Spring Arugula Salad

This is quick, healthy, delicious, and a bit of a change up from your every day garden salad. Lightly tossed with a lemon Dijon dressing and some freshly shaved Parmesan cheese over top, it's a great side dish for any main course. Slice some freshly grilled chicken over top for a quick weeknight meal!


About 4 ounces of baby Arugula (3 big hand fulls)
Freshly shaved Parmesan cheese

Zest of one Lemon
1/4 of a cup combined of of Freshly squeezed lemon juice and white wine vinegar
1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard
1 clove of garlic (Finely Grated)
Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper

To make the dressing, zest your lemon and place in a mixing bowl. Next, juice the lemon into a glass measuring cup. Some lemons are juicer than others so the exact amount of juice you'll get will vary. Pour in the white wine vinegar until you have a total of 1/4 of a cup between both the lemon juice and vinegar. Add the olive oil, mustard, garlic, and the salt and pepper. Whisk everything together until it emulsifies into a dressing.

Wash and dry the arugula thoroughly, the dressing wont stick to any salad green if they are still wet. Portion out a serving of the greens and use a vegetable peeler to shave some Parmesan over top. Dress the salad  and serve!

Buying a Pizza stone is worth every penny

A few weeks back I shared my recipe for homemade pizza. In my post in gave my method of first cooking the dough on a hot stove top to crisp the bottom before finishing the pizza in the oven. While I stand by this method as a great way to make amazing pizza in your own home, I recently got a pizza stone and I can't tell you the world of difference it makes.

Using my pizza dough and sauce recipe, place your pizza stone in a cold oven and preheat your oven to 500 degrees. Sounds like a high temperature but trust me. Allow the stone to heat in the oven at 500 degrees for a good 20 minutes before you're ready to throw your first pizza in. Use some flour or cornmeal on the bottom of your pizza to prevent it from sticking and carefully slide the pizza onto the hot stone. In only a few minutes time you'll see the dough turn golden brown and you'll have a perfectly home cooked pizza. Pizza stones range in price so find one that fits in your budget. The stone will pay for itself in a very short amount of time!

Beef Bourguignon

It's one of the most flavorful and satisfying dishes ever concocted inside of a kitchen. Beef and vegetables slow cooked in red wine and beef broth, it's a dish you honestly can't resist. The beef becomes fork tender and the sauce has such a deep and rich flavor, your entire house is going to smell like a French Bistro with this simmering away on your stove. Beef Bourguignon is not a hard dish to make, but it requires a bit of love and some time but I can assure you it's well worth it.

5 strips of tick cut bacon
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 pound chuck roast cut into pieces
1 large onion (Sliced)
6 carrots (peeled and sliced diagonally)
3 tablespoons of flour
1 bag of frozen pearl onions (14oz bag) 
½ pound of whole button mushrooms
2 tablespoons of butter
3 tablespoons of tomato paste
2 cloves of garlic (minced)
2 cups of low sodium beef stock
1 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon (750ml bottle)
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
4 sprig of fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon of sugar
Flat leaf parsley  

Remove the roast from the refrigerator about thirty minutes before you want to begin. Gather and prep the rest of your ingredients so that you have them on hand. 

Cut the chuck roast into about one inch cubes and pat each piece dry with paper towels. Drying the meat is a very important step and ensures the meat sears properly. The dryer the meat when it hits the hot oil, the better the sear will be. When we sear the meat, it locks in the flavorful juices of the meat and also gives us that beautiful brown color on the outside. It's a tedious task, but dry each beef cube thoroughly with a paper towel and then season heavily with kosher salt and black pepper. When it looks like you have too much seasoning on the beef cubes, you've done your job.
 
Drizzle about a tablespoon of olive oil in a large pot or a dutch oven over medium heat. Slice the strips of bacon in pieces and cook the bacon in the hot oil until they're crisp.

We want to sear our beef cubes in small batches. If we crowd beef cubes and add too many at once, we'll lower the temperature in our pan and they won't have the right heat to sear properly. Don't move the beef cubes around too much while they're in there either. Give them about a minute or so on each side, just until you see the outside of the meat starting to caramelize. Once all sides have been seared, transfer them to a nearby plate and add the next batch in. Continue this step until all the beef has been seared.

Once all the meat has been seared, add the sliced onion, 2 tablespoons of butter, and the chopped carrots to the hot oil. Stir everything together making sure the flavorful bits left from the bacon and beef get all over the vegetables. Stir and cook the onions and carrots just until the onions become slightly tender, about 5 to 7 minutes. Once the onions are tender, return all the seared meat and any of the juices that have collected from them resting back into the pot.

Next, take the 3 tablespoons of flour and sprinkle over top the beef and vegetables. Stir the contents of the pot so that the flour coats everything. Add the entire bottle of red wine, minus a sip or two, and add the 2 cups of beef broth. Add the tomato paste and stir together until the paste is Incorporated into the broth and the wine.

Add the fresh thyme and the fresh rosemary to the pot using kitchen twine to tie the herbs together so that it's easier to pull the stems out before we are ready serve. Throw in the bay leaves and bring the liquid to a boil. Cook the stew uncovered for about 10 minutes. Lower the heat to a simmer and cover the pot and allow the beef to cook for about 2 hours giving it a stir about every so often.

Add the minced garlic, the sugar, the entire bag of pearl onions, and the mushrooms to the pot. Raise the heat slightly and allow the stew to simmer uncovered for another 10 minutes. Remove the bay leaves and the bundle of rosemary and thyme from the sauce. Season the sauce to taste.

Serve next to a helping of your favorite recipe for mashed potatoes or over top buttered egg noodles with a side of crispy french bread. Garnish your plate with some freshly chopped parsley and some of the crispy bacon pieces and serve hot.

Madagascar Vanilla

We've all heard the expression, "You get what you pay for" and that stands so true when you talk about Vanilla extract. Just about all of your cookie, cake, custard, icing, and other recipes for sweet treats call for Vanilla extract. To be quite honest, when I bake it's really the only ingredient I don't measure to the exact degree - a little extra splash never hurt anything!!

Since vanilla is such a key ingredient in our freshly baked sweet treats, it's really important to use a good quality vanilla. The first thing to look for is does the bottle say "Pure" or "Imitation". The imitation I'm sad to say would be better suited to be poured right down the kitchen sink. It contains artificial flavorings and chemicals to try and recreate the taste of vanilla but fails to do so and it even will leave a very bitter taste.

Always buy pure vanilla extract and if you bake a lot like I do, it's best to spend the extra couple of dollars and get the best quality one you can afford within you budget (Remember a bottle will last you a couple months or longer depending on how much you bake). When you switch from using a low grade vanilla to a high quality one, you'll really be able to tell the difference. Warning though, you'll be hooked on the good stuff!!