby and me) to show off our cooking skills. As Bobby offered to make Pecan Pie, for the first time, I also offered to make a Lamb Stew.

In order to decide which Lamb Stew to make, I didn't bother to go back to my previous recipes. I opened my very new Julia Child book and went through the recipes. Then I found it: "Daube de Mouton" and J'étais en amour.

 The result was unbelievably good, but there are some things that I wish I knew before starting (Note to self for the next experiment).


First, the timing in the recipe is really for an expert. For an amateur like me, it took twice as long. I had to make double the amount in the recipe as well. 


I did marinade the Lamb over night. In the morning, I started preparing the tomatoes and mushroom. The recipe is for Beef and Julia says to do the same for lamb. For some reason, I still cannot imagine eating bacon with lamb, so I did escape the bacon layers.Also, the recipe says to add beef stock, I wish I didn't have some lamb stock prepared, since I didn't have that I poured Veggie stock in it.

 

 As you can see, the pan was too small for my stew. So you might be able to picture the mess that it made in my only working oven. 


After 2 hours of cooking in the oven. My stew was only half done. Still missing a flavor. So I tried adding a bit of tomato paste to a small amount of stew to see if that works. And Hallelujah! It was sent from heaven, by Julia herself!

On Thanksgiving day, I skipped the oven and poured the whole stew in a big Pot and let it simmer slowly for 2 more hours. God that was the best stew I ever had in my life. I didn't have any leftovers to bring home after the party:-)


If you do have the book of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", go to the meat section, the recipe is on page 322.

Pies with Paula

Paula was kind enough to come over to our house and teach us how to make our own pie crust. I have no shame to say that I have no talent in baking. I think I actually scared Paula.

The Pie dish that I bought was too big and too deep, so it was a big challenge to put the crust in it.

 

It was a complete silence ...

  

And Done....

And here is the crust all set for the filling :

Then While I was making cookies out of the left over dough, Bobby and Paula made pumpkin pie filling. 

Time to leave her in the oven for a little while... while I watch Dirty Sexy Money

And now we are ready for Thanksgiving!

Seasoning Shelf

So I went out and looked through the antique store in our down town and finally got the shelf that I had in my head. It is wood, chipped and just perfect. Just the way I wanted it. There was only one problem. The walls in America are not made from bricks. You can actually cut through your wall with a knife! A KNIFE! And we call those four walls Home! Anyways ... So to keep my shelf on the wall I have to make sure it is not too heavy. After playing with some ideas, I finally agreed to look for tins at antique stores.

 

I went to Luccett and bought 4 tins. When I came back home I found out that they were tins to store tobacco. Oh well, I washed them couple times and lined them with food safe papers. Now I have my very own seasoning rack.