Monday, Tuesday, Julia

Some weeks all of the Julia blends into one. Sometimes it's a real struggle to cook from the book, thanks to a lack of foresight in penning the weekly shopping list, or work being a bit unmanageable or Bruce wriggling around inside complaining that rich, buttery foods don't really interest him.

This week, I was running out of vegetables so I tried to cook more widely across the book - on Monday night I cooked an easy brown sauce (stock, arrowroot, herbs) for the chicken I baked in the oven which became Sauce Diable (devil's sauce) when I added some black pepper, cayenne pepper and port. Yummy - plus I am always happy when I can cook two of Julia's recipes at the same time!

Menu

Jus Lié

Sauce Diable

Soubise

We also had onion soubise which was fantastic - slice up lots and lots of onions and cook briefly in butter, add half a cup of rice that has been boiled for five minutes and drained, then cover and cook in the oven for about an hour. The juices from the onion will cook the rice and everything will be very sweet. At the end add 1/4 cup of cheese and 1/4 cup of cream - of course! We were quite enamoured with it but happily, given Le Gourmand's recent complaints, it wasn't too rich. A side salad was served!

On Tuesday night I revisited the dubious garlic soup section of the book and cooked a variation adding potatoes and saffron. The verdict - not bad. Le Gourmand and I remain a bit confused by these garlic soups, they seem a bit insipid to us, but as the end of soup season approaches and it was a cold night, we weren't too disappointed.

Menu

Soupe À L'Ail aux Pommes de Terre

Paupiettes De Beouf/Roulades De Beouf/Petites Ballontines De Beouf

Frozen Peas

The real challenge for this evening was the beef rolls (yes paupiettes sounds much more exotic so I will stick with that) which were difficult because they involved rolling out meat into 1/2 centimetre pieces when the meat was really not cut properly for that purpose. A long day at work and beating meat with a rolling pin is not really that invigorating when you're seven months pregnant (otherwise I might have enjoyed beating the meat). The rest of the recipe was surpisingly painless - stuff with seasoned pork and veal mince, tie with kitchen string, brown in casserole and then add onion and carrot to the casserole, add blanched bacon rind to the bottom, pour in some stock and wine, partially submerge paupiettes, bring to a simmer and then cook in a slow oven for an hour. Once the paupiettes are tender, remove, strain and degrease sauce, and boil sauce down if necessary, adding some mustard and cream at the end. Oh and of course a little butter. Again, surprisingly not too heavy.

Julia's recipe for frozen peas involves cooking them down in half a cup of stock with a minced shallot and some butter - must have helped because we didn't feel too cheated that the freshly shelled peas to which we were becoming accustomed had been replaced by frozen ones once more. Still feels like cheating to use frozen food in a Julia recipe!