Chicken with Lemon Sauce

I don't quite remember where I have gotten the recipe for the lemon sauce but it's definitely somewhere on the website. It turns out pretty good except I am not sure if I like it with the au gratin potatoes (from the box)

Karen's Beef Stroganoff

Beef Stroganoff is originally came from Russian. It is basically sauteed strips of beef served in a sauce with sour cream. The dish has become popular to other continents such in North & South America, Australia, Middle Eastern and Europe with different variations and styles. It can be served with rice or pasta (mainly egg noodles). This is my trial dish using ground beef and celery.

Bakery

Banana Muffins

Mmmmmm.....Banana muffin.. Who doesn't love muffins? Over exploded cake in a muffin cup.Yum! Yum!

Smothered Pork Chops with Mashed Potatoes & Corn Nibblets

I found this smothered pork chop sauce recipe from the food network by chef Tyler Florence. The gravy is absolutely creamy and tasty. 2 thumbs up for the chef!

Chicken Cordon Bleu with Rice Pilaf and Broccoli

Well, it's unclear if Chicken Cordon Bleu is actual authentic French dish or is merely a dish that was developed in the United States to imitate other stuffed meat dishes in the Europe. Nevertheless the dish is absolutely delicious with the perfect combination of the chicken breast, ham and cheese (gruyere or swiss) swimming in the white wine creamy sauce.

BBQ Chicken with Green Beans & Roasted potatoes

This is just my simple American dish for dinner- bbq chicken with some green beans and roasted potatoes. 
The bbq sauce was homemade from scratch. It's pretty yummy (at least that's how I remembered it :D)

Definition: Bake

Baking is a form of cooking that involves dry heat, usually in some form of contained area such as an oven. Baking is one of the most popular forms of making desserts in western styles of cooking. These types of desserts include cakes, cookies, and such. Bread is another popular baked item.

Julie and Julia

I love food as much as I love cooking! I think cooking is one of the best therapy when you are alone, bored or to just want to get away from every day life. I love French food and I do have quite a few French cookbooks that I have collected over the years but unfortunately are not being used as much as it should have. One of my favorite collections are Le Cordon Blue cookbooks. I have the Le Cordon Blue At Home, Le Cordon Blue Complete Cooking Technique and Le Cordon Blue Dessert Technique.
Being a mom with two kids my life has totally been busy to the point I don't have much time to really cook a gourmet meal or doing any other craft stuff. But after watching Julie & Julia (the movie) I feel inspired by Julie Powell who is nothing more but a regular person just like you and me who has an uninspired job and wanted to do more in her life. And so she has this crazy idea to to cook every single recipe off from Julia's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" cookbook (which contains 524 recipes by the way)in 365 days. The result? She did it!
I love the movie and I am going to buy her book, "Julie and Julia: 365 days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen. After watching that movie I went out and buy Julia Child's Volume One Mastering the Art of French Cooking cookbook. This is going to be exciting and challenging for me at the same time being there are two toddlers in my house who love to play with my pots and pans in the kitchen. Not that I want to be like Julie cooking all the recipes off from the book, however, I am attempting to cook most of the French dishes that my family will eat. :) I will also try some of the French dishes from other French cookbook collections as well.
Bon Appetit!

Get the DVD from Amazon:

Get the Book from Amazon:

Boeuf Bourguignon

I have decided to make 'Bouef Bourguignon' last night since this one of the famous beef dish in France. I have never eaten boeuf bourguignon before and it seems to be super delicious when I saw it on Julie & Julia movie. So, I have decided to give it a try since I have 2.1 lb of stew meat.
Well, little I have known of that it takes a lot of time to prepare and cook boeuf bourguignon. It took me about 3 hours in total to prepare and cook. Of course I follow Julia Child's recipe which takes a lot longer on the preparation side but the outcome is superb. I wouldn't say this is my favorite French dish but definitely a pretty good stew. However, I have screwed up on one of the preparation (instead of sauteing the bacon only, i sauteed both bacon and the rind) but it turns out well. Also, I didn't realize it needs pearl onion (small white onions) at the end of the preparation and I don't have any. So, I substitute more yellow onions (it won't taste as great as the white onions but still pretty good) and brown braised it. Instead of using a fireproof casserole dish (I don't have any), I used a big pot. The taste is probably a little off since it's not cooked from a dutch oven. Well, I will never know till I get myself a dutch oven and cook it with or go to a French restaurant and try the boeuf bourguignon.

I guess I should invest myself a dutch oven- Lodge or Le Creuset?