Beef Bourguignon

Last summer Sarah and I saw the movie Julie & Julia. It's a movie about a woman named Julie living in New York City and Julia of Julia Child fame. Julie was feeling lost and decided she needed to do something to give her some direction in her life. She decided to cook her way through Julia Child's famous book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in the span of one year. That, my friends, is 524 recipes in 365 days. Julie did find the direction she was so desperately seeking and did indeed complete all of the recipes in that cookbook in one year. At the same time the movie follows Julia Child and her quest to find her direction in life. The audience learns where Julia's passion for cooking came from and how she came to write her first cookbook. The movie was excellent and I highly recommend it.

The one recipe that stood out to me was Julia's classic dish Boeuf Bourguignon. I fully intended to go home and cook that recipe myself. I certainly couldn't cook 524 recipes but I thought one was doable. I even looked the original recipe up and bookmarked it. Intentions didn't get me very far because until now I hadn't tried it.

As fate would have it on the way home from Germany I watched the movie again. And again I was determined to try Julia's famous beef dish. Not a week after we got home I was reading through the Sunday paper and what recipe should be featured but Beef Bourguignon! An easy version of Beef Bourguignon. But the one thing that caught my eye was this Beef Bourguignon dish was supposed to be served over mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes!! That sealed the deal.

Today was the day.

The cast of characters were assembled.




First things first. Bacon is browned. Seriously, what can go wrong if bacon is involved?




The beef was cubed, seasoned and then suffered the same fate as the bacon.

Then it was the vegetable's turn.




So far so good.




Oh no, I've just read through the recipe. It will be eight o'clock before my Beef Bourguignon is done. What to do? Hold it for tomorrow. There is no way I can wait that long to eat. Besides aren't soups and stews better the next day?

But first I combine the beef and vegetables and let them simmer in a bottle of wine (yes one bottle of wine) for an hour and a half. Then it's off to the refrigerator to wait until tomorrow.




I have to say the house smells incredible. I can't wait until tomorrow to finish and eat my first attempt at Beef Bourguignon.

to be continued...