French fare

This past week I ventured into new territory:

From 2011-01-26

French cooking with Julia Child.
Egh.
I was inspired by watching Julie & Julia for the unteenth time and decided to make the infamous beouf bourguignon.   I've been making some new dishes lately and decided that it was time to go out on an even longer limb to try something completely different.   Plus, Joe loves beef, so really, how could I go wrong?   (aside from falling asleep while waiting for it to cook.  I didn't let this happen, by the way.)

From 2011-01-26

The first thing the recipe calls for is 6 oz of bacon as one solid chunk. Yes, it actually uses the word "chunk." Luckily we live a block from a meat market, so this wasn't difficult to acquire.

From 2011-01-26

A few hours after the bacon is cut and prepared the whole mix goes into the oven.   I wasn't all that impressed with how it looked at this point.

From 2011-01-26

While the beef "stew" portion cooks you braise pearled onions and saute mushrooms. Oh, and the "don't crowd the mushrooms" line from the movie is because the mushrooms can't absorb the fat when they are too crowded. They also will not have the surface room to brown themselves. It was interesting to read the tidbits as to what and why many of the steps are done--for instance, Julia explains that the mushrooms will first absorb the fat (butter) and a few minutes later they push it out (the pan is again wet) and shortly after they brown.  Interesting...

From 2011-01-26

In the end, some 8 hours later (mind you, I was also running in and and out of the kitchen to care for a baby), we had a delicious dinner.

It was wonderful. We both loved it.  Most especially the braised pearl onions.  Wowzer, I didn't know onions could be so flavorful!

Although the whole processes took me a particularly long time due to the baby girl that wanted my attention,  I cannot help but wonder if this was all that much better than a one-pot stew. There were lots of extra steps--but I'm not sure I noticed a difference.  I enjoyed making it, but in the end, was it worth the effort?
Can anyone attest to similar experiences?

In other news, Maureen is growing (15 lbs now!) and continues to be adorable.

From 2011-01-26