Cooking Again!

Okay. If you like to cook at all, even a little bit, go see the movie Julie & Julia - fun, inspiring as a cook. I totally enjoyed it. I think even if you don't like to cook it was a good movie but probably not as much. Hard for me to know because I love to cook! lol

So tonight I did my first meal out of the cookbook.

Well, first yesterday I steam an artichoke and made a sauce from the book for it but I made the same sauce tonight so it'll be covered here.

I am just guessing but I think I best not post the recipes from her book on here. I'm certain that's a serious copyright infringement or something. I'll put the pages numbers and stuff though. :)

Master the Art of French Cooking - Julia Child

Okay. The other thing is this cookbook uses alcohol in almost every recipe. It's unbelievable how much alcohol is involved. lol But since I don't drink or cook with alcohol I am going to become a master at the substitutions for everything. I will also make note of what I used, of course.

First I did to Shrimp which she says to do on page 213. This calls for 3 cups of dry white wine - I used ginger ale. So ginger ale, water, fresh parsley, peppercorns, tarragon, bay leaf, thyme, an onion, carrot, and celery. All of that cooks together for a long time, then add the shrimp for a few minutes and pull them back out after. The wonderful thing is the shrimp tastes like all those things. The flavors just soaked right in. It was amazing.

Here is the shrimp still in the pot:



Then I made two butter sauces. (pg 97-98) She has you do a base and then slowly add the butter. Just a table spoon at a time while you whisk it. So it turns into this creamy delicious concoction that I can't even explain. I did Beurre Blanc (White butter sauce) - it had white wine vinegar, green onions, lemon juice, salt, white pepper. The other was a lot more lemon juice - Beuree au Citron. You start with lemon juice and then reduce it and add butter. Intense lemon flavor.

I wish I had words for those sauces. Let's just say it took me awhile to decide whether it was wrong to drink it...

The one on the right is the White Butter Sauce, on the left is the Lemon.

And I did 'Gratin Dauphinois' (pg 523) - Scalloped Potatoes with milk, Swiss cheese, a tiny hint of garlic. The garlic is only there because you rub the pan down with a clove of garlic first. This was the biggest hit for Drew.

Here is that: