Breaded Chicken in a Butter Sauce? Yes, please.

My cooking choices have seemed like a solid downpayment on a future heart attack lately so I wanted to do something just a little lighter. When I came across a recipe for chicken piccata I thought to myself "Self, that's a little better" maybe not the healthiest thing in the world but definitely a recipe I wanted to try.

Chicken Piccata
 -2 boneless chicken breasts
-salt and pepper
-1/2 cup all purpose flour
-1 egg -1/2 Tbsp water
-3/4 cup seasoned bread crumbs
-olive oil
-3 Tbsp unsealed butter (divided - which is just a fancy way of saying split into 3 1 Tbsp chunks)
-1/3 cup lemon juice (2 lemons)
-1/2 cup dry white wine
-lemon slices and parsley in case you want to do some pretentious plating when you're done.


Ok so before you get started with anything else, preheat the oven to 400.  You want it up and ready when the time comes, so just make sure you take care of that first othewrwise you'll end up ruining everything.  That might be a slight exaggeration, but just do it, it doesn't take much.  Go ahead, I'll wait.

Now for one of my favorite parts, take the chicken breasts and cover them in parchment paper.  Find a fun little kitchen mallet and pound those suckers until they're about 1/4 inch thick.  If you were feeling bold you could do this without parchment paper, however you will then be finding little chicken chunklets all over your kitchen for the next few weeks.  Trust me, I tried it once.....Once.  (And if you know that reference we should be friends, its obscure and random I know)

When you've beat the crap out of the chicken (this is also good for stress management, let it all out) sprinkle both sides of the chicken with salt and pepper.

On one plate mix the flour, 1/2 tsp of salt and 1/4 tsp of pepper.  On another plate beat the egg and a 1/2 Tbsp of water together.  Then on a third plate (make sure you did dishes before you start, lest you run out of plates) spread out the breadcrumbs.  Or if you're my mother, you have enough plates to serve 4200 people simultaneously.

Then you want to dip the chicken first in the flour, shake off the excess, then dip in the egg, then the breadcrumbs.

When dipping the chicken in the flour, be careful not to flop the chicken down into the mixture.  You will have flour everywhere.  The front of your pants for example, also all over your floor.  It will look like Tony Montana is your best friend.  And yes, I did this.  The bottom of my feet were well floured after standing in it while finishing the meal.

Heat 1 Tbsp of olive oil in a large pan over medium to medium-low heat.  Add the chicken breast and cook for about 2 minutes per side, until the breadcrumbs turn into that awesome looking golden brown color.

Grab a baking sheet or some other metal device for oven-based cooking and put a sheet of parchment paper on it.  Place the chicken on said baking sheet and throw it in the oven for about 5-10 minutes.

While the chicken is the the oven we need to make the sauce.  Wipe out the pan we used for the chicken and over medium heat melt 1Tbsp of butter.  Once melted add the lemon juice, wine, the lemon halves that we squeezed out to make the lemon juice, 1/2 tsp of salt, and 1/4 tsp of pepper.

Once everything is in there turn the heat up a little bit and boil the mixture for about 2 minutes until it is reduced in half.  Normally when I have to reduce some kind of sauce it takes forever for that to actually happen.  I don't know if its just me, but that seems to be the way it goes.  This time however it behaved appropriately.

When the mixture is reduced turn off the heat and throw the leftover butter in there and swirl it around until it melts into the mixture.

Get rid of the lemon halves.  Or better yet, save them to get chewed up in the disposal (if you have a disposal of course) it will make your kitchen smell lovely.  I would recommend cutting them into slightly smaller chunks before this step though, never can be to careful when a disposal is involved.

By the time the sauce is ready it should be time to pull the chicken out of the over.  Plate the chicken and spoon the sauce over the chicken.  Don't be shy about this.  This particular recipe makes plenty of sauce for two chicken breasts.

As I mentioned above if you're feeling pretentious or wanting to impress someone cut a slice from another lemon and grab a little sprig (sprig? leaf?) of parsley to add to the presentation value of your meal.  I would dominate Iron Chef.  Ok maybe not, but I want my own kitchen stadium anyway.  I'll set up a paypal account where you can all make donations towards this wonderful cause.

I finished this little meal with a simple caesar salad (I love caesar salad, so simple and yet so delicious).   And for good measure a bottle of Gnarly Head Pinot Grigio.  If you have the means, I highly recommend picking up a bottle.

Ok so breaded chicken sauteed in oil and then doused in a butter sauce, I was definitely kidding myself about the "healthy" aspect of this meal.  But it was delicious so I don't care.

Recipe from: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/chicken-piccata-recipe/index.html

Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair

Heading to San Francisco this weekend to watch some golf and eat my way around the city.  My brother and I will attempt what we have deemed the "Brad Pitt Ocean's Eleven San Francisco Challenge"

First a little background: Many of you have seen Ocean's Eleven.  If you haven't I would definitely recommend it, highly entertaining.  If any of you paid attention during that film, Brad Pitt is eating or drinking something in every scene.  Seriously, its hysterical once you realize it.

So we will be attempting to spend an entire day wandering around the city sampling the culinary goods.   This is not an exercise in gluttony (although it could probably slide that way if we aren't careful).  This is merely an inspired idea to sample as much of the local flavors as we can get our hands on.  Also, beer.

So look forward to that next week.   I hope you can stand the anticipation, because I can't.

We may be joining these guys for a food-induced coma by the end of the day

Worth the Impending Heart Attack

So I saw this little dandy on Pinterest.  Yes I'm on Pinterest, and Twitter, and Facebook, and LinkedIn, and FourSquare, and Path, and I think Google+.  Now that I think about it I might still be on MySpace and not even know it.  I may or may not have a social networking problem, you decide.

Simple enough recipe, in fact I didn't even look at the recipe, I looked at the pictures and made it up according to my own specs.

Cheddar Stuffed Bacon Wrapped Burgers


-Ground Beef (amount depends on how many you're making)
-Bacon (make sure you have enough)
-Cheddar Cheese (I think if I did this again I might throw some Monterey Jack in there too)
-Basil
-Garlic
-Buns (unless you have a gluten allergy, in which case, that sucks a little for you, but these will still be delicious)
-Whatever accoutrement you enjoy on your burger.  I tend to be a minimalist, but a little lettuce, tomato, onion, ketchup, mustard, and mayo can go a long way (ok maybe not so minimalist).  I also feel like this would be really good with something like guacamole on it.  But let's not get carried away.


As always I start by getting everything ready, in this case its not really a big deal because there aren't any timing issues.  Chop some basil and garlic, the finer the better, and work it in to the ground meat.  This isn't completely necessary, but if you try it and don't like it, I can't do anything for your inability to understand amazing flavors.

Grate some cheese.  If you're like me grate some extra as you will more than likely find yourself sneaking little bites of it right up to the point where you stuff the burger.  No I don't wonder why my weight fluctuates a lot, I know and I embrace it.





Let's make burgers! The amount of ground beef you grab all depends on how big you want your burger, and how much cheese you want to stuff inside it.  So grab a chunk and work it into a patty.  You might have one of those fancy little burger-patty-maker things and thats cool.  Real cooks just use their hands and their god-given patty making talents.  Also if anyone wants to send me a gift, I'd love one of those patty-maker things, so convenient.





I'm sure the methods for burger stuffing vary but here's what I did.  Make a patty about the size of the burger you want and then create a divot/mini volcano by digging out the center.  BONEHEAD MOVE ALERT: Leave meat on the bottom, don't make an "O", idiot.


Fill that crater with cheese, glorious cheese.  Use the removed meat to cover the divot and work the burger back into a normal patty shape.  Or if you're Wendy's, a square.  I never understood square burgers, they seem unnatural.  Don't get me wrong, very delicious, I love Wendy's, and a frosty.  I need to go to the gym just for writing that.

Once you have your patties stuffed and ready its time for the part of this recipe that will have you thinking heart attack.  Wrap each patty in bacon.  I don't mean one or two strips.  I mean FULL COVERAGE.  I don't even want to see the patty anymore.

My mouth is watering just writing about it.  Also its lunch time.

The preference here would be to throw these bad boys on a grill.  Unfortunately, my condo association thought it would be a good idea to take 9 months of the year and rip the entire building apart and then put it back together.  So I don't have access to a grill for at least a few more weeks, possibly months.  This reminds me of the time they decided to resurface the area around the pool in June-July-August making the pool unusable all summer.  Seriously?

My building stinks to me.  So I was stuck inside, forced to use my favorite pan.  I thought about pulling out the grill pan, but let's be honest its not the same and all that would do is depress me further about not having a grill.

I'll be honest, the cooking did not go quite as well as I had anticipated.  I kept the heat at medium to avoid burning the outsides without cooking the burger all the way.  In hindsight, this was not the approach.  I eventually had to turn up the heat to make sure the bacon cooked all the way and the result was that my burgers were cooked a little more like medium than medium rare.  Many of you may be thinking "medium is great, sounds perfect."  First, you're wrong, medium is not OK.  Red meat was meant to be eaten while its still bleeding.  The flavor is better, the meat doesn't dry out.  I could go on about this.  If you still disagree, buy a steak and bring it over.  I'll cook it properly and change your mind.

If I don't change your mind, we're not friends anymore.

At the very end of cooking these fantastic creations, my guest had a wonderful idea - throw a slice of cheese on top, because honestly, who doesn't want more cheese.  Maybe someone who is lactose intolerant, but that sure sounds like a personal problem.  I was disappointed I hadn't thought of this myself.











It was a school night, so not much time to really get into creating a full spread, but I was able to pick up a little fruit salad and red skinned potato salad from Fresh and Easy, or as I like to call it fersheasy.

And of course, a meal is not complete without a bottle of wine.  I did not do any kind of serious pairing on this, I just opened the only bottle I had left in my house.  Which happened to be a Chardonnay from Cuvaison.












PS: I also bought these pants.  This of course has nothing to do with food, but come on, look at them, they're glorious.

Creamy Sausage Goodness

I'm not exactly sure where this recipe came from, I know it was a family member, and I suspect it was Mike or Carrie, or both, but I can't remember.  All I know is I've been making this for a long time and it is really easy and fantastically delicious.

Fettucini with Tomato and Sausage Sauce


-2Tbsp Olive Oil
-3 Shallots, chopped
-2 large garlic cloves, chopped (I generally turn this into 5 or 6 cloves, I love me some garlic)
-1lb sweet Italian sausage, casings removed (Let me be real honest here, I make it with 2lbs of sausage - who doesn't want more sausage?)
-1 cup whipping cream
-2 14.5oz cans of diced tomatoes in juice with Italian seasoning
-1Tbsp dried sage
-1/2tsp dried crushed red pepper
-fettucini (seems obvious but you know, its a recipe they spell things out)
-Parmesan cheese


Ok children, if you remember from last time read the whole recipe first.  Which in this case is pretty easy, as I said its a simple straightforward recipe and really only takes about 30 minutes to put together.  Get out your big cutting board (mine is bigger, seriously don't even argue its huge).  Chop your shallots, I think you could probably go with bigger or smaller chunks here depending the size of the pieces you want in the final product.

Grab the head of garlic and pull a few cloves out of there.  The recipe calls for 2 large cloves and you could do that, if you're boring and don't like garlic.  It's like not liking cilantro - who does that?  I'm pretty sure every time I've ever followed the recommended dosage of garlic in a recipe I've ended up feeling like there wasn't enough garlic flavor when all was said and done.  In order to combat this I always double the garlic.  I don't even think twice about it, and up to this point I've never regretted this decision.  

Before we can chop the garlic we have to peel the annoying little buggers.  This is one of my least favorite things to do, garlic gets sticky, so your fingers get sticky and things stick to them, like the stuff you're trying to peel off the garlic.  Here's a cool trick though to make this easier: take your big chef's knife and use the flat side of the blade and place it above the clove of garlic you are getting ready to peel.  Then use the heel of your other hand (try not to cut yourself, seriously its not hard, don't be an idiot) and smack the blade down onto the clove.  This makes it so much easier to peel the clove.  This trick changed my life like when I realized Zack Morris was the person I most aspired to be....just me?

Finish peeling and chopping your garlic and pull out the sausage.  Real quick note here, when you're buying your sausage, it is imperative that you DO NOT buy one of those slightly pre-cooked versions.  You won't be able to do the next step properly.  Point of fact: you won't be able to do it at all.

Removing the casing from the sausage is really simple, however it is moderately creepy, its kind of like cutting a sticky condom off each one.  Try it and then see if you don't feel the same way.

2lbs of de-cased sausage.  It might look disgusting, but its farkin delicious

For those who may be wondering why we're removing these casings, the answer is that we don't want perfect slices of sausage, we want to brown the sausage almost as if it was ground beef and we intended to put it in tacos (holy crap sausage tacos....how does this not exist?).

At this point there isn't a whole lot of additional prep that is needed.  If you really want to you can measure out the whipping cream, sage and crushed red pepper, but there is plenty of time and no need to rush with this recipe.

I would start a pot of boiling water for the fettucini somewhere in here.  When the water is boiling throw some fettucini at it.  You can definitely use a different kind of pasta if you prefer.  I've made this with rotini, shells, spaghetti, fettucini, you name it I've probably tried it out at some point.  Also in case you haven't noticed I've made this a lot.  Its a fan favorite.

Grab your big and hopefully deep skillet.  You are definitely going to need 12 inches for this one (that's what she said) If you don't have a skillet that big you can use a big pot.  I used to do this before acquired my giant skillet.

Heat the 2Tbsp of oil over medium-high heat and then add the shallots and garlic and sauté for a few minutes until everything softens and takes on a yellowish buttery goodness color.  While this is happening stop for just a second and bask into the most amazing smell that will ever dance its way into your nostrils.  Seriously nothing smells better than sautéing onions and garlic, this is not negotiable.

After about 3 minutes or so when everything is slightly soft, limp, flaccid whatever you prefer to call it start adding the sausage.  If you stuck with the recipe, which is a completely acceptable choice, your measly 1lb of sausage will fit in nicely and brown easily I'm sure.  Having chosen to go with 2lbs my pan was certainly running out of room, but definitely still manageable.  One downside to 2lbs of sausage that I would certainly remedy next time around is that the recipe does not call for you to drain the pan before the next step.  As a result, the sauce didn't quite thicken the way its supposed to.  It was still fantastic but I would drain just bit of the pan to even it out.

While the sausage it browning use a spatula or fork to break up the sausage into smaller pieces.  We want to make sure there is a nice even spread of sausage.  Once there are no pink pieces of sausage left we can move on and add the whipping cream.

After adding the cream, lower the heat to a simmer and let the mixture sit for about five minutes.  Try to resist the urge to snatch pieces of sausage for tasting purposes.

Who am I kidding, I always snag some sausage at this point.  Plus I kind of have a reputation for stealing Italian sausage, it really started for me when I was 11 or so.  That'll teach dad to come home late from work.  Also learned an important lesson about lying, but I digress.

Once you've let this magnificent concoction simmer for a bit its time to add the rest of the ingredients.  Dump the tomatoes with their juices, sage and crushed red pepper and mix it all in.

Let the sauce continue to simmer for about 15 minutes so it can thicken.  This is where my sauce didn't really thicken very much, way to much juice from the sausage.  But really would you rather the sauce thicken or have more sausage?  I say more sausage, every time.





Somewhere along the line your water should have started boiling and you should have added your pasta of choice to said boiling water.  A few small notes/tips/tricks.  Personally when dealing with spaghetti or fettucini I like to snap it in half before tossing it in the water, it makes it a little more manageable later.  If you are a wrap the pasta around your fork using a spoon kind of person, don't do this.  Also if you find your water starting to bubble over as the pasta cooks, add a splash of olive oil to the water.  I actually have no idea why this works, but it does.  I never promised to have all the answers.

When your pasta is ready, drain the pot, preferably using a colander.  Side note: a colander is the bowl with tons of holes in it, in case you were wondering.

Pasta will essentially continue to cook itself even after its removed from the boiling water, so run some cold water over it while its in the colander will keep it right where you want it.

Return the pasta to the pot you cooked it in and put it back over medium-ish heat to evaporate the rest of the water.  Dump our awesome sauce into the pot and mix it all together.  Mix it for a few minutes over heat until no bare pasta is left.  Really get after it in this stage, the last thing you want is to realize that whoever serves themselves last doesn't get any sausage because you couldn't be bothered to properly mix it.  Then again, if you use as much sausage as I did it would seem unlikely that this could happen.

It is now ready to be eaten.  Bowls are probably best for serving this, no one wants to try and eat this off of a plate.  Add Parmesan cheese as desired, or if you've been a bonehead and forgot to get Parmesan cheese, suck it up and eat it without it.  I totally forgot the Parmesan cheese yesterday.


Now as I've said I'm a big fan of coming up with a full meal to create the whole proper eating experience.  However in this case, the pasta stands on its own so well that all I ever serve with it is a Caesar salad and some garlic bread.  I feel that there is no need to overdo it.  And if you can't figure out how to buy a prepackaged Caesar bag and one of those awesome frozen garlic bread things (seriously they're good) then you probably shouldn't be reading this anyway.

Last but certainly not least is the wine selection.  For this meal I did not provide the wine, it was provided for me, and it was really good.  I had never had Sonoma-Cutrer before but I would absolutely go buy a bottle, or 4.  However we finished that bottle pretty early on.  Round 2 was a Red Bicyclette Chardonnay, nothing super fancy but certainly more than acceptable.

Coming Soon

Another personal favorite: Fettucini with Creamy Tomato and Sausage Sauce.....coming soon

Red Meat and Puff Pastry

A request was made of me to cook beef wellington.  This was actually a perfect request, since A: I love beef wellington and 2: it seemed like a challenging recipe.  

Since I'm a big believer in creating a full menu when I cook, I decided to pair my beef wellington with garlic mashed and asparagus topped with hollandaise sauce, which is a bit heavy all around, I'm sure some food network chefs would chastise me for not having something light to break it up, but I cook for real eaters, and this is how we roll.

Also, cooking without a glass of wine is criminal.  Since I planned on opening a bottle of red for the meal, I decided to start with Fess Parker Chardonnay, mmm buttery deliciousness.

Starting with the beef wellington, I needed to prepare the duxelles mixture.  For those of you wildly uneducated folk (to be fair I had no idea this had any part in beef wellington) duxelles is a mushroom, shallot concoction that is wildly delicious.  I might just start making it to eat by the spoonful but I'll save that for another day.  

Mushroom Duxelles:

-1/2 lb mushrooms (I just used the plain old white mushrooms, but I'd be curious to experiment with something a little more flavorful, morels maybe?)

-2 Tbsp unsalted butter, divided

-3 Tbsp finely chopped shallot

-1 1/2 Tbsp of fresh thyme leaves

-1/4 cup dry vermouth, sherry or white whine (I went with sherry, mostly because I already had some in my cabinet)


The recipe suggested to finely chop the mushrooms using a food processor, unfortunately I no longer have a food processor so I had to get after it the old fashioned way.  Grab your big ass knife and do what must be done.

Once you chopped it all down, here comes one of the weirder instructions I've ever followed.  Scrape all of the mushrooms into a clean cotton towel (make sure you don't mind if it gets stained, because that's about to happen)  Wrap the towel around the mushrooms, and over the sink, twist the towel to wring out as much liquid as you can.  This step became especially strange because you're dealing with completely dry mushrooms.  However if you keep wringing it out, and seriously get after it, it will take a minute for anything to start happening.  Eventually though the towel will start to soak up whatever bizarre liquid lives inside mushrooms.  Get as much as you can out and set the mushrooms aside for a minute.

Personal tip: read the entire recipe before you start going step by step.  This may seem like common sense, and if you said to me "Danimal, you're an idiot of course you read the whole thing" the first thing I would do is slap you, no one talks to me that way.  The second thing I would do is explain that I myself (and I am sure countless others) dive right into a recipe and then come to a step where all of the ingredients are not properly prepped for that moment.  So read ahead, get everything ready, it will eliminate the "oh, crap!' moments from your cooking experience.

Chop the shallots, prep the thyme and for good measure, set aside the sherry.  This way everything is ready to go right when you need it.

Grab a big non-stick skillet (10 or 12 inch will get the job done - I'm in love with my 12 inch skillet...we're very happy together) and heat it with the burner set somewhere between medium and medium-high.  Throw the first tablespoon of butter in there.  OBVIOUS TIP ALERT: swirl the butter to make sure it doesn't burn.

Add the mushrooms, shallots, thyme and a pinch or three of salt and pepper.  Cook it for about five minutes or so stirring often until the mushrooms have browned a little bit.  Add the other tablespoon of butter and once its melted add the sherry and continue cooking and stirring until it evaporates.

Can we talk for a minute about how sautéing butter and onions of any kind smells? Heavenly, thats how.

When the sherry evaporates get it out of there, throw it a bowl or whatever container you prefer and stick it in the fridge to cool.  You may think to yourself "Self, I'll just set this aside because I'll need it in a few minutes when I start assembling the beef wellington."  Well you would be wrong.  I'll get to the reasons eventually but I did not cool my duxelles and I ran into some minor issues later.  Nothing that couldn't be fixed but it would have been better if I had cooled it.


So while I was doing all of this, I got my potatoes started.

Garlic Mashed Potatoes with Chives


-2 heads of garlic
-1 tablespoon of olive oil

-2.5lbs of red-skinned potatoes, peeled
-1/2 cup whipping cream
-1/4 cup of butter
-2 Tbsp of sour cream
1/2 cup fresh chives - chopped

Preheat the oven to 425, cut the top off the head of garlic so you can see the cloves.  Place them in a small baking dish and drizzle the olive oil over it, throw in a touch of salt and pepper just for good measure.  Bake for about 45 minutes.  When its done you can literally squeeze the garlic cloves out of the head and into a small bowl and set aside.

Peel the potatoes.  BONEHEAD MOVE ALERT:  Don't try to send all of the peels down the disposal drain.  It will back up, badly.  I learned this lesson a long time ago, then I learned it again three or four more times before it really stuck.  Once I learned it with some leftover tuna that had spoiled.  Any time your sink is spewing old tuna all over the place you aren't having a good day.

Cook the potatoes in a large pot of boiling water until the potatoes are very tender, probably about 20 minutes.  Since the idea is to be able to mash them, you definitely want to make sure they are tender or you are just making more work for yourself.  Plus you end up with hard chunks, and while I do like a few lumps in my mashed potatoes you don't want to have to really CHEW your mashed potatoes.

Once they are tender, drain the water and return the potatoes to the pot.  Stir over low heat for a minute or two to make sure that all of the water is evaporated (who wants watery potatoes - not this guy).  Add everything and mash it.  Useful if you have the fun little mashing tool, if you don't, well, you're on your own.  A fork might work, it might not, go buy the mashing tool, seriously, like now, do it now.

Beef Wellington
-2 filets mignon - 1 inch thick (to be fair, I made 4 but I'm an overachiever)
-2 sheets puff pastry
-1Tbsp unsalted butter
-4Tbsp Mushroom Duxelles (I don't know exactly how much the duxelles recipe made, but I used all of it - the more the merrier right?)
-1 egg
-Proscuitto

At this point there is a whole lot of juggling going on, timing is usually the part of cooking I have the most trouble with.  Trying to get everything to be ready at the same time is no easy feat.

Somewhere early on it is in your best interest to start the puff pastry thawing (if you made your own then you're a better person than I)

If your filets are an odd shape, get some kitchen twine to tie them into a more round shape, which works better for the whole wrapping them in puff pastry thing.  Season the steaks with salt and pepper (don't be shy, add more, and when you're done add a little more) Grab that skillet you were using earlier for the mushrooms and heat it over medium heat.  Add the butter and swirl away until melted.  Toss the filets in there for about 3 minutes a side.  You just want to sear them a little bit.  Do not overdo it here for you will end up with medium-well or well-done steak at the end.  And if you like you're steak that way, then 1: You're an idiot and B: You don't know what you're missing.

Allow the steaks to cool and then wrap them in wax paper and toss them in the fridge for a while.  This is a step I chose to skip as well.  And in a second I'll explain why that was not a good idea on my part.

At this point if your timing is working out, your garlic should be out of the oven, so preheat the oven to 400.  Whisk the egg together with 1Tbsp of water to create the egg wash.

Now that everything is ready and the puff pastry is thawed lay out the puff pastry and get ready to make magic happen.   Don't forget to flour the surface where you lay out the pastry or you will be in for a world of hurt, ok maybe just an annoyance but do it anyway.  I initially forgot to do this, and immediately regretted it.

Spread a few tablespoons of the duxelles on the pastry, toss a filet in there and wrap it in proscuitto.  Then wrap the puff pastry around it.  I'm sure there is some fancy way to do this.  I was more concerned with function at this point.  Lather, rinse, repeat depending on how many you are making.   Once wrapped brush with the egg wash.

Here is why its so important to cool the duxelles and the fillets.  If they are hot or even warm, guess what happens, the pastry starts softening and sticking to everything.  And I do mean everything.  It makes it extremely hard to A: wrap the filets and 2: to pick them up and transfer them to the pan.

You can survive this mistake, I sure did.  But when puff pastry is melting/falling apart in your hands you will realize there was a better way to do it.

Transfer the wrapped filets to a roasting or baking pan and cook for about 30 minutes, or until the internal temp of the steak is around 120F (get a quick read thermometer)

Asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce


At this point my potatoes were completely done and just staying warm over low heat (I'd just stir/check on them every few minutes).  The steaks are in the oven with 30 minutes to go.  Since the asparagus doesn't take very long I hadn't even thought about them yet.

-1lb Asparagus (I seriously don't think I had a whole pound. Cook as much as you need or as little)
-3 egg yolks
-salt and white pepper
-1 ice cube
-1/2 cup of unsalted butter - melted and kept warm
-2-teaspoons of fresh lemon juice

So for cooking the asparagus I just followed the recipe I had from the Williams Sonoma Sauces cookbook.  But looking back I would grill them, asparagus is always better grilled.  But from the recipe I took my big ol' skillet (I told you I love this thing) filled it about 3/4 full with water and brought the water to a boil over high heat.  Toss the asparagus in and they'll be tender and ready to go in about 5-7 minutes.

The sauce was weird, I've never made hollandaise before, but I love sauces so I thought it would be fun.  Its actually not that fun, it is stupid.  In a saucepan (dammit my big one is in use) add three tablespoons of water, the egg yolks and a pinch of salt.  Cook it over low heat and whisk like crazy.  The recipe said to do it for 1-2 minutes until the mixture turned foamy.  My mixture never turned foamy.  It then says to continue whisking until it turns a pale yellow and starts to thicken.  This also did not happen.   You might be starting to understand why I think this sauce is stupid.

It then warns about the sauce turning granular and adding an ice cube if it does.  This also did not happen.  Then you are supposed to start whisking in your melted butter, 1 Tbsp at a time.  It started to resemble something at this point but not a thick looking hollandaise.  I hate this sauce, have I mentioned that.  Once all the butter is in there add the lemon juice.  Point of fact: I did not use "fresh" lemon juice, I didn't care enough to go buy lemons and squeeze them.  However as soon as I added the lemon juice the entire concoction magically transformed into this thick liquid the recipe was talking about.

Season it with salt and white pepper and serve it soon or the world will end.  More likely: the sauce will thicken to the point of being no good or curdle which would be even worse.

If you have timed everything right, and I did because quite frankly I'm a genius, then the filets should be just about done.  Time to start plating.

Everyone gets a filet, some potatoes and asparagus.  Then spoon the hollandaise over the asparagus.  I didn't try this, but I bet you could spoon some of that good stuff over the potatoes as well, seriously why wouldn't you try that?  Oh well, missed opportunity.

I chose to pair everything with a bottle of Firestone Pinot Noir, which was outstanding.  If you have the means I highly recommend picking one up.

All in all it turned out fantastic if I may say so myself.  There were a few missteps that I would correct if I made this again.  Obviously I had a minor debacle with melting puff pastry, but I recovered nicely.  I also slightly overcooked the steak.  I can't figure it out if I did this when searing the steaks or if I left them in the oven a little too long.  But they came out closer to medium than medium rare.  Definitely still delicious and acceptable, but I like it when my steak is still bleeding.

Oh one more thing, for good measure, and to be completely indulgent, I made what is referred to in my family as "the cookie".  Nothing really fancy, just the Tollhouse Chocolate Chip cookie recipe, the difference is that we just make one giant cookie the size of the entire pan.  This thing stays soft for days and is incredible.  In fact I still have some left, which I'm going to go eat, right now.

Where I found my recipes:
http://cookingfortwo.about.com/od/beef/r/beefwellington.htm

http://cookingfortwo.about.com/od/ingredients/r/duxelles.htm

Williams Sonoma Sauces Cookbook

Epicurious: Garlic Mashed with Chives