the julia child dinner party.

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okay, now that my heart palpitations have subsided from all the butter and red meat, i am finally ready to report and rate the food i made from julia’s fantastic cookbook!

first of all, the woman is a CHEMIST. she is so thorough and thoughtful, and every meal seems to involve a chemical reaction, where eggs are whipped into stiff peaks, or ribbon stages, or substances changing their molecular structure. for a food geek like me, i am in utter heaven. and completely confused and worried during the whole process, as well. i kept telling myself, “just do the steps and trust her”.

and i did.

and here’s what i came up with.

this is a swiss cheese souffle, made with egg whites only. i think she has you only use egg whites to keep it light, but it is the richest, most satisfying way to eat egg whites. so cheesy. so buttery. the souffle rose, but the dent you see in the middle is from all the butter in it, i think. but seriously, this is amazing.

then we had a nice green salad with my strawberry/balsamic vinaigrette. i toasted pecans with a little raw sugar, cinnamon and seasoning salt. it was really nice to get some leafy greens in, after that souffle!

the main course was incredible. i cannot imagine anything tasting this good.

1. beef and onions: made just like boeuf bourguignon, only with beer instead of red wine and cognac. i highly recommend this recipe. it’s just amazing. the only tweaking i did was adding a bag of frozen pearl onions at the end. the beef would dissolve in your mouth.

the general idea is: sear your chunks of meat, take it out of the pan and add veggies. in this case, it was onions and garlic. add the beef back in and add yummy liquids, like beef stock and beer. put the lid on and put it in the oven for 2 1/2 hours and that basically it. there’s more to it than that, but i wanted to show you the formula.

2. the potatoes: these are, without a doubt, the BEST potatoes i have ever had. they have everything you want in a potato ~ the browned crunch of a fried potato, the creamy inside, much like a mashed potato, the buttery, salty goodness, and a sprinkling of dill and parsley, which brightens it all up. i HIGHLY RECOMMEND you try this recipe.

here’s what you do: peel some new potatoes and throw them in the pan with some butter and olive oil (a couple tablespoons of each, i guess. i don’t think you can do it wrong.) sear the potatoes, which will give you a nice color on the outside, and keep the inside soft and delicious. after a few minutes of searing, add salt and pepper and put a lid on the frying pan and turn the heat down and just let it do its thing for about 15 minutes, shaking the pan every few minutes.

add the herbs and enjoy these amazing potatoes. i’m in love. i’m going to try making these potatoes with some veggie stock and less butter and oil. i’ll let you know if that works. i am also going to try to NOT make these potatoes more than once a week, but it’s going to be difficult. i might have to eliminate something else from my diet, just to make room for these amazing potatoes.

3. the carrots. these are just sweet carrots cooked forever. i think i’ll make these again with just a little beef stock and none of the butter and sugar. i just really love carrots. i think they’re already sweet.

here’s the table…

i love setting a pretty table. got that interest from my mom. thanks mom.

i didn’t take a picture of the end product of the cake, but it was hilarious. look at how small it is:

i filled it with orange butter filling, and frosted it with a frosting that contained some of the orange butter filling, and butter. oy. it was pretty delicious, but i think it would be amazing as a little cake, like a petit four.

the final course…