It all started when I went to the supermarket late last week. In the produce department, I saw trays of nice mushrooms. I thought, "why not?" and bought one. When I got home with my groceries, I realized we already had a bag full of mushrooms in the refrigerator. I needed to cook mushrooms over the weekend, that was for sure. I didn't want to see them go to waste. (This was about a third of them.)
The first thing I thought of was tomato sauce with pasta. Nothing fancy, just tomato puree from a jar with'shrooms, carrots, onions, ground beef, bay leaves, and red wine. That would make some hearty cold-weather eating, as well as some good leftovers for the freezer. It didn't take long to chop up all the vegetables and to wash and slice a good quantity of mushrooms. I made that on Saturday.
Yesterday, Monday, I still had an abundance of uncooked mushrooms. At the supermarket, I had also picked up a tray of veal stew meat, just because it had caught my eye. In France, that's called blanquette de veau because it's a stew made with crème fraîche (lightly soured cream) along with onions, bay leaves, carrots, mushrooms, veal broth, and white wine.
I just needed to make a white sauce (une béchamel) with butter, flour, water, white wine, cream, and the veal broth I had already made by simmering the veal with the vegetables in a pot on the stove for a couple of hours. Now we have leftovers of both tomato sauce (lasagna today?) and of blanquette for later this week. We're eating it with tiny elbow macaroni instead of rice. These are our idea of wintertime foods.
Cooking as we should all cook, base on what looks good at the market, or in the garden today.
ReplyDeleteThat veal looks so tasty.
ReplyDeleteBoth are hearty looking and I know they are delicious. Mushrooms add great texture and flavor. Nice :)
ReplyDeleteLooks delicious and hearty.
ReplyDeleteBettyAnn
Lasagna sounds like a good option and bechamel is good in that too.
ReplyDeleteDelicious comfort food. In the back of my mind, I think I hear your dear departed friend CHM complaining about you putting carrots in the blanquette de veau though. That's how long I've been reading your blog!
ReplyDeleteCHM always said it was important to cook a carrot or two in the broth you were cooking the veal in, for flavor. But then, he said, you have to throw the carrot or carrots away. It was interdit to serve them with the blanquette. I see that as some kind of superstition.
DeleteHahaha…I too remember the stories about the carrots in the blanquette de veau. I’m with you on the carrots!
ReplyDeleteI say I'll serve and eat the carrots unless they have cooked down into complete mush. I don't let that happen. CHM's partner Frank liked to complain that in France people put carrots in almost everything, He didn't like them.
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