Adventures In French Cooking

I am up in the middle of the night again and can not sleep. I napped a little earlier, I fell asleep watching "Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home". Lately I have been absolutely immersed in 3 different women, 2 of whom are not chefs but one is. Julia Child, Martha Stewart and Anne Burrell.

I've really been into Julia Child. I feel like Julie from the book Julie and Julia. Only i'm not cooking every recipe out of Julia's cookbook. I did yesterday make my very first loaf of French bread. I watched the French Chef episode where Julia made bread and she showed how to do it by hand and by the Kitchen Aid Mixer. I saw how interesting the whole process was and decided to give my Kitchen Aid another use other than using it for cakes.

It was very easy making the dough, it definitely was a labor of love. You had to let the dough rest at least 4 different times. I started making the dough at midnight yesterday and got the dough into the oven by 5 o'clock in the evening, i think it was. It came out pretty damn near perfect. The slits i cut into the dough didn't open up like they were suppose to but other than that it was perfect. I liked spraying it with water while it was baking so it could brown, and hearing it sizzle. that was fun. I was definitely proud of myself because i really suck pretty bad at baking. I always have some sort of disaster happen. the last two times i've had some success, and i'm really happy my bread came out alright. A red velvet cake was the other thing i baked that was a success. I've made it before but i tried to take it out of the cake pan too early and the cake completely fell apart. This time the cakes came out perfectly, and i always am challenged when i frost a cake cuz i'm such an amature that the cake always comes out to look like shit. This time it actually looked really good, almost like a professional cake.

With my bread I made Anne Burrell's Spaghetti Bolognese. I didn't let the sauce cook for 4 hours like the recipe said, but it still was really good. I've made Spaghetti Bolognese before but i did it the half assed Rachael Ray way, and letting it cook for longer I definitely tasted a difference.

Lately I just can stand Rachael Ray. I really use to love her food back when I first started cooking, but now that i've been doing it for a while I want to be challenged more. Her recipes are just way too easy, and kind of lazy. I have to give her credit for getting me into the kitchen in the first place though. The first time i saw her show i thought to myself, if this ditsy chick can cook, so can i.

I'm really liking Anne Burrell's show "Secrets of a Restaurant Chef". Her grunts and funny noises she makes when she cooks can get kind of irritating, but the amount of information she gives you really makes a difference when you go to try to cook her food. So far all i have made is her spaghetti, but i will definitely be making more of her food in the future. You can tell she is an instructor at a culinary academy because she does a really good job of explaining why you have to do everything she tells you to do. I like her motto "because brown food tastes good." I really got interested in her show after I saw her on "Worst Cooks In America" where she taught this girl who couldn't even boil water to cook a gourmet meal for a bunch of food critics in something like a week.

I'm really loving the Julia Child information on French cooking though. I keep both volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking next to the bed because i'm constantly thumbing through both of them, soaking in information like a sponge. Same thing when i watch her t.v. shows, especially The French Chef and Julia and Jacques Cooking At Home. Just yesterday I learned on Julia and Jacques, that i've been cutting my baked potato wrong this whole time.

Through the 2 discs i've watched so far of The French Chef i have learned so much! Like I learned this whole time i've been making omelets the hard way. Oh yeah, and i learned the technique of frying your french fries twice, to get the soft creamy center kind of like mashed potatoes and the crunchy yummy fried outer part of the french fry. I finally tried it the other day, after watching Anne Burrell do it too when she made fish and chips. So i picked up my kids from school and decided to try it and make fries for them as an after school snack. This grocery store just opened up by our house and they had a fucking steal of a deal for a 10 pound bag of russet Idaho potatoes for 50 cents!!

Anyway, so i tried it, and the difference that little trick made was crazy! The fries were like night and day from the french fries i normally fry.

My next Julia Child challenge will be in pastry. I am going to attempt to make croissants. I've read over the recipe a couple times and that too is also a labor of love. The French bread is way easier though, i can already tell. With the croissants you have to fold in butter into the dough like 4 or 5 different times. Well, we'll see if i can do it. My cough is starting to get bad, i think i'll go to bed now. See ya later....