Day 43: Hell's Kitchen W/This Julia Meal

Menu:
Garden Salad ME (Mikey Made The Salad)

Artisan Baguette Bread

Olive Oil and Red Wine Bread Dip w/Seasonings PE

Celery And Potato Soup JC

Bifteck Saut'e Bercy JC
(Pan-Broiled Steak, w/Shallot and White Wine Sauce)

Sauteed Mushrooms and Onions JC

My kitchen hasn't seen cooking in nearly a week. So I thought I would make up for it by making 3 Julia dishes. Well, don't ever do that. I was doing really well and then as everything was finishing up all at once that is when it all became overwhelming. I've never really seen the show Hell's Kitchen but it did look like one of those previews there for a short bit until I got everything all cooked to completion and on the table. I'm making a second mental note to self...do not make more than one Julia recipe per meal. Got it.

The garden salad had a nice fresh taste to it with red bell peppers from my sister's garden. Michael did a bang up job making those. He would rather be absent when I'm cooking and present when we are eating. So I appreciate him willing to be in the kitchen with me while I cooked way out of my league this evening. We also had bread, a mini loaf of french baguette artisan bread and then I made a dip with an olive oil base. I make this nearly every time we have company.

The soup was uh...mAAAA...Zzzzzing. I had a bag of celery that needed to be used. I saw that there was a celery soup recipe in Julia's cookbook. Julia's celery soup just seemed like the thing to make. There was some tweaking with this recipe though. Which is another no-no when you are making one of her recipes for the first time. Because you see, when you don't know what you are doing in the first place then how can you tweak it??? Even though I was stressing out because I decided to fly solo once I perused Julia's instruction, the soup turned out really good. It was very reminiscent of the type of soup they make at Bread Co. but much heartier and very delicious. Rather than use the type of regular potatoes I used red potatoes. I didn't peel them. I thought once I pureed the potatoes the bits of red peel would look really pretty in the green soup. It did.

The ribeyes were really good, the next time I may cook mine a minute longer next time though. Michael loved his. The wine sauce for the ribeyes calls for Vermouth. I couldn't find any in our area. But I did find some in Indiana while I was there last week. I'm not sure why Vermouth is different than a dry white wine but the steaks sure were good. I sauteed some mushrooms and onions and served them in a different wine sauce with the steaks. Very good.

Facts:

Day 43 of 100 (After the hectic week I had 365 days just isn't for me)

Pounds Lost: A week of DQ, Concannon's and a Krispy Kreme Donut, you do the math.
Pounds Gained: I sure hope you aren't good at math!
Happiness Level: 100% (I got a card and a phone call from my kids today, I'm elated)
Missing My Kids: 100% (I do miss my kids being in the house)
Cooking Enjoyment: 100% (I mastered the meal I totally enjoy that)
Eating Enjoyment: 100% (Well Michael referred to my cooking as gourmet so I guess we enjoyed it.)