I finished off the last of the boeuf bourguignon on Thursday, which meant that I needed to cook again. This time I cooked boeuf a la mode, which isn’t beef with ice cream. It’s beef braised in red wine. Actually, it’s a beef roast marinated for hours in red wine with vegetables and spices. The marinade was surprisingly fragrant. After letting my roast (all I could get was bottom round) marinate for six hours, then it had to be browned on all sides and then put in the oven with the marinade and additional beef stock. Again, this takes most of the day. I thought I would have time to do other things while the roast cooked, but I was wrong–again.

The recipe called for carrots braised in butter, which I had made before, so I was confident I could have those turn out. I also had to make brown-braised onions–also made before. I burnt the carrots. They were fine, nearly done, so I turned down the heat. I have no idea what happened, but when I went back to check them, they were burnt. I saved most of them, but a few were a lost cause, stuck to the bottom of the pan in the brown muck. The onions turned out much better. I even blanched them properly, so the skins came off. I love the taste of the onions, but I hate the little suckers. Blanching and peeling tries my patience. I nearly bought jarred onions, until I saw the salt content.

The roast turned out rather well. I expected the roast would be funny colored from the wine, but it looked normal and tasted wonderful. After cleaning, it was time to bake. My birthday is this weekend, and for months I have had a Betty Crocker gluten-free cake mix. I got a coupon to try it, so the mix was free. I also added Julia’s butter cream with powdered sugar. I’m used to butter cream frosting, but I have never seen the recipes in French Cooking. This butter cream had butter, of course, and egg yolks. It’s the fluffiest frosting I’ve had. My chocolate cake required chocolate butter cream. The great thing about these butter creams is that they can be flavored with anything.

Oh, the gluten-free cake mix is excellent. It has the perfect sponginess that you expect in a cake. Gluten-free baked goods can often be very heavy. I did add the ingredients differently than it said on the box. I beat the butter with a small amount of mix. I whipped the eggs separately until they were frothy, and added those to the creamed butter and beat that good. I added more mix until the butter was fully creamy and then added the water slowly. When it got too watery, I added more mix. When it got thick, I added more water until all the water was in. Then I put in the rest of the mix and beat it for several minutes.

I chose boeuf bourguignon as my first entree from Julia Child’s cookbook. I thought Thursday would be the perfect day to do some cooking. While working at home editing students’ papers, I could cook. I didn’t plan on the cat creating a disaster in the kitchen that morning. I had read through the recipe, so I knew I needed almost an entire day to make the stew. I got a late start, since I began working first after cleaning and didn’t begin cooking until almost noon. That is when I realized that I needed pearl onions. So after starting the bacon boiling, I took off for the grocery store behind my house. I returned with pearl onions, mushrooms and bordeaux wine (Mouton Cadet 2007). It was smart to have bought the wine, since the recipe required three cups of wine. I didn’t realize that a bottle of wine only contains slightly over three cups. It was a good bottle of red wine. My stew was turning expensive with the $11 bottle of wine added to the mix. I’m lucky that this grocery store carries some unusual items, although the French wine choices are slim. I didn’t see a single California burgundy or bordeaux.

Julia Child does not give a time estimate for the stew. I will warn you now that it takes at least six hours with the shortcuts that I took. After the bacon had every last smoky essence boiled out, it was time to fry it. The book says to brown it lightly. I’m not quite sure how to light brown bacon. I did the best I could. I had grease splatters everywhere. Next it was time to brown the stew meat. The recipe calls for three pounds. All of this meat needs to be patted dry and browned in batches. Too much meat crowded together means the meat won’t brown. I had to brown three batches of meat in the Le Creuset dutch oven. While browning meat, I fixed up the canned beef broth. Beef broth alone doesn’t quite have the flavor it should, so Julia has a way of doctoring it up. I was nearly ready several hours later to pop the meat, onions, carrots, broth and the entire bottle of wine into the oven for two to three hours. I was looking forward to a restful few hours. Another chance to work while I waited for the stew. I was wrong. Pearl onions needed peeled and cooked. The cooking alone took 40 minutes. I blanched the onions and popped them out of their skins before cooking. I have no idea how long that took. I began the onions when the stew began its second hours of cooking.

Mushrooms. I don’t like mushrooms, but the recipe calls for them, so I thought I might as well add them. I cheated. Instead of buying whole mushrooms, I bought cleaned, sliced mushrooms. Also, I didn’t get a pound. I bought one bag. I didn’t even notice how many mushrooms were in the recipe before going to the store. The mushrooms had to be browned in butter. These also must be browned in batches. If they are too close together, they don’t brown. It took two batches to cook 10 ounces of mushrooms. I was glad that I didn’t have a pound of mushrooms. By the time, I finished with the onions and mushrooms, it was time to take out the stew from the oven.

Oh, I forgot to add how many pots and utensils this dish takes. I kept using the same ones and washing them between uses. The pot used to boil bacon was used for making broth. The fry pan was washed after the onions.

Now, I’m thinking all I have to do is add the mushrooms and onions, and the stew is done. No. Although by now my house smells wonderful. Now, I have to remove the meat from the dutch oven and drain the liquid into a pot to be reduced. The onions and carrots used for flavoring have to be removed from the meat. The sliced onions are virtually invisible, and the carrots are nearly disintegrated. After emptying the pot, it has to washed. I looked at it. The dutch oven contained sticky brown stuff up the sides and on the underside of the lid. These dutch ovens are amazing to clean though. It took a couple of minutes in warm, soapy water to remove the sticky stuff. Now my pot was new again, so everything had to go back into the pot:  meat, bacon, pearl onions, mushrooms and liquid thickened with gluten-free flour. It worked again!

The stew doesn’t look like much, but it smells and tastes wonderful. The length of time it takes to prepare is worth the amazing tenderness and flavor of the meat. The mushrooms were nutty. I have never had mushrooms like that. Most of the time, mushrooms are mushy and taste like dirt. These didn’t, but I’m still not a fan of mushrooms. And, so far there’s no rash from the mushrooms!

what might be wrong with me… The happiest moment today was when I found chuck bacon and clarified butter at the grocery store nearest my house. I was thrilled that I didn’t have to drive all over going to specialty stores to find these items–required ingredients for boeuf bourguignon. I walke dout of the store beaming about my find. I bought the stew meat earlier, but that store only had sliced bacon and regular butter. The weather here is perfect for stew. It’s a bit rainy and slightly chilly. Although when it stops raining the weather is beautiful.

I have quite an appreciation for Julie Powell who cooked all the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1. The recipes require a lot of planning, list making and trips to the store. I have made far more trips to the store than usual, and I have only cooked one sauce.

Over the weekend, I was flipping through Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1 wondering what recipe I might attempt when I checked out volume 2. The second volume is where Julia Child explains bread and pastry making. The first volume skips the whole bread thing, which is good for me, since I can’t eat bread like most people. However, bread and pastries that are gluten-free yet taste like they are made with flour are the holy grail of gluten-free cooking. Anyone who eats gluten-free wants that perfect roll, cake or flaky pastry on occasion–well, probably most of the time, since we can’t have them. I actually avoid walking past a bakery. The smell is too tempting.

As I’m reading, I realize that a marble pastry board is a must-have, so I do some careful research online. The prices can be outrageous for this seemly mundane item, afterall, we often walk on marble floors. Further research led me to shops that sell marble, glass and various other materials for beautiful walls and floors. There you can pick out your favorite color and size. The squares are thinner than the expensive marble boards that are sold through kitchen supply stores, but they are lighter. I learned that an inch thick piece of marble weighs around 100 lbs. My half-inch 18×18 version weighs around 15 pounds. Heavy enough, but still moveable. You may wonder if a marble slab is really necessary. I would never have thought so, until I lived here in California where the popular countertops are topographical white tiles with some sort of quarter inch thick black stuff between them. There is no way I’m rolling out dough on such a rough surface. There’s no way that I would get a smooth pie crust or rolled out cookie. The counter doesn’t clean very well, and the only reason I can pick up food off the counter and eat it now is because I have a steam cleaner. The tiles get rather gross, and no amount of cleaner or scrubbing gets them clean like steam.

On my excursion on Monday, I got a nice marble square for around $12 with tax. I saved $115 dollars compared to the marble pastry board offered at Williams-Sonoma. I even saved $5 plus shipping over the cheapest marble I found online.

Even Spencer can’t resist the marble board or the camera. I will have to clean it well before I use it.

The velouté sauce made with cornstarch was satisfactory, but I wanted to try the sauce with a gluten-free flour mix from Deby’s. The flour mix contains rice flour, potato starch, tapioca flour, salt and xanthan gum. The last time I made a quick sauce without adjusting the canned chicken broth as Julia states. This time I had adjusted the canned chicken broth according to her recipe–well close. I find it hard to measure carrots and celery in tablespoons. I added them by weight. The sauce has the perfect thickness. I didn’t need to boil it longer to get the thickness the cookbook said I would get. The sauce thickens before boiling and continues to thicken just a bit more where it coats a spoon and doesn’t drip. It’s also more flavorful because of the more flavorful broth. After a few tests, I recommend thickening sauces with a gluten free flour mix rather than cornstarch or arrowroot. So now I have more yummy sauce that has the correct consistency for the addition of eggs or cream.

I have used Deby’s flour mixes successfully before in cookies–the dough is edible! It also works in cakes but makes them heavy. I think the gluten-free cake flour probably works best for cakes, but I haven’t tried it yet.

Yes, you can make roux with corn starch. Perhaps you already knew this. It’s simple… just replace the corn starch equally for flour. I had no idea how it would taste. I have no comparison because I never made roux before to start a sauce. It came out too thin, but Julia has a save. I just had to cook it longer. It’s wonderful, and it uses much less cornstarch than I usually do for gravy. The creamy, buttery after taste of this sauce is divine. I remember having something like when I used to eat out (before the no gluten diet). It must be good because Spencer, the Cheetoh cat, went after it. He knocked my new Julia Child’s cookbook to the floor trying to get to the stove. He never checks out gravies.

I have two cups of white sauce (sauce velouté–translation:  velvet sauce) made with chicken stock. I left it unflavored. Who knew that salt and pepper should be added after heating? I didn’t. I added it last, but I always cooked my sauces further. With this simple sauce, I can add whatever spices I want when I want. The sauce refrigerates and freezes well, so it’s the one thing I will probably use all for myself. If the cats are lucky, maybe they will have a taste of this smooth sauce.

I actually have a sense of accomplishment after making this sauce. I have tons of cookbooks. I own more kitchen utensils than anyone I know. I have a heavy duty stand mixer and a food processor with an entire choice of disks to make anything. I even own a set of All-Clad cookware. I’m all set and have been for years, but every time I looked at those other books and read about sauces or anything else, it seemed too difficult. Julia makes it easy.

This actually coincides perfectly with my recent return to the French language. I have been working on relearning French for the past couple of weeks.

I didn’t know that butter in Europe is different from American butter until I began reading Julia Child’s cookbook. This morning I went to the grocery store to pick up fresh butter, eggs and cream–the basics for French cooking. My eggs and butter are less than fresh–well, old, really. I didn’t have any cream in the house. I also picked up some fresh, full-fat cheese. All this came to just under $30. I just bought groceries, and I am planning a trip to Costco on Monday. The most wonderful part of the trip was that I found unsalted European style butter at my nearby grocery store. The store is on the street behind my house. It’s an easy walk on most days. European butter, which I have never tasted, has 10 more calories per tablespoon than American butter. All I had was unsalted sweet butter, which works well, but may not give the preferred taste to the sauces, although I’m sure it’s fine for baking. So why the quick trip to the store? I need to test my sauce to see if eggs and cream can be folded in using cornstarch-based sauce. Flour is supposed to help the eggs go into the sauce. So I wonder if my sauce will work just as well.

Eating for most people is easy. They don’t have to think about it. I do. I have several food allergies, so I think constantly about what is in my food. I have resorted to a very simplistic diet. That’s not bad, but it is limiting. I avoid eating out. When you see the list of things that I can’t have, you will see why. And then there is the long list of things I don’t like to eat…

Here’s what I can’t eat:

gluten (that means no wheat, barley, rye or spelt)

soy

peanuts

mushrooms

What I don’t eat (don’t like or doesn’t agree with my system):

pork

shellfish

broccoli

cauliflower

garlic (must keep it to minimum)

Just these things alone eliminate lots of yummy ethnic foods. I also watch what I eat as far as calories go. I never used to when I ate bread, but I had digestive issues that kept me skinny and often had me passed out in pain on the bathroom floor. So here I am after watching Julie and Julia wondering if those delicious French recipes can be modified for my diet. I have never undertaken changing recipes. It is just too much trouble. I like to know that the recipe is going to work out. I like the tried and tested. Gluten free flours are so expensive and hard to find that I just don’t bake often. So back to Julia Childs… I love French food. I miss baguettes. So I’m out to see if I can modify the recipes for my dietary needs. I am unlikely to attempt every recipe, but in the process I hope to learn some new techniques in cooking. With all the butter, I will have to find a way to exercise more or taste the recipes and feed other people.