Recent Culinary Adventures

Paul picked out an awesome Christmas/birthday gift for me [us]. For this instance, I was fine with it being a “combined” gift for both, especially since it was MULTIPLE pieces that combined, weigh nearly as much as me (ok, not really, but it seems that way).

The most awesome culinary gift thus far – a set of “Le Creuset” cookware (even cooler than our kitchen knives). After watching hours and hours of Food TV – with the likes of Alton Brown, Rachel Ray, Tyler Florence, and now Emeril (just got into him), he knew we needed to “kick it up a notch” in our cookware.

He got me a 9 piece set – 9, really heavy pieces of cookware! From the biggest, a 16 quart stockpot to the 'smallest', a really cool Candle Warming Trivet, I could not believe my eyes. So cool! This is their most popular item, the "Round French Oven," (in case you don't know what Le Creuset is and didn't take the time to read all about it on the website above, here's a quick run down)



On New Year’s Eve, we knew we wanted to stay home and have a quiet evening. It was time to break out the cookware. Paul really wanted to try out beef stew (Emeril’s recipe here) , so we stocked up on the ingredients and got ready to cook. It took long enough to cut up all the veggies, season and sauté the beef to finally get to this:

Closed pot on stove


Looking good....


It took a few tastings by Paul



Stirrings by me



And we can’t forget the cornbread, the sidekick to beef stew…


And finally time to eat!


Needless to say it was wonderful, a little peppery, but wonderful! We loved the new Le Cruset cookware – it cooked like a DREAM.

And for tonight, I was put in charge of making roast (although its like summer outside...). Roast in the crock-pot, to sit and simmer for 10 hours. YUM. Since it looked so good this morning; with its red potatoes, carrots, celery, onion and spices, I had to take a picture.