Piece de boeuf Braisee

Haloo everyone! After watching Julie and Julia or was it Julia and Julie?? I can't remember,. I went off on a wild hair and ordered  the book "Mastering the Art of French Cooking".  I guess I was wondering if the recipes tasted as good as it appeared on the movie. 

Today I tried my first recipe Boeuf A La Mode because I wanted to try something new with the pot roast in the freezer. I had to thaw it out first and then added diced carrots, onions, and celery with some garlic, thyme, bay leaves, parsley, allspice, and, a little olive oil, salt and pepper and 5 cups of my favorite wine.  Just kidding.  I substituted my homemade grape juice without the sugar added.  I marinaded it over night, browned it this morning after fishing it out of the marinade. Put it back in the pot with all the marinade added and put it in the oven for 4 hours.

Then I looked up the braised carrots in butter recipe and made those off to the side (without the braised onions, I didn't have any of those little onions)

The tip on carrots? I cooked them with 1 TBS sugar (to develop the flavor according to Julia) 1 1/2 cups water, 1 1/2 TBS
butter, 1/2 tsp salt and a pinch of pepper.  Boil slowly for 30 minutes or so until the liquid evaporates. Voila!

Then I pulled the roast out of the cooked juice marinade, put the vegetable remainder through a strainer, because I don't own a sieve, and made gravy out of it.  The gravy went over the carrots and then the carrots were pulled out with a slotted spoon into a serving bowl and the remaining gravy went over the meat and potatoes. Magnifique!  I think my husband is still picking at the roast. And the carrots.  The gravy is gone. I should have made more.

If you're interested in the exact measurements of everything, let me know. I will send it to you. Mis bon amis!

This week at our house. Cookie Monster had his wisdom teeth out and looks like a chipmunk storing up for winter.  Since he sprained his ankle last week badly and has been on crutches, it was difficult to get him into the house after the surgery and down the stairs when he was only semi conscious with one good foot. We almost went down the stairs on our noggins. 

Soccer boy is working at a daycare. Yes, that's right.  He's babysitting. All 6'2'' of him, including the beard. Giggle.  He asked a girl to prom and she answered him on Friday night.  I had 15 minutes to turn his room into something presentable when the girl and all her friends showed up with balloons to go inside his room. I was thinking some non holiday words when I was grabbing piles of clothing, books, etc offf his floor.

The youngest went on his very first overnighter with the scouts.  The went up to a scout camp in the mountains to sleep in tents, make rockets, shoot guns, eats lots of food, go snow shoeing, shoot their rockets off and come home again.  Since he's still in the younger troop, his father got to go with him. :)  I imagine he was thinking some non holiday words at the thought of setting up a tent and sleeping in the snow in 10 degrees. Snicker.

Matt is living in logan and trying to make some mula. He got a gig as a DJ for the New Years dance at the Uof U and made a little money.  Hopefully he can use that to fix the blown speakers. :)

Chris is back at school in Rexburg and travels to Logan to visit a young lady.  I imagine he is visiting some in Rexburg too. For all I know there could be one in Pocatello, Brigham City, Ogden, and Salt Lake. :)  What do I know?  I'm just his mother.

Me?  I threw my back out trying to move the heavy coffee table back into the Living room the night the scouters were away.  That's what I get for snickering at my hubby. Its not too bad. I was able to coach for the girls bb game, make food for the chipmunk in the basement, prepare a lesson, and pretend to be Julia Childs!  I must go now.  I need to ice and heat for a minute before I go to the Bishop's fireside. ciao

One week

In the time period of a week the following things occurred.
4 Christmas parties, getting the card table back from the neighbors (when they weren't home),
preparing soup for a crowd,
salad for a crowd,
pulled pork sandwiches for a crowd,
and purchasing pizza for a smaller group (This does not include Christmas eve or Christmas day which was a turkey and ham etc etc with bread bowls for traditional cheese soup), The other meal days don't count.  Don't forget the multiple trips to the grocery store.

I also didn't get school off.  Had two days of classes including a chapter test which I didn't do as well on as I thought even though I passed. I drive to Kaysville to school.

Made 24 loaves of banana bread, where 8 didn't turn out when they didn't come out of the pans.  They also spilled into my oven for the first time ever and fragranced  the house with essence of banana smoke.
 Made 3 batches of toffee.
Did 24 situps each night thinking it would balance out after I ate the toffee.
Negotiated getting in and out of the driveway between 3 to 4 power company trucks trying to find the reason, my next door neighbors power was out.  The break was under our driveway by the wall. :)
Blue stake came in and sprayed the snow with orange and yellow festive lines.
They brought in a digger and put a 5 ft hole in the driveway.

They had an emergency in Provo and left the cement blocks out, put up some orange and white striped cones, and strung the cones with yellow caution tape. I debated about draping the area with tinsel and lights, but ran out of time. The main hope was that the Mail Nazi would still deliver. Apparently it was all too much for him, because we had a different mail man for the a few days.  I know this because we actually had our mail brought up to the house.  I almost passed out from shock.  What a great Christmas present!
(One of my sons said the Mail Nazi had actually shaved his beard and was sporting a Hitler mustache. I have not yet been able to confirm this.)
I put together 24 bag gifts for the Young women and delivered the laurels. My counselors delivered theirs(Game of Uno with a poem off the internet about UNO (You know) you are a daughter of God etc etc. I threw in some lip gloss for the Laurels)
Put together the loaves of banana bread with bottled jam.  Made tags.
Ryan delivered them dressed in a santa costume I made for Matt when he was in 4th grade Halloween parade. (I used red maternity capris with a red adult sweatshirt so it be could stuffed.  It is edged in fake white fur and it used to have bells for buttons. We still had the beard and hat.

He was on his way to deliver a gift to one of the young men leaders.  I think its a toy pig on a swing... And a pez candy dispenser...

 I spent a lot of time going to Walmart, Kohls, Shopko, Costco, Michaels, Ross dress for less, Barnes and Noble, Smiths market place, Target. Best Buy, and a variety of other places over and over again.

Received my mom's birthday and my sister's christmas presents. Stil haven't mailed them :)

Picked up the little brother and sister of one of my young women at daycare and brought them home. Made sure they got fed.

Received the news that a friend we know well passed away on Christmas eve from an accident with a 4 wheeler. He was a counselor to Dan when Dan was the Elder's Quorum President years ago. He was the Bishop in the ward he moved to. There are 3 general authorities in his ward.  Elder Hales, President Ukdorf and one other, I can't remember which one.  Elder Nelson I think. He was also an excellent Ear Nose and Throat Doc.  I was going to be seeing him for my throat. It's a great loss to their family and the whole community.

I worked on a talk for Sacrament Meeting for yesterdays meeting. I worked on a lesson for the Laurels on Goal setting.

I discovered mice in the dog snack cupboard.  Killed two with one trap. Set more and have been cleaning everything last thing in the cupboard.  Still not done.  They ate all of his small snacks. YUCK!

All the boys went sledding up at the Golf Course here on Christmas day.  Ryan took a bad spill and broke his right collar bone. This was about half an hour after Grandma, Grandpa, and Austin left to go back to Provo.Chris recorded the whole thing on video for posterity.  Dan took him to the ER at the closest hospital. I was working on my talk, but the only thing I could do was wring my hands and pace.  Should have gone to the hospital.  Ryan has been in terrible pain even with the morphine shot. He's doing a little better.  Today we will see the Orthopedic doc.

Put some color stuff on my hair while I took a bath and worked on my talk on Saturday.  Forgot how long it was in.  My hair is now black.

Pulled a large glass pan of yummy potatoes out of the frig to warm up.  The pan had cracked in half some how.  I cut my finger trying to remove it carefully. Burned my arm on the oven. Broke the glass lid to my crock pot when I was pulling pork. The frig in the basement has a leak and the water is under the pergo flooring in Chris's bathroom.  It sloshed when you walk on it.  Dan was twisting under the sink next to the frig to turn off the water and twisted his stomach into a knot and had some killer cramping pains. It knocked the energy out of him and he felt so rotten he had to lay down for a while.

Attended 5 meetings on Sunday.  Gave my talk. Gave my lesson. Dan's brother invited us all up to his cabin an hour's drive away for dinner and some kind of talent show.  I opted out and stayed home.  They had to leave one hour after I got home from meetings. Yes, I am a party pooper.

Some dogs belongs to some members (huskys) got loose again today and attacked Benny.  I was trying to beat one of them off with a shovel. They had him by his neck. He shook for 30 minutes afterwards.

Oh and we've almost hit the neighbors dogs about 4 times this week alone.

Someone did a 12 days of christmas for me and made my year :)

That's about it.  The rest is normal boring stuff like laundry. You know, the boring stuff.

So how did your week go?