Chocolate Fun

This is always cool to melt chocolate as well as using it for it's intended Dark Chocolate Mousse (which was amazing) there was a little bit left over, there was also a little leftover bacon . . .ummm  . . . I wonder . . . 

I did it, chocolate covered bacon. It didn't really work very well. But if the bacon was thinner and crisper and a little bit of sweetness and spice added to the chocolate I think we might be in business.

It was a great meal at the Palmquist Palace.

Desert Deconstructed

Dark chocolate mousse for desert. This is was the ending of our beautiful Bouchon three course meal. Unlike the main course this was incredibly simple to execute. And we were able to do it the day before. FYI there was also cream and 2 tbls  of butter used in the mousse.

Ta Da! ! !

Success!

Braised Beef with Red Wine

All Prepped!

Now it is Sunday afternoon the braised beef has been in the fridge resting in it's own juices & broth for over a day and a half. These yummy things are cooked ready to go in the pot. 

Potatoes in the Pot

It's hard to keep clean!

Celebrate Central Coast Wine

These are 2 great Santa Barbara wines. If your not into Rosé yet it's time explore the "French Style" Rosé's are dry, crisp and refreshing not the overly sweet stuff that mutated sometime in the 70's this Buttonwood is amazing! With dinner we had a Cabernet Sauvignon from Wild Heart not a lot of people know about them and their aesthetics are rather poofy, their tasting room looks like Michael Buble barfed everywhere. But they have some of the best wines I've ever tasted!

So cute!

This is rather obvious what's going on, but what is interesting is that all the veg was prepped and cooked separately, and at the end everything was brought together for a re-warming.

Before the Braise

The wine is reduced, fresh aromatics, herbs and carrots have been added. The recipe had a clever idea to put cheese cloth in-between the veg and the beef so that way the beef stays nice and pretty (maybe there was another reason too . . . who cares). I'm rather proud of my sear on that meat! After this it all gets covered with the beef broth and in to the oven for a long time!

Can wine becomes even more glorious?

Dinner was served on Sunday and this is where things started out on Friday. Here's bottle of Cab with a load of aromatics, herbs and mushrooms. Ooooohhhh!

Short Ribs or Heavenly Ribs?

These are the beautiful boneless short ribs that we got from our favorite butcher here in Santa Barbara (Whitefoot Meat Market)

Braised Short Ribs

This is a dish that I've been looking forward to making since I got Thomas Keller's Bouchon cook book. The recipe is called Boeuf Bourguignon (Braised Beef With Red Wine). But it's one mother of a dish and I took three days to complete it! The following will show pictures of prep and completion of our dinner.

Salmon Rillettes

On Sunday we had a wonderful dinner hosting a good friend that did all the food for our wedding. This was our appetizer a "Smoked And Steamed Salmon Rillettes". My Steamed salmon cooked a little too long and I didn't achieve that perfect med-rare. So maybe it was a little flakier than it should've been . . . it was delicious anyways!

Cheers

Time for a home cooking blog!