Double Take: Beef Stroganoff

Are you ready for a bowl of comfort?

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while now, you know that my all-time comfort food is beef stroganoff. Full of mushrooms, onions, beef, and sour cream, how can you go wrong? When I first saw a recipe for beef
stroganoff in the all-new ultimate Southern Living Cookbook, I was excited. Until I actually read the recipe. It called for beef tips instead of ground beef. I don’t dislike beef tips, but I just prefer my comfort food to be the way I grew up eating it: with ground beef.

Double Take: Thai Noodles with Peanut Sauce

What is it about me and procrastination with these recipes? Once I get out of the habit of making things early, it is very difficult to get back on track. With a Christmas trip coming up, I’ve really got to get back in the swing of things! I’ll be missing two Thursdays, which means things must be made in advance! I had great plans to make today’s recipe and next week’s recipe on Tuesday, but I got lazy. So that put me back to scrambling to make today’s post last night. And next week’s will just have to wait. (Maybe Sunday lunch?)

I can’t put a point on when or how it started, but I love Asian food. Since I’ve moved to Germany I have come to realize that I love Americanized Asian food… not so much German Asian food. Believe me, there is a difference. Of course, I’d rather eat German Asian food than German cafeteria food, so I end up ordering German Asian food whenever I don’t have food for lunch at work (which is surprisingly not that often). Bender likes my other food more, so when I cook Asian food at home, it’s just for me. Hence why this recipe easily fell by the wayside Tuesday night when I decided to spend time with Bender rather than cook after dinner.

Daring Cooks: Poaching

Jenn and Jill have challenged The Daring Cooks to learn to perfect the technique of poaching an egg. They chose Eggs Benedict recipe from Alton Brown, Oeufs en Meurette from Cooking with Wine by Anne Willan, and Homemade Sundried Tomato & Pine Nut Seitan Sausages (poached) courtesy of Trudy of Veggie num num. 

Double Take: Shredded Brussels Sprouts

This week's Double Take is a little different. We've both been sick this week and failed to make the challenge recipe scheduled ahead of time. Luckily, we both had a recipe stashed away for times like these so you still get a recipe!

A culinary match made in heaven: ribs, Brussels sprouts, and garlic smashed potatoes.

Double Take: Whole Cooked Artichokes

I’m not sure why, but I kept putting this recipe off. I love artichokes. I picked this recipe to help convince Tabitha she should try them. But week after week they made my list of things to make, but I never made them.

I was first introduced to artichokes when I was 16. One of my friends and I had a brilliant idea to have a medieval feast, and well, when my friend put her mind to something, things happened. We decorated her finished attic, made medieval dresses, and she and her mom prepared a feast for kings (or rather, princesses). One of our appetizers was artichokes. Until then, I had only ever had them marinated or thrown into a spinach dip… in other words, I’d never really tasted a pure artichoke. She served them simply, with salted clarified butter, very similarly to how one would serve lobster (mhmm, lobster). I thought I’d gone to heaven. One bite of that succulent, butter-dipped, silky plant-flesh had me converted to an artichoke fan. I haven’t liked canned artichokes since. The canning process completely robs the artichoke of its umph. The texture completely changes and you are left with a limp, woody mass that squeaks as you bite into it. Eww. Give me fresh artichokes or give me none! (I know, I know, that saying isn’t quite the same without ending in death, but I don’t think I would die without artichokes. I’m much more likely to put my life on the line for people or liberty than a particular type of food.)