Christmas 2013 - Beef Stroganoff

Dale and I had originally planned to make Julia Child's beef bourginoine recipe for this year's Christmas Day dinner. That would have meant spending a good chunk of Christmas Eve day preparing it and with having to sing for two Christmas Eve services we decided that there wouldn't be quite enough time without making the day overly stressful. Instead we combined the bourginoin recipe with out crock pot beef stroganoff recipe which cut the total prep and cooking time by more than half.

First Dale sauted garlic and green onion and then the mushrooms. Next he browned the meat on the stove and then put it in the oven for about a half hour. After that he added wine and mustard and then cooked it in the over for about three hours. Before serving he added sour cream. We served it over egg noodles. The result was heaven.

Christmas Day 2012

We had Mom over for dinner on Christmas Day.  We ate beef stroganoff and had a chocolate roulade for dessert. 

Beef Stroganoff - The Finished Product

How did the beef stroganoff turn out the other night? It was divine!

Time for Beef Stroganoff

It's always something of a big deal when Dale and I make beef stroganoff for the first time every fall season. It's such a wonderful fall and winter meal.

Fall Golden Hour Kickoff 2011

Dale slaved away over a hot crock pot today and made a wonderful beef stroganoff. He also made some very delicious brussels sprouts. For dessert we had burnt butterscotch ice cream from Pumphouse Creamery.

Christmas Day 2010

Dale and I had a lovely and quiet Christmas morning. We spent time relaxing and enjoying each other's company and looking at our beautiful Christmas tree. We also spent some time getting ready for having Mom over for Christmas dinner. The plan was to eat at about four o'clock so I began getting the beef stroganoff ready shortly after eight o'clock am. Last year we prepared Julia Child's recipe for beef bourguignon and, while incredibly delicious, it took a huge chunk of time to prepare on Christmas Eve. This year we decided to go the easier route and use the crock pot beef stroganoff recipe that we've been using for years. I'm pretty sure that this is the first year we've made it for Christmas dinner. It's one of our favorite winter recipes and this is the first time we've made it this season. It's also extremely easy to make.

Mom came over at 3 p.m. and we had drinks and appetizers (crackers and hummus). We watched the ending of Ben-Hur on Turner Classic Movies while Dale got the egg noodles for the stroganoff and the broccoli ready. We were eating by about 4:30. It was all very delicious. Dessert was a Buche de Noel from Kowalski's (at 54th and Lyndale Ave. So. and also my favorite grocery store) and coffee.

We then spent some time reminiscing about how Mom celebrated Christmas as a child. I've recently been doing a lot of geneology research into the French Canadian branch of my family tree. My great-grandmother Cora (Alma) Driscoll (Fugere) was from French Canada and I was curious to know if she had passed any French Canadian Christmas traditions down to my grandmother Jean Wagner (Driscoll). Mom said she didn't think so. She told me that my Great-Grandma Cora had never taught any of her children French and that Grandma Jean (hereafter referred to as Baba) resented that. Mom said she didn't think my great-grandma passed down any specific Christmas customs to Baba.

Mom talked a little bit about how her own Christmases played out as a child. She said they never did anything on Christmas Eve but that she and her siblings opened their stockings on Christmas morning. She said she always got an orange in her stocking. They would go to church and then come home and open presents. Each child got only one present because money was very tight when she was younger. She said that one year she got a slip as her Christmas present.

I remember quite clearly my own Christmas traditions while growing up. Christmas Eve day was usually pretty relaxed (for us kids at least). Mom I'm sure was getting ready for Christmas Eve's fondue dinner and doing last minute preparations for Christmas Day. Dad always did his Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve day. I remember going with him to the Southdale shopping mall one year when I was probably 12 or 13. I was surprised how dead it was as the mall that day. I had supposed more people would be doing last minute shopping but that was not the case. I don't know if that was an anomaly for the time or not. It sure isn't that way today. We'd start the fondue dinner at about 5:00 pm with the cheese fondue. I remember helping to stir the cheese on the stovetop while Mom slowly added more cheese the pot. It would then be added to the fondue pot on the dining room table. We'd then dip chunks of stale French bread into the cheese. It was delectable!! We'd move on to the meat in oil fondue after the bread in cheese. Mom always had beef stew meat for the oil fondue. She'd mix together a special ketchup-like mixture for dipping the fried meat in. In maybe the late seventies or early eighties she added scallops to the oil fondue. She made a special herbed butter to dip the scallops in after they were done in the fondue pot. After the meat fondue she would get the chocolate fondue ready. I remember dipping strawberries and bananas in the chocolate. It was divine! I remember being amazed at how much I could eat when we'd do fondue. It was easy to pack it all in due to taking breaks between the courses to get the next course ready and because we had to eat slowly during each course. That's just the nature of fondue. It takes time to prepare each little morsel!

Christmas morning began with opening stockings once everyone was awake. Stockings were always chock full of good stuff. One year Mom put an orange in each of our stockings and I was very perplexed. Not disappointed, just perplexed. Why would I have an orange in my stocking when I could walk to the kitchen and grab one from the fruit basket? Mom explained how she always got an orange in her stocking as a child and what a rare treat it was to have citrus fruit in the winter. It made sense as far as I was concerned and I appreciated the mini-history lesson. Due to this story I try to incorporate oranges with cloves stuck in them into my Christmas decorating as an adult.

We'd go to mass at Annunciation Catholic church after opening stockings and eating a light breakfast. After mass we'd open the presents from underneath the Christmas tree. At about 2 p.m. we'd have a Christmas feast. The meal was usually a repeat of Thanksgiving dinner but some years we had ham instead of turkey. After dinner I'd call whoever my best friend was at the time to wish them a Merry Christmas. We'd then talk about everything we got as a Christmas present. The evening of Christmas day was usually spent recovering from the food and excitingment by watching Christmas programming on T.V. Once the VCR came along we'd spend the evening watching Christmas movies.

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.