hi everyone!
i baked and cooked this weekend for my parents and for us! (well for us including the company we had over).
my parents wanted a beef stew – like i know how to make that! so a friend of mine recommended a recipe from this great book stews and soups from cooks illustrated... here is the beef stew recipe.
i also used the white fluffy frosting from nick malgieri’s perfect cakes and the yellow cake recipe is from cooks illustrated baking illustrated.
i baked buttermilk cookies which came out great! i left out the lemon zest because my mom prefers plain vanilla…
i also made a yellow layer cake with white icing and a chocolate cake with milk chocolate frosting… (the chocolate cake didn’t come out great- i screwed up the frosting!)
yellow cake pre frosting…
yellow cake after frosting…
here is the chocolate cake out of the oven…no frosting photo- it wasn’t very good…
but the beef stew i made really came out the best. it was perfectly flavored- i used a red wine called cotes du rhone. and i used a stock pot from allclad that martha gave me for my birthday two years ago (alexis tipped her off to what i needed!)
here is the browned beef.
onions sauteeing.
chopped garlic.
carrots.
early on..before the meat is added.
all hot and bubbly!
close-up of the stew!
the recipe calls for one hour of the meat cooking before the rest of the ingredients are added for a second hour of cooking…but i cooked the whole thing for 4 hours! and then it sat in my refrigerator overnight and was even better today. everyone loved it.
xoxo
jennifer
I cooked like crazy today too! I made a goulash to have during the week as the recipe says it tastes better after it sits. I also baked peanut butter blondies, a kugenhoph for breakfast tomorrow…and homemade sauce and homemade ravioli which we had for dinner tonight! Also made my husband stone oats oatmeal for breakfast tomorrow morning. I’m exhausted now. Even cleaned up the kitchen too!
Wow..Stew looks delicious…did you also serve it with hunks of bread and butter?
Hey Jen…that stew looks great. THaNk you for posting the pics as well. I may give this a try.
Watch out, Alexis!! Here comes Jen the Chef. Your food looks delicious. Your family must be psyched to have you cook for them. I myself enjoy cooking a lot and it’s fun to spend few hours every weekend making something new and interesting. Looks good!!
Hi J – Looks like you really cooked and baked your little bootie off. The stew looks delicious. I will be trying that recipe. yummy. Also – i was wondering if you think you make have baked your cakes a too high a temp. It looks like the edges are more done and the center, not as much. I think also certain pans, like dark ones, can cause this. At any rate I’m sure they were delicious. The yellow cake looks very (Alexis’ favorite word) moist. love the blogs, the pics and the show.
Yum stew looks fabbo!! Dying to know what you served it with?? Will try those buttermilk cookies, they look delicious.
It must be the cooking and baking weekend…I made homemade chicken Noodle soup and Chocolate chip cookies. I also made brochette for lunch. yum yum. Was fun talking to you, i started feeling like a stalker…lol
i LOVE cook’s illustrated. They’re the best! Sorry Martha.
Jen, My favorite meal is beef stew and potato pancakes. It is the best comfort food. Yours looked great. Keep on cooking!
Beef stew is the ultimate comfort food! Dang, I must make some now! So good…
Such a ballabusta!
I make CI beef stew all of the time! It’s my daughter’s favorite! Your buttermilk cookies look like Spicy Pumpkin Cookies from Midwest Living Magazine. EVERYONE loves these cookies! You have to try them (but use 1/2 C butter, 1/2 C shortening): https://www.midwestliving.com/recipe/recipedetail.jhtml?recipeId=34412
Jennifer – you are so cute with all your cooking! It all looks delish. What happened with the cake? You seem to have trouble with chocolate cake. I wonder why?
some of the best cooks i know cannot bake, do you think that you may be one of these?
Instead of the french rhone wine, try a decent California Cabernet or Zinfandel next time….you’ll taste a huge difference using a “bigger” wine.
Just call me the California wine snob.
I like to look at the cooking pictures but I wish you didnt have fluorescent lighting in your kitchen, how can you stand it? Tone down the damn overhead lighting and have a drink! Try it, its fun!
I like meat and taters, your stew looks good.
jennifer!
I made that in my slow cooker
that makes it less of a problem
slow cookers take the work out of cooking stew
I even slow cooked two poor little
Rock Cornish hens the other day..
felt really bad for them so i said a prayer
but they were good…
Hi Jen!
Beef stew is a good and cheap meal for us that I’ve been cooking all of my 23 yrs of marriage. I have made it basically the same way as you did here, but without the wine. What’s really good is adding parsnips and turnips-leave out some of the potatoes. I just discovered how tasty they are! And a side of biscuits is nice too.
I love Dianne’s idea of substituting some parsnips for some of the potatoes. A friend just brought me a batch of chicken soup that, to my surprise, included parsnips, and it was delicious.
I’m going to try this recipe and plan to finally invest in a good stock pot. I was planning to purchase an emanel LaCreuset pot. Do I need both? If I was to invest in one nice, large piece should it be an Allclad or the LaCreuset.
Thanks for any advice anyone can offer.
I looked up that allclad, $259.99 for a stock pot. Cheapo Martha!!!
jennifer your food looks like shit I would not feed it to my dog ass kisser
Looks great but you kinda spoiled it with the chunks of dead animal flesh 8(
I made the Beef stew today in my new black iron Dutch oven. End result came out great and my Husband loved it! Thanks!