Easy Boeuf Bourguignon (say what???)

Before you run away because of the scary title of this post, here us out. Just because this meal has a fancy French name for it doesn’t mean that it is complicated to make.

Difficult pronunciation≠Difficult recipe

We first stumbled upon this recipe on our favorite blogger’s site Chez Sasha (link to original recipe here). She made Boeuf Bourguignon to celebrate her 3 year anniversary of blogging, we made it because we were bored. At first we were a little intimidated but digging deeper we noticed that the hardest part of this recipe if waiting for it to cook.

So before proceeding there are a couple things to point out. Sasha recommends that you use a full-bodied red wine, “like Burgundy, Pinot Noir, or my favorite, Malbec.” We had neither of these so we used what we had leftover from our St. Patrick’s day celebration:

Lake Country…The anytime table wine.

Sasha is probably shaking her head by now. But this recipe turned out really well! If you have some old red wine laying around give this recipe a try, no need to go out and buy fancy expensive wine (although we trust Sasha that this recipe tastes better with it).

Also, traditionally this recipe is made with bacon and mushrooms. Sasha left these out and so did we. Finally, this stew is typically served with mashed potatoes or noodles. Sasha served her’s over potatoes and so did we.

So if you want to impress your friends or family, invite them over for this meal!

Boeuf Bourguignon

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It’s French for Beef Bourguignon. The more you know.

• Servings – 4 to 6
• Prep time – 10 minutes
• Cook time – 2 hours

Ingredients

• 1 to 1 1/2 pounds of beef tips, cubed
• 2 large carrots, sliced diagonally
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 cup red wine
• 14 ounces beef stock

Protocol

1. Season the beef with salt and pepper. Pre heat your oven to 325F.

2. In a Dutch oven over high heat, sear the beef tips in about 3 tablespoons of olive oil. It should take about 2 to 3 minutes a side. Sasha suggests performing this step in 2 batches as to not crowd the pan.

3. Set the beef aside and turn down the heat to medium. Add in the carrots and onions and saute for 6 minutes. Add in the garlic and cook for another minute.

4. Add back the beef to the pot and stir in the flour. Cook for another minute.

5. Add in the tomato paste, thyme, red wine, and beef stock, stir to combine. Cover with the lid and bring to a boil.

6. Transfer to the oven and cook for 2 hours. During this time you can make your mashed potatoes or noodles.

7. Serve and enjoy!

-D&E

Gnocchi in a Browned Butter Sage Sauce

Need dinner in fifteen minutes? Need to impress someone? Just want something different than the pasta and marinara you make all the time? This recipe is awesomely yummy and can be finished in no time at all! Browned butter is nutty and complements the gnocchi well.

We love sage, but any dried herb would do well here – whatever you have on hand. If you don’t have dried sage but aren’t sure if it’s worth buying, it is delicious on any kind of chicken or pork! If you’re like us and love gnocchi too, try our other recipe – Sweet Creamy Gnocchi.

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How can something this tasty take 15 minutes to make?

• Servings – 2 large
• Prep time – None
• Cook time – 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 lb gnocchi (tri-colored look extra pretty!)
• 6 tablespoons butter (3/4 stick)
• 1 teaspoon dried sage
• Sprinkle of salt and pepper

Protocol

1. Place a large pot of water over high heat to boil.

2. Melt the butter (it goes faster if it’s sliced) over medium heat.  Keep stirring the butter over the heat as it goes through three stages – melted and kind of foamy, no more foam, and finally turning golden brown in color. It’s important that you keep an eye on it so it doesn’t overcook! It goes from brown to black quickly.

3. As soon as you see the golden brown color, remove from heat and pour into a bowl to stop the cooking process. Stir in your teaspoon of sage.

4. By now the the water should be boiling, so add your gnocchi to the pot. Cook according to the instructions on the packaging; most gnocchi take 2-3 minutes to cook.

5. Drain the gnocchi and return to the pot.  Add your butter and sage sauce and taste.  Add any salt and pepper (if you used salted butter you most likely won’t need any additional salt).

6. Serve and enjoy!

-D&E

Easy Broccoli Salad

Erica really likes salads.  She orders them at restaurants, makes fun ones at home with lots of toppings, but sometimes lettuce just gets boring. We have the solution! Instead of using lettuce as the base for a salad, why not… broccoli?

Broccoli is full of all sorts of good stuff – like vitamin C, fiber, and antioxidants. It’s fun to mix up your veggie side dish routine and try something different.  This recipe was really what we had on hand, so any variations would be just as delicious! If you try it out with any different ingredients, let us know if the comments below!

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But really, raw veggies are so much better for you!

• Servings – 4-6
• Prep time – 5 minutes
• Cook time – None!

Ingredients

• 1 bag broccoli florets
• Handful of baby carrots (about 10ish, or use 1 medium carrot)
• 1 stalk of celery
• Handful of sprinkly cheese (we used about 1/2 cup of mozzarella)
• 2 or 3 strips of bacon, cooked and chopped or crumbled
• Dressing of choice (we love using Penzey’s Italian Dressing base with balsamic vinegar and olive oil!)

Protocol

1. Make sure all your veggies are washed and dry. Chop to whatever size you like.

2. Mix everything and add your dressing!  It’s best to add the dressing over each individual portion, so the rest can be refrigerated and saved for later.

3. Serve and enjoy!

-D&E

Caramelized Onion Sausage Pizza

The one food we have the trouble with in the kitchen is pizza, yes pizza! We can never seem to get the crust crispy enough or the cheese bubbly enough or, you get the drift. Of all the college staples pizza, dear readers, has eluded our mastery.

Until now.

This past weekend we unlocked the secret to making tasty pizza. First we trashed (not literally)all the traditional ingredients found in pizza – marinara sauce? Yeah right, how about some caramelized onions. Pepperoni? Only for babies, why not some sweet apple chicken sausage. Mozzarella cheese? Okay, well that’s alright.

Next we made our own pizza dough instead of using a store bought pre-made dough. Here is a link to the recipe we used which was super easy: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/master-pizza-dough/detail.aspx

Finally, we topped it all off with some fresh arugula for a little extra bite. In the end, we had to force ourselves not to eat this entire pizza in one sitting! We hope you like it too.

Warning: This pizza is highly addicting, proceed with caution!

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You’ll never go back to boring old pizza again.

• Servings – 8 slices
• Prep time – 5 minutes (without including time for caramelizing onions or making pizza dough)
• Cook time – 20 minutes

Ingredients

• Pizza dough for a 14″ pizza pan
• 2-3 onions, caramelized (check out the link above on how to make them – you don’t want to skip this step!
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2-3 links of sweet apple chicken sausage, sliced (about 3oz; we got ours at Trader Joe’s)
• Arugula

Protocol

1. Pre-heat your oven to 400F.

2. Sprinkle a pinch or two of cornmeal over your pizza stone or pan and roll out the pizza dough to cover the surface. Roll in the edges to create a crust (we brushed some olive oil over ours and sprinkled some garlic powder yum!)

3. Bake for 5 minutes to get the dough a bit crispier.

4. Remove from the oven and evenly spread the caramelized onions.

5. Sprinkle the cheese and top with the slices of sausage.

6. Bake for another 15 minutes or until the sausage begins to brown.

7. Remove from the oven and top with a handful of arugula.

8. Slice, serve and enjoy!

-D&E

French Onion Soup

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! This is our first as a married couple so we are celebrating by going out to dinner and a ballet this evening (the show was a wedding gift). If you are looking for something low key to do on Valentine’s Day with your special someone we have the recipe for you!

It’s been a “few” days since our last post. We’ve had a couple hit and miss meals since then but we think we found a gem for you today. We were hesitant to post a French onion soup for awhile now, because it does take a long time to make. However, other than caramelizing  onions, the recipe is quite simple.

Since it is hard to explain how to properly caramelize onions, We found this video which you should watch beforehand to learn how to properly caramelize onions:

So what the hey, if you have time one weekend give this a try and let us know how it went!

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[insert something witty about French onion soup here]

• Servings – 8
• Prep time – 15 minutes
• Cook time – 90 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 large onions, thinly sliced
• 3 large cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoon flour
• 6 cups beef stock
• 2 bay leaves
• ½ cup red wine
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• Croutons
• Provolone cheese slices

Protocol

1. Heat the butter and oil in a large pot over high heat. Add the onions and garlic and cook for 5 minutes. Add the salt and turn down to low. Allow the onions to cook down until caramelized for about 45 minutes, stir occasionally (see video above).

2. Add in the flour and cook for one minute. Add in the beef broth, bay leaves, red wine, thyme and pepper and simmer for 20 minutes.

3. Spoon the soup into oven safe bowls and top with the croutons and cheese. Place under the broiler until the cheese becomes melted and golden brown.

4. Serve and enjoy!

-D&E

Quick Indian Stew

Like we said in our previous post, we’ve been searching extensively for simple 20 minute meals to make together. Now that Declan get’s home a little later than what we are used to, we try to make easy meals (that are also easy to clean up) so we can spend more time together!

We ventured outside of our comfort zone and tried out an Indian dish (we’ve only posted one Indian dish so far) that looked too easy to make. As it turned out, it was quite good after we made a few adjustments to the original recipe from Martha Stewart. So have at it! Plus, if any of our readers are vegetarian or even vegan, this one’s for you!

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We live by a couple Indian restaurants, let’s just say we might be frequenting them less often now that we can make this.

• Servings – 4
• Prep time – 10 minutes
• Cook time – 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 cup rice
• 1 medium onion, minced
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1-2 tablespoon curry powder, depending on your taste preferences
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 3 cups tomato sauce (about 1 large can or 1.5ish smaller cans)
• 2 cans (15 ounces each) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice (about half a lime)
• 1 tablespoon plain low-fat yogurt

Protocol

1. Cook your rice, set aside and cover to keep warm. (Tip to save time: heat up leftover rice or pick up some plain white rice at a Chinese take-out place on your way home! Remember 1 cup uncooked = 2 cups cooked rice)

2. In a large pan over medium heat, heat some olive oil and sauté the onion and garlic until onion becomes tender, about 5 minutes. Add a pinch of salt and pepper.

3. Stir in the cumin, ginger, and chili powder and cook for about a minute or until fragrant.

4. Add in the tomato sauce, water, chickpeas, and brown sugar. Bring to a boil and simmer uncovered for 10 minutes or until sauce has slightly thickened.

5. Serve over rice with a dollop of yogurt and a lime wedge to cool things down, and enjoy!

-D&E

Sweet Creamy Gnocchi

We’ve been so busy lately that we have been desperately searching for really quick, 20-minute dinner recipes that you don’t have to do much prep work for. We got lucky and stumbled across a recipe that looked pretty good, so we adjusted it to our likings and what we already had on hand.

…WOW. This turned out amazing and we will be adding it to our regular rotation of meals.  It required no chopping or prep work and was seriously restaurant quality (and even had some veggies for nutritional value, say what?).  If you want to impress some friends but are a little nervous to cook dinner – definitely try this one out. You can even add a nice chicken breast or some shrimp to fancy it up!

But really, go out and buy some gnocchi and make this tonight. You won’t regret it.

Sweet Creamy Gnocchi

Sweet… Creamy… Gnocchi-y… Yummy!

• Cook time – 15 minutes
• Servings – 3-4 (but we were really hungry and ate it all in one sitting… oops)

Ingredients

• 1 pound gnocchi
• 1 cup frozen sweet corn
• 1 cup frozen bell pepper mix (you can use fresh if you want!)
• 3/4 cup half and half
• 3 oz cream cheese, cut into little squares
• Salt, pepper, garlic powder, dried herbs (basil, oregano, thyme)
• 2-3 cups torn baby spinach (no stems!)

Protocol

1. Start the water and cook the gnocchi according to the package. Drain and do not rinse.

2. If you had time beforehand, set out your corn and peppers to thaw. If not (like us), steam or microwave them until warm.

3. For the sauce, combine the half and half, cream cheese, and seasonings in a saucepan. Eyeball the seasonings but don’t go overboard! You can always add more but you can’t take away. Heat over medium-low heat, stirring frequently until slightly thickened (6-7 minutes). Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.

4. Add the drained gnocchi back in the big pot and add the warm veggies.  Pour over the sauce and stir to combine.

5. Stir in the spinach gently to not squish the gnocchi.

6. Serve with some grated parmesan and enjoy!

-D&E