A Tour of Europe

I enjoy cooking. I think it's partially due to the fact that I enjoy eating and cooking is just a means to an end. But, nonetheless, I digress. Cooking is fun. I enjoy the process. I enjoy the accolades you get when you've made something everyone loves. Lastly, I enjoy eating the fruits of my labor.

On weekends, I enjoy cooking in order to give Joi a night or nights off from having to come up with and cook dinners. I typically don't like to make easy recipes (like Mac and Cheese and Hamburger Meat). I like to do something ethnic and adventurous. I especially like stews and soups or things that have to simmer all day. This weekend, I got two opportunities to cook. On Saturday night, I made Chicken Marsala. It's an easy but tasty Italian recipe. I love mushrooms, so this is right up my alley. Also, cooking with wine is fun (even though we don't drink). I think it turned out pretty well for my first time. My wife said she liked it and my boys seemed to enjoy it. For next time, I might let the chicken brown a little longer before I throw in the wine, mushrooms, and green onions. But, it was tasty and was excellent as a topper on some spaghetti noodles. After we had cleaned the dishes on Saturday night, I started preparing the next nights dinner. I decided to make Beef Bourguignon. We needed something that we could throw in the crock-pot and let simmer all day while we went to church and our life-group. Sunday's are busy for us and we don't get home until 6:30pm from our life-group...so it's nice to have something simmering all day long that we can just spoon out and eat. What I didn't realize was just how much preparation went into beef bourguignon. It was crazy. I chopped some yellow onions up and browned some bacon in a pan. I took the bacon out to crumble into pieces for the crock-pot. I browned some stew beef and onions in a pan. Cut up the carrots and mushrooms. Added those to the crock-pot along with some chopped white onions (I think next time I'll use frozen pearl onions). When the meat and onions were done, I added them to the crock-pot along with some spices, beef broth, and red (burgundy) wine. I put the entire crock-pot in the fridge to marinate overnight. The entire process took me almost an hour. The next morning, Joi took out of the crock-pot, put it in it's base, and started it on low. We made some noodles between church and life group and put them in the fridge to heat up later. It was tasty. I was hoping to recreate a Disneyland recipe that we enjoyed when we lived in California and had annual passes. We loved the beef bourguignon at the French Market in New Orleans Square and had it every time we went. Of course, Disneyland removed it from their menu, much to the chagrin of my wife and I. My recipe didn't come out the same as the one Disneyland used to make, but it was still tasty. The meat was so tender due to the 11 hours of slow cooking and the wine (which acts as a tenderizer). I think I'll make it again, but I'll tweak the recipe here and there to try to get closer to the Disneyland recipe. All in all, it was a fun weekend cooking adventure. If anyone has the Disneyland recipe, please send it my way!