Dinner with Friends

I had my friends C & E over for dinner the other night. We had a great time enjoying my favorite things, listening to good music and drinking wine.

We also made some good food. This Beef Burgundy is a Rachel Ray recipe but it is a good, easy one. It's one of her 30 minute meals. It usually seems to take me 40 minutes and it's easy to stretch to an hour, in a social situation.

Rachel's Recipe

If you use the pearl onions, as she suggests, it is better. I always have a couple of regular onions around and find this tastes almost as good, with no additional cost or labor. I also just put this over whatever pasta or rice I have lying around. There may be better meat choices than sirloin. I'd recommend a juicier cut, more like a ribeye. Not enough cooking time is involved for proper "slow and low" cooking to tenderize the cheaper cuts. You could get away with the sirloin or stew beef. Just start with a little more liquid and cook it for longer. Near the end of the cooking I like to stir in a little milk or cream. It helps with the overall consistency of the sauce and adds a smoothness to the flavor.

Let the leftovers continue

This should be the last of the leftover ingredients posts. I've just about made it through the remainder of the Thanksgiving stores. I am pretty pleased. While I did go vastly over budget on the feast grocery shopping I have made those ingredients extend for a week with some really good meals.

So, I had leftover....
Whipping cream
Turkey
Brussels sprouts
Pine nuts
Parmesan and Provolone cheese.

So I put that together with some bow tie pasta for some Alfredo. Aside from clearing out some leftovers, this was ridiculously simple to make and looks a Little fancy. It's also remarkably quick to make. Once the pasta was cooked, the whole thing took less than five minutes to make.

I tossed the turkey and the Brussels sprouts in the microwave for a few seconds.

Next I melted a quarter stick of butter over lowish heat, then whisked in a half cup of the cream, until it just came to a simmer.
Next I drizzled in about a cup of shredded cheese, again stirring to combine. Then, I removed it from the heat and tossed in the pasta.
The turkey and sprouts went into the pan and the whole thing went onto the plate. I managed to hold off my Om Nom Nom Nom instincts just long enough to garnish it all with some freshly cracked pepper and another grating of Parmesan Reggiano.



A couple of notes:

Blogger doesn't exactly make it look easy to follow a blog, but it is. If you have a gmail login, this works, here. Otherwise, an account is free, comes with a gmail address and doesn't require your own blog....

Also, I ran across an interesting article on healthy takeout. Take out is a regular part of of our lives, whether we like it or not. none of us can, or want to, cook every meal.

http://www.rd.com/living-healthy/make-take-out-as-healthy-as-home-cooking/article15996.html