air bubble blog

because i live for the bubbles.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

french nachos

much to david's surprise, yesterday for dinner i made poutine. he said that it sounded like something i would never ever make ("french fries with gravy and cheese"). but hey, i had potatoes, and i searched on epicurious for potato recipes, and this got rave reviews. i used red potatoes from the farmer's market (the recipe calls for russet but hey, what's the fun in following a recipe to the T?). david mastered the fries, although i screwed it up a little by salting them, because along with my gravy and cheese, the dish was a bit too salty--still good though. the recipe did say to lightly salt the fries, but i would recommend to not salt them. i used fresh cheese curds for the market...oh so good they were! you could just hear them squeak in your mouth as you chewed. it doesn't get much fresher than that. for the demi-glace, i read that you can use half espagnole sauce and half broth, so i did that. i did a quick version of the espagnole--sauteed carrot and garlic in butter (my onions were rotten so i just used some onion powder), added flour to make a roux, then added crushed tomatoes (instead of puree, it's what i had) and chicken broth (again, what i had instead of beef). once it was to the desireed consistency (and not after 45 minutes of reducing), i took it off the heat. then to make the gravy, i sauteed the shallot and dried thyme in butter, added the red wine and reduced it. once reduced, i added the "demi-glace" (chicken broth mixed with espagnole sauce), then added a small bit of cornstarch slurry to thicken. i seasoned it with salt and pepper but didn't add the extra butter in at the end. then, i removed all of the solids so i had a nice, smooth gravy. we put the fries on a baking sheet, dropped cheese curds over, drizzled the gravy over, and heated it in the oven till the cheese was slightly melted. the recipe says to put the gravy on when you are serving it, but it was taking awhile for the curds to melt so we decided to put the gravy on so the fries wouldn't get hard and dry (good thinking david). sure, we didn't do exactly what the recipe told us to do, so it probably wasn't exactly how the french do it, but it was the weeknight college kid version of it (reduce time and use ingredients that you have!). overall, it was a pretty tasty and fun meal, and david deemed them "french nachos." it seems fitting doesn't it?

tonight for dinner i made some really delicious sandwiches. i made fresh white bread in the bread maker today
. i put pesto on both pieces of bread, then layered tomatoes, ham, provolone, and salami. mmmm so good. david loved it--"now that is a sandwich," he said. we think it would have been good with fresh mozz or feta too, instead of the provolone.

after dinner, david took me on a surprise date for ice cream. we went to izzy's ice cream in saint paul. it's cool there because you choose which ice cream you want, and then you get an "izzy" on top, which is a mini scoop of a different flavor of your choice. i thought it was something different you don't see at every ice cream shop! i got cake batter ice cream (soo good--it tasted like i w
as eating a cone full of frosting haha) with an izzy of oreo ice cream (it was awesome because talk about having a little bit of ice cream with your oreos). i got mine in a waffle cone, and when the girl handed it to me, the bottom broke, so she gave me another cone...which i gave to david so that he could try the waffle cone! yay free stuff. david got strawberry cheesecake ice cream with a four berry izzy in a cake cone--and then inside of a waffle cone!

and here are the chocolate chip banana muffins i made the other day. they turned out really good. they're not too banana-y but are the perfect c
ombination of banana and chocolate.

well, that's about it on the food front. i'm hoping the weather will be a little less bipolar tomorrow. today it was raining when i woke up, sunny a bit later, cloudy again, sunny, then it started to get cloudy again. but i went for a run, and a little ways out i saw a big streak of lightening, soo i turned right back around. i decided going for a shorter run was better than getting struck by lightning. but that's just me.


what's cookin' tomorrow: chicken with spicy tomato sauce

2 comments:

Jen said...

"but didn't add the extra butter in at the end."

you are so NOT my sister. ;)

Shannon said...

haha but it didn't need it! it was plenty tasty enough, and i didn't want to change the consistency :)