Fall Golden Hour Kickoff 2006

Tonight is the Fall Golden Hour Kickoff. What a Sunday dinner it will be. There is no official date for the Fall Golden Hour Kickoff although it usually starts on a later September or early October Sunday when it starts to feel like fall weather as opposed to summer weather. It is also when the Golden Hour is devoted to more substantial and hearty fare than in summer time. Pumpkin and other squashes as well as root vegetables begin to enter the picture. It is much more likely that the oven will be used. Cocktails are more likely to be red wine and hard liquor rather than a light rose wine.

Tonight the menu will include beef stroganoff and a steamed green vegetable. Dale will have red wine and I'll have a martini. Have I given directions for how I make a martini. It's been such a while since I've posted! I should have probably checked past postings rather than just jumping in and making a new post.

Anyway, I line a glass with Noily Prat vermouth and pop it in the freezer. Then at cocktail hour I'll fill another martini glass with Bombay Sapphire gin which will then be dumped into the shaker. I'll add a drop of vermouth and shake the whole thing up. The martini is said to be better if it is shaken in waltz time. Once properly shaken I'll pour it into the frozen vermouth lined martini glass. Cold is so very key. I've begun keeping the gin in the refridgerator again even though I'm told it is not good for the gin. My non-refridgerated gin martinis have just not been cold enough even when shaken on ice Also, I haven't been getting ice crystals when using non-refidgerated gin. Anyway, I got some sun dried tomato stuffed olives at Kowalskis which I'll have on the side instead of in the drink.

I'll have apple pie for dessert and Dale I believe is having carrot cake. I'll tell all about how it all turns out in the next post...

Beef Stroganoff

Wow! Last week's beef stroganoff was incredible. Again, it came from Natalie Houghton's 365 One Dish Meals. What's great is that it is such an amazingly simple recipe and the prep time was minimal - only about 10 minutes. The cook time was just 15 minutes. The results were delicious! The ingredients included stew meat, butter, mushrooms, scallions, cooking sherry, beef broth, cornstarch, sour cream, and mustard. It was the mustard that really made it. We used Grey Poupon's Country Dijon which really gave it a kick. We had the stroganoff over egg noodles with steamed asparugus on the side.

Note: I love to have music playing while cooking. Last week while making the stroganoff we played the soundtrack from the movie Four Rooms. Most of the music is by Combustible Edison although a couple of tracks are by Esquivel. It's very lounge-y and fun to cook to while drinking Bombay Sapphire martinis and wine.

Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking

We celebrated my friend Noel's birthday today. My partner Dale and I joined her and her friend's Caroline and Stephen for brunch at a restaurant called A Rebours in the Hamm Building in downtown St. Paul. It was an absolutely gorgeous sunny spring morning so we ate outside. From the sidewalk there's a lovely view of Landmark Center and the Saint Paul Hotel. Anyway, Dale and I gave her a copy of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It's been on her wish list on Amazon.com forever and with her love of so many things French I thought it would make the perfect gift. I told her how much I love my copy of it although I have to admit that my love of this book is rather bizarre since I never make anything from it - too hard and time consuming! She agreed but, remembering her mother's copy, noted that just reading it is a pleasure. I had to agree. There's also just something about the weight of it when you hold it in your hands (I have the hardcover) and the look of it (it's the 40th Anniversary Edition with a red dust jacket that's covered with those little French flower things) that adds to the enjoyment of the experience of reading it. We all noted that the French tend to view eating as a pleasureable experience while here in the States we tend to view eating as more utilitarian. I think one of the things that comes out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking is that the process of making food should be just as pleasureable as eating it.

Part of what Dale and I like most about making our Sunday dinners is the act of preparing the meal. It's a time to wind down from the day and the previous week and set the tone for the coming one. If you're looking for a way to deal with the Sunday Blues, a relaxed cooking session works wonders. We usually start by pouring drinks for ourselves. Dale is a great lover of red wine. I am too but I have a penchant for stronger booze and when faced with a choice will usually choose a Bombay Sapphire martini over wine. (I love the kick, baby!) Anyway, having a drink before and while making dinner is fun and it also slows the whole process down just a tad which is definitely not a bad thing in our over-hurried lives.

Tonight we're trying a new beef stroganoff recipe. The one we usually use is from Natalie Haughton's The Best Slow Cooker Cookbook Ever. We've always had great results with this recipe. Today we thought we'd try a new one that's from Ms. Houghton's 365 Easy One Dish Meals. Due to brunch today we weren't able to come home right away after church to turn on the Crock-Pot at the time needed so it would be done at 7:00 p.m. The untried recipe does not require the Crock-Pot. Next time I post I'll let you know how it turns out...

Notes:

Wine: Dale is currently loving a wine called La Vieille Ferme. He says it's organic and that it tastes fabulous.

Martini: I measure out the Bombay Sapphire gin by filling a martini glass with it and then dump it into a shaker. I pour a little dry vermouth in the glass and swoosh it around and then dump that into the the shaker also. I know some folks can't stand the idea of vermouth but to a purist(which I am) it is part of the drink so I always include it. Not so much into olives in the drink but love having sun dried tomato stuffed olives on the side. Anyway, I usually shake the drink until I can't take the coldness of the shaker. I heard once (can't remember where) that a martini should be shaken in waltz time. I tried it and now it's a habit. When done, I pour it back in to a martini glass. (I try to remember to stick a martini glass already lined with vermouth in the freezer to get it cold but I haven't been good about remembering to do this.)

Sunday Dinner

Watch this spot for postings on sharing meals and memories with family and friends...

Part of the challenge of life in the early 21st century is slowing down and enjoying life.

I have fond memories of Sunday dinners with my family. These were perfect times to celebrate the weekend and look ahead to the coming week. A good part of my early socialization was done around the dinner table. Sadly, the family meal is something that is dying in our great United States. Recently Paul Douglas, one of the local weather guys here in the Twin Cities, included a quote from the Dalai Lama in his weather column for the the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It said: "It is fascinating: in the West, you have bigger homes, yet smaller families; you have endless conveniences, yet you never seem to have any time. You can travel anywhere in the world, yet you don't bother to cross the road to meet your neighbor. I don't think people have become more selfish, but their lives have become easier and that has spoiled them. They have less resilience, they expect more, they constantly compare themselves to others and they have too much choice, which brings them no real freedom." (Don't ask me how this relates to the weather but I'm glad he included it. Thanks Dale for pointing that out to me today!)