My blog had been full of political ponderings recently, so I thought today we might take a break and go for a lighter discussion.
I am not an excellent cook but I do enjoy excellent food. When I was in college I had a friend who gave me a notebook filled with mimeographed copies of the recipes from the newly released Julia Child cooking show The French Chef. He worked for the local PBS station and had gotten a notebook with all the recipes. He had an ulterior motive as he was trying to finish writing his Master’s thesis that summer and he hired me to cook one meal a day for him so he did not have to think about cooking (he was an excellent cook) but could concentrate on his thesis. But here was the catch: I could only cook out of Julia Child’s recipes. This was not as easy as it may sound, but I somehow survived and actually developed some cooking skills. Some.
I don’t have many cookbooks on my shelf these days (though I wish I still had those mimeographed Julia Child recipes). Here are the volumes that have not been thrown out or sent to thrift stores or donated to library book sales:
Beard on Bread
Favorite Recipes of the John C. Campbell Folk School
Craig Claiborne’s Kitchen Primer
Julia Child’s The French Chef Cookbook (the published book not the mimeographed ones)
James Beard’s American Cookery
These books survived intensive decluttering because each holds a few special recipes and a multitude of special memories.
In addition to these few books, we also have a ring binder with a wide variety of recipes ranging from my sister-in-law’s Death by Chocolate to our daughter’s Chicken Tikka to my mother’s Spaghetti Sauce to my friend Rosamond’s best in the world Banana Bread to Tom’s Butterscotch Brownies and more. Many more. Many more than we actually cook, but we keep a copy of the recipe just in case.
Today we had a lunch of Julia Child’s beef stew and James Beard’s biscuits. It was a simple lunch but absolutely delicious. It was one of those lunches that felt like sitting down with old friends which is true in many ways when we prepare a meal with favorite recipes.
The Beef Stew recipe is from The French Chef Cookbook, the chapter titled “Beef Gets Stewed Two Ways”. I have made both: one uses a marinade for the beef of dry white vermouth and brandy or gin and the other (the one that is my standby) uses a marinade of red wine vinegar, olive oil and garlic.
This is a wonderfully easy recipe. I have made some adjustments. It’s ALMOST a no-fail recipe though I did have one rather spectacular failure when, for some reason I still cannot fathom, I marinated the beef using 1 cup of red wine vinegar instead of 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar. Oh my. And of course it was a day we were having friends over for lunch. The stew was so vinegary that it almost made you weep; our friends were so lovely that they proclaimed it was delicious and even days later when I apologized again, Hank said he thought it was delicious and he preferred his stews quite vinegary. We are blessed to have those kind of friends who love us and stand by us even when we try to kill them—or at least kill their taste buds— with our cooking.
Here’s the basic recipe:
2 to 3 pounds of beef stew meat (chuck steak)
The marinade:
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 TBSP. Olive oil
2 large cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1/8 tsp. Pepper
2 tsp (or less) salt
3/4 tsp. Savory
3/4 tsp. Thyme
Mix marinade in a glass or stainless steel bowl, add the meat, stir, cover and refrigerate overnight.
Then put the beef, some peeled potatoes and sliced carrots in the crock pot with the beef, add the marinade that was used for the beef and enough water to cover the ingredients and turn on high and cook until done.
Julia Child did not use a crock pot and we have used a casserole dish and cooked this stew in the oven, but these days we cut all available corners and just let it do its thing in the crock pot.
When you serve the stew it is a nice touch to add some freshly grated Parmesan cheese. The recipe is ample enough that you will have leftovers; it is a recipe that only seems to improve with a day or two of age.
I grew up in a family that loved biscuits. I don’t specifically remember the biscuits being homemade, though I am certain my grandmother used to make them from scratch, most likely using lard from when they had killed hogs.
The biscuits I remember most were the refrigerated ones that came in a can that you rapped sharply on the edge of a table or counter until the can popped open to reveal the ready to place on the baking sheet biscuits.
My mother never went on a trip that she didn’t make some country ham biscuits wrapped in aluminum foil to take along for the ride. Even when we came to visit, she usually got up early on the day of our departure to make sure we had a brown paper bag stuffed with those foil wrapped biscuits ready to go. I will never complain about refrigerator biscuits as they hold a number of wonderful memories.
However, I love a good homemade biscuit. I love a Bojangles biscuit. I just love biscuits period.
This recipe is one of the easiest biscuit recipes I have found and it is from James Beard’s Beard on Bread cookbook.
2 cups sifted all purpose flour (I have used some whole wheat flour at times)
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter or other shortening (I have only made them with butter)
3/4 cup of milk
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together.
Using your fingers, blend in the butter.
Add the milk and stir.
The dough will be quite soft.
Turn out on a lightly floured surface and knead for about a minute.
Pat or roll out.
Cut with a round biscuit cutter or something similar.
Place on an ungreased baking sheet.
Bake in a preheated oven at 450 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes.
Serve piping hot (though they are quite tasty cold too).
My mother used to slice day-old biscuits in half, put a pat of butter on top and toast under the broiler in the oven. Delicious with a dab of jam for breakfast the morning after you had the biscuits for lunch or supper.
So we had a lovely lunch today of beef stew and hot biscuits. It was like sitting down with our old friends Julia and James.
Nothing like breaking bread with those we love.
Your photo of the bowl of beef stew gave me instant flashback to the beef stew my mother made. So good! For some reason she never made biscuits although she did crack open those cans on occasion. I guess biscuits were not a Milwaukee thing. We always had buttered bread with stew. These days I do my best to cook yummy meals quickly which is why I have acquired an air fryer lid for my Instant Pot!
What a great start to the day ! Memories flooding back and forth of my childhood days and the delicious meals mama cooked on Sunday that we kept eating from during the week. It was as much the gathering together of family as it was the food. One fed off the other. Thanks Jeanne. Yes, those biscuits you cracked open on the edge of the counter and watched them rise in the oven …Yummy tummy! ❤️