What We've Been Eating Lately!

Happy Wednesday! How is your week going? Today, I'm going to talk about what we've been eating lately as I love reading about what others are cooking. It usually gives me some much-needed inspiration! As you can see, we tend to eat a lot of Mexican and Indian dishes as these are flavor profiles we love. Plus those cuisines tend to be naturally gluten free.

1. Picadillo from my new Milk Street Kitchen Fast and Slow Instant Pot Cookbook. This is the first recipe I made from this book and it was a hit! Paul's portion is shown on the left below. I served it with beans and rice (we ate it on top of beans rice, I kept his separate as I wasn't sure if he'd eat the picadillo). It yielded several meals of leftovers and then Phil and I finished it off on Sunday - he put it on top of eggs and hashbrown. That was a really good combo! For those not familiar with picadillo, it's a Cuban dish with green olives, tomato paste, and spices such as cumin.

2. Chipotle Chicken Kabob tacos. This recipe caught my eye when a finance blogger I follow posted it. It's a kabob recipe but I skipped the kabob process and just cooked it over the stove top along with some peppers and onions. Originally I was going to cook this on a grill basket on our grill, but the heat index was 110F that day and I could bear to stand over a hot grill in that heat. I should have halved the chipotle in adobo sauce like the blogger did. It was too spicy for our toddler, but he did take a few bites. I used the leftovers to make burrito bowls for lunches using Spanish rice leftovers from another meal and black beans.

Sauteing the peppers/onions and the chicken while warming the corn tortillas.

My tacos with a little guac on the side for chips. I topped mine with a little sour cream to offset the heat of the chipotles!!

3. Lentil Enchiladas. The recipe I use is in the Peas and Thank You Cookbook, but this version is a copycat. We use real cheese and extra olives when we make ours. I also use green lentils instead of red so our filling takes longer to cook. I served this with Spanish rice. This is Phil's favorite meal I make and Paul loves it, too!

4. Rogan Josh from the Milk Street Kitchen cookbook. This recipe was kind of putzy as you had to reduce the sauce after the chicken cooked but it was worth the effort! It was on par with Indian take-out in my opinion!! I served it on Basmati rice with green beans from my garden. Paul did not eat any of this as I figured the Indian flavors would be too strong for him. So he had beans, rice, and enchiladas. I tried giving him some green beans but he wouldn't touch them. He's missing out!

And that's a wrap! Tell me what you've been eating lately! Typically we would have had one grilled meal during the week but the extreme heat/humidity made grilling less appealing last week!

Feeding a Family: Part 2

I'm back with the 2nd part of my Feeding a Family series. In my last post I talked about the challenges of getting meals on the table; in this post I will talk about my solution. Our solution isn't anything revolutionary - I've just come up with a couple of systems/approaches to simply things and reduce the mental load of meal planning.


Planning


Because I sometimes struggle and feel overwhelmed by coming up with meal ideas, I'm using a "thematic" approach to meal planning. This helps guide my recipe search. Each week I need to make one recipe to bring for lunch and 3 recipes for dinners. Since I'm just cooking for 2 people, 3 dinners is plenty to last us through the week as we both like leftovers and Phil is fine with eating cereal one night a week if we don't have leftovers in the fridge.


I'm currently making a soup or chili to bring for lunches each week. I used to eat salads every day but in this current stage of life, salads are just too much work as there is a lot of slicing and dicing. I like that I can make a soup or chili and portion it out into 4 containers. That way I'm just grabbing a container in the morning versus assembling a salad each night. I know you can make salads ahead of time if you put the toppings at the bottom and the lettuce on top but I still feel like the lettuce gets a little "icky" by the fourth day.


For the 3 dinners, my current themes are tacos, stir fries, and curries. I don't intend to keep these themes indefinitely. They will change as we get sick of the themes but this at least gives me a starting point.


I then use my bullet journal to plan out the meals for the week. Again this is just a framework and helps me figure out what days I will make meals and what days we will have leftovers. Things definitely get shifted around depending on what is going on that night but it helps to have an idea of which nights I will be cooking.

Execution


I try to have all the recipes nailed down by Thursday night so I can start making a grocery list. Right now I do our grocery shopping on Saturday mornings when Paul is down for his nap. I'm considering trying a grocery delivery service as it would be nice to use the ~hour I spend grocery shopping doing meal prep but I haven't decided on a service to use yet and I'm concerned that the produce will be disappointing. But this is something I want to experiment with this winter.


Ideally, I would grocery shop and do as much meal prep (slicing and dicing) on Saturday and Sunday so that meals come together quickly on week nights. This past weekend we had a friend visiting so I did not do any meal prep and had to squeeze it by grocery shopping on Monday night and doing meal prep on Tuesday night. For the coming week I'm making stuffed pepper soup in the instant pot for lunches later in the week + over the weekend, and for dinners I'm making Indian butter chicken and potato curry in the instant pot and chicken and vegetable stir fry. I'm only making 2 dinners this week as we had some leftovers from last weekend and are going to grill another night this week.


The next step is to scan the recipes and figure out what you can do ahead of time. For this week's meals, I chopped up all of the chicken and vegetables, except the potatoes for the curry. Not pictured is the 3 cups of brown rice that I made in the instant pot for the stuffed pepper soup.

Now I have labeled baggies of items all set to go which should make meal prep pretty quick - especially since 2 of the recipes are instant pot recipes so require very little active time.


Future Enhancements


I received a lot of great suggestions in the comments from my last post that I want to incorporate in the future. For example, I'd like to set aside one weekend a month to make something for the freezer.


***


So there you have it - there's nothing revolutionary or novel in this approach but it's a system that we are going to experiment with. It will change as our evenings change. Eventually I'll probably have to make more than 3 dinners a week, especially when Paul starts to stay awake longer and eats meals with us. But for now, this system works!

My Favorite Instant Pot Recipes

Look - a post that isn't about Paul or maternity leave! I guess it's sort of about maternity leave as I'm talking about a gadget that has made meal prep during maternity leave easier - my Instant Pot.

For those who aren't familiar with the Instant Pot, it's an electric pressure cooker. I think electric pressure cookers were rare or maybe didn't exist before Instant Pots came on the market, but don't quote me on that. My previous experience with pressure cookers was the stove-top one my mom used when she canned things when we were growing up. I also got a stove-top one at our wedding shower to use for canning. I used it for the first time this summer when I canned salsa verde. A stove-top pressure cooker is definitely a bit more intimidating. It's still not bad - you just have to watch it closely to make sure the pressure doesn't increase too much and you need to adjust the heat on the burner to make sure the pressure cooker stays at the pressure you want it at.

But the Instant Pot is easy peasy. You decide if you want to use high or low pressure (every recipe I've made calls for high pressure). You set a timer for how long you want the food to cook at that pressure level, and that's about it! The pressure will build in the Instant Pot and once it reaches the pressure level you've set (high or low), the timer starts. When the timer is up, the pressure naturally releases - or you can manually release the pressure by moving a pressure valve.

This might all sound really complicated, but I promise that it's straight forward once you start using an Instant Pot! The Instant Pot is actually a multi-purpose gadget, though, as it can be used as a rice cooker or a crockpot. It also has a saute function so if you make a recipe, like chili, that requires you to brown the meat or veggies, you can do that in the Instant Pot instead of dirtying another pan.

Since this is a fairly new gadget, I thought I'd share some of my favorite dishes we've made with ours! A quick tip:  One thing to keep in mind with these recipes is that they call for cooking at high pressure for a certain amount of time, but you also need to factor in about 10 minutes for the Instant Pot to reach high pressure, or possibly longer if you are making a soup because the contents of the Instant Pot need to heat up before it starts to generate steam.

1. Chicken Tikka Masala with Cauliflower and Peas - This is probably my favorite dish we've made in the Instant Pot. Phil and I LOVE Indian food so it's no surprise that we love this dish. This one takes a bit more time as you have to bring it to pressure twice - once when you cook the chicken with the spices/tomatoes and again after you add the cauliflower and peas. But it comes to pressure pretty quickly - especially the second time since the contents of the pot are already hot. If you like Indian food, I highly recommend this! We always have all the spices it calls for on hand and frozen peas, so it's an inexpensive dish to make as we just have to buy the chicken, ginger, and cauliflower.

2. Hard Boiled Eggs - Hard boiled eggs are something you can easily make on the stove-top, but they are sooo easy to make in the Instant Pot. Plus the eggs come out perfectly cooked and the shells literally slide off of them. You do need a steamer rack or trivet to make them in the Instant Pot, though, as the eggs can't touch the base of the Instant Pot. But my Instant Pot came with a steamer rack so hopefully that is the case for most! You just place the eggs on the steamer rack (make sure they aren't touching), add 1 coup of water and cook them on high pressure for 5 minutes, let the pressure naturally release for 5 minutes, manually release the rest of the pressure, and rinse them in cold water. You need to peel them right away but it's such a cinch to peel them!

3. Spaghetti Squash - I eat a lot of spaghetti squash in the summer and fall when it is in season. In the past I roasted it in the oven for 45-60 minutes, which really heats up the house. Cooking it in the pressure cooker is much faster as you only have to cook it on high pressure for 7 minutes! This is another recipe that requires a steamer rack or trivet.

4. Indian Vegetable Rice - This is one of our new favorite side dishes. I usually have all but a couple of the ingredients on hand so it's an easy side dish to make.

5. Moroccan Chicken - This is a new recipe that we tried this week that turned out great. I like that you don't have to cut up much for this recipe - just the onion and lemon (we actually left the lemon out as I forgot to buy one!). You also have to chop garlic but I don't consider that "cutting" since I use a garlic press.

6. Corn on the Cob - I know some people like to grill their corn on the cob but we prefer to steam it. To make corn on the cob in the pressure cooker, you just place the ears on top of the steam rack or a trivet, add a cup of water, and cook on high pressure for 2 minutes. I usually manually release the steam instead of letting it naturally release to avoid overcooking the corn.

We use the instant pot multiple times a week these days. I make hard boiled eggs every week as that's a great high protein snack or add-on to my breakfast. And this gadget is great for the summer months as it doesn't heat up your kitchen like the oven does!

Do you have an instant pot? Have you ever used a stove-top pressure cooker?

Julia Child Night #9

Another Julia Child Night is in the books! This annual event is so much fun and I love that it gives me an opportunity to see my extended family on my mom's side of the family as we no longer gather with them for holidays.

I'll let the pictures (mostly) do the talking!

My aunt, uncle, parents, and brother gathered on Friday to start the preparations but I had to miss this as I couldn't take another day off of work after missing so much work due to my RA flares in August. They were very understanding, though! We got to work around 11 on Saturday morning and pretty much worked straight through until the guests started to arrive around 4 pm. Asian food requires A LOT of knife work/prep work. 

My aunt and brother prepping the rice noodles. They made 3 different kinds for the various courses!

I think my uncle spent nearly 2 hours cleaning and preparing the Thai basil for the spring rolls and pho

In the mid-afternoon, the youngest participants of Julia Child Night helped me set the tables. They looked so festive thanks to all the decorations my aunt and uncle found on Amazon!

My uncle folded these beautiful paper cranes as centerpieces for the tables!

There was an appetizer course in the basement and a signature cocktail (a lynchee lemongrass cocktail) but I was too busy at this point to remember to take a photo. We had a big family toast where we toasted to the recent birth of my aunt and uncle's grandchild (he was a premie, so my cousin and her husband were unable to attend since the baby can't be around big groups of people), the recent engagement of my aunt and uncle's son to his awesome girlfriend, and the news that Phil and I were expecting!

Then it was time to make the first course: fresh shrimp spring rolls. We had to make 30 of them so we set up 3 stations with 2-3 people at each station.

Plating the spring rolls

The finished product was beautiful and delicious!

The second course was a classic Vietnamese dish: Pho with filet mignon. The broth was made from scratch and had so much flavor.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the 3rd course, which was my Asian vegetable salad. but here's a picture of from the practice night in August. We got a lot of compliments about how light and fresh the salad was.

Next up was the 3rd course: Beef short-rib lettuce wraps and pork and shrimp fried rice. We were cooking for about 30 people, so we had to double the fried rice recipe. My mom and I cooked side by side and my sister read the directions out loud to us. It was kind of intense as fried rice comes together so fast and the wok is so hot so you need to have all your ingredients ready. Abby probably did not love the job of reading to us. We made her repeat so many parts of the directions, sometimes 2-3 times! Sorry, Abby. You were a trooper to deal with us!

The beef short-ribs were served on butter lettuce on top of a layer of homemade kimchi, made by my aunt with the fried rice on the side.

The next course was a signature dish of my brother's: shrimp Thai pasta. This was so delicious!! The pasta was a wide rice noodle. 

I actually forgot to take a picture of the dessert which was a green tea ice cream, made by my sister-in-law, with almond cookies that my mom made. My mom made one of the batches of almond cookies gluten free and sent the extras home with me! Score!

And of course, at the end of the night we had to take our annual apron photo. As you can see, the number of attendees has grown and nearly everyone wears an apron!

It was a wonderful night with family. Everyone was very complimentary of the food, and as usual, went home with a full stomach and full heart!

Sister Weekends Are the Best Kind of Weekend

This past week I got my younger sister all to myself for just under 48 hours. It was blissful! Abby has lived in AZ for the past 8-9 years but she has been back in the Midwest for 6 months while he husband trains at an Air Force base in Fargo, ND. Her and her husband make a couple of trips back each year but it's usually for a holiday and they maximize their time with the whole family. So I don't exactly get her to myself, besides when we sneak away for a run or something like that.

Phil had his post-wedding bachelor party so it was the perfect weekend for Abby to come and visit. Here's how we spent our time!

On Friday Night Abby got to our place around dinner time. She was running a half marathon in the morning, so I made her the white wine chicken pasta dish that I always make the night before a race plus a Greek salad. I was so excited to dig in that I forgot to take a picture! We chatted for a bit after dinner and then headed to bed as we had an early morning ahead of ourselves!

On Saturday morning we left the house around 6 am, grabbed Starbucks to fuel us for the day, and then I dropped her off at the race start. The race was in the West metro area, along Lake Minnetonka. Originally I was supposed to run this race with her, but my body had other plans this summer. So while she ran, I read at a local coffee shop.

My latest read has been a great one!

I caught her at the end of the race, though, about 1/4 of a mile before the finish! She looked great and ran such a strong race!

After the race, we met up for brunch with my college friend, Heidi. She's met Abby multiple times over the years so it was fun for her to see Abby while she was in town. I love that my sister has gotten to know some of my closest friends over the years! Brunch was delicious. The place we went to had gouda hashbrowns and they were seriously the best hashbrowns I've ever had!!

After the race, we went back to my house, showered, and did some prep work for the Indian dishes we'd be making in the evening. On Saturday afternoon we did a little bit of exploring. Our first stop was Minnehaha Falls, which is a place where I take most visitors. It's such a cool area - not something you'd expect in the city!

We needed to go to an Indian grocery store next and it happened to be walking distance from my favorite distillery, Tattersall Distilling. If you like cocktails and happen to be in Minneapolis, you have to check this place out! They make a bunch of liquors, like gin, vodka, and bourbon, on sight and they have delicious, creative drinks! They also have fun n/a options, which is what I went with that day (I had a tamarind, ginger, peach soda drink).

After that we headed back to our house and relaxed for about an hour. Then it was time to make our Indian feast! We picked 2 recipes out of a cook book I had received for our wedding - Chicken Tikka Masala and a coconut chile shrimp dish. The chicken Tikka Masala required us to make the Chicken Tandoori dish, so we actually made 3 recipes.

First up, we made the chicken tandoori. It's made with bone-in chicken thighs. We marinated the chicken for about 5 hours in a yogurt marinade.

Next up, you had to carefully take the bones out of the chicken thighs and then you browned the chicken thighs in melted butter (this is NOT a light recipe!).

Then it was time to make the sauce, which is made from a puree of serrano chiles, garlic, ginger, diced tomatoes, and a bunch of other spices.

After that, you added some whipping cream and garam masala, and the chicken went back in the sauce to simmer away.

Next up we made the coconut chile shrimp. This was a very easy dish to make and it came together very quickly. The recipe calls for fresh or frozen grated coconut, which we were able to find at the Indian grocery store. I was surprised that the dish did not taste like coconut - the grated coconut mostly gave it some texture.

I served both dishes with basmati rice.

Here's my delicious spread!

It was so fun to spend 2.5 hours in the kitchen with Abby. We both love to cook and we love Indian food so it was the perfect way to spend the evening. Plus we both agreed that the dishes we made - especially the Tikka Masala - were as good as what you would get in an Indian restaurant!

After dinner we watched (500) Days of Summer (we both love Zooey Deschanel and are obsessed with this movie) and headed to bed early again!

On Sunday morning we went over to my garden so Abby could help me gather some fresh produce. I sent her home with some tomatillos, green beans, a zucchini, and some cherry tomatoes. I brought home lots of zucchini and tomatillos!

Then we met up with my friend Courtney and her little guy Leo, who is almost 2, and walked to the Farmer's Market and then to my favorite brunch spot - Hola Arepa. This is another place that I tend to take visitors - plus almost the entire menu is GF so I have so many delicious options to choose from!  I had a pork arepa with fried yuca which is pretty much the only thing I get there since it's so delicious! Mmmmm.

After that, Abby hit the road and I spent the afternoon doing some "adulting". I fly to Chicago for a 2-day work trip this morning so it was nice to have the afternoon/evening to do laundry and get things done.

The week ahead is another busy and exciting week as Julia Child Night is on Saturday night! It's usually in October or November but we are having it early this year! And Abby and her husband are coming for it so you'll finally get to see what Julia Child Night is all about. We'll have 32 guests this year so it's bigger than ever!

What was the highlight of your weekend?

Canning Salsa Verde!

Since this is my second garden-related post of the week, you can tell what is on my mind and consuming my time these days! This year my heirloom tomato plants are not doing well. I think they got blight. :( So I likely won't be canning any marinara unless I buy some tomatoes in bulk. Womp womp. But fortunately, my tomatillos are doing great! I guess I must have beginners luck with gardening because my first year of growing heirloom tomatoes went great and now my first year of growing tomatillos has gone great.

Last week I picked all of these tomatillos plus a few more on Saturday.

I had about 4 pounds of them so needed to come up with something to make so they could be put to use! Since chips and salsa is practically a food group for me (seriously, is there a better snack?), I decided to make roasted tomatillo salsa. After googling around, I decided to make this recipe. Spoiler alert: this recipe calls for WAY too many serrano chiles - more on that later in this post.

I started off by roasting the tomatillos, garlic and serrano chiles under the broiler.

The start of awesome salsa verde

It took quite awhile to do this. But I was able to blend batches of roasted veggies while roasting the other veggies, so multi-tasking made feel like it went fairly fast.

Roasted goodness

When I got to the half way point, I tasted what I had blended so far, which was about 2 pounds of tomatillos, 4 serrano chiles, and 1/2 of the cilantro, onion and garlic. Thank God I tasted it before blending the rest of the  serranos because it was HOT HOT HOT. I thought the ratio of 1.5 pounds of tomatillos to 5 serrano chiles seemed a bit off - and I should have trusted that judgment! So I left out the other 6 serranos, added the rest of the tomatillos, onion, garlic, and cilantro and it tasted perfect. It still has a kick but an appropriate amount of kick.

So if you ever decide to make this recipe, unless you want a 5-alarm-burn-your-mouth salsa, halve the amount of serranos the recipe calls for!  I also added the juice of one lime to balance things out. I will also note that when I looked at other recipes, they called for about 1/2 of the amount of chiles that this recipe called for, so it's not just me thinking it was overkill to include 5 serranos.

~11 cups of salsa, ready to be canned!

Next it was time to can! I made 2 1.5 pint jars and 5 1/2 pint jars. A 1/2 pint (1 cup) of this is like a serving size for me (ha!) but I figure we can gift the smaller jars to friends this summer and fall.

I feel such a sense of pride when I can things I've grown. I feel like I am channeling the spirit of my maternal grandma Val. She did LOTS of canning. She passed that knowledge onto her daughter, my mom. And now I'm canning. It's pretty cool to keep a vintage skill like this alive!

There are lots more tomatillos that will be ready to be picked later this month so I am planning to make this recipe again!

Weekend Prep

Greetings and happy Monday!  I hope everyone had a great weekend.  Mine was fun as it included some time at the driving range with Phil (I am terrible at golf but it was a fun date activity) followed by dinner + gelato + a House of Cards episode (we finished season 1 on Friday), a long run with my running club, a coffee + macaron date with Marisa, and attending a BBQ at a friend of Phil's (we brought guacamole which was a hit).

Friday night and Saturday were mostly about fun things, but Sunday was mostly about preparation for the week.  Living a healthy lifestyle is important to me, but it's not something that just happens.  I think it's important to emphasize that as I think at times we can look at others and think that it's effortless for them to eat healthy or fit in workouts.  But really, it's not effortless - at least not for most of us.  In my case, it takes planning, preparation, and spending a good amount of time in the kitchen on Sunday.

Everyone's lifestyle is very different, but for me, if I'm not teed up (see how I threw in a golf reference there?) for a week of healthy eating, it's not going to happen.  My week nights feel short as I work longish days and use my precious free hours in the evening to workout and spend time with Phil.  So Sundays are my day to get myself ready for a week.  Here's how I spent mine.

First up, I made Peanut Butter Runner's Mexican Quinoa recipe which was incredibly easy.  I'll warm this up and eat it on top of baby spinach with some salsa for 2 lunches and 2 dinners during the week.

Those containers look huge but each portion is about 1 cup.

Next up, I cut up a watermelon.  I love watermelon so much and am so glad it's watermelon season because this one of my favorite snacks.  I timed myself and it took me exactly 20 minutes to cut up the watermelon, which was surprising because I thought it would take way longer.  I can always find 20 minutes no matter how busy each weekend is so I will aim to buy a watermelon every weekend this summer!

After scanning my fridge, I realized I had some leftover kale.  I had already bought spinach for my salads for the week so I decided to make kale chips with the leftover kale.  I think kale chips are soo good!  And they are so easy to make - you just toss the kale with olive oil and sprinkle it with salt (I used a fun seasoned salt from Penzeys) and bake them for ~15 minutes on 350F.

Lastly, I made a big pot of (GF) pasta e fagioli soup.  Yes, I eat soup in the summer.  I had a bowl for dinner last night, and will have leftovers for 2 lunches and 2 dinner and will freeze some. 

So there you have it!  All in all, I probably spent about 3.5 hours in the kitchen yesterday (plus time on Saturday meal planning + grocery shopping).  Luckily cooking is something I enjoy so those 3.5 hours were fun for me, and they allow me to start the week with a fridge full of healthy eats!

What is your trick to healthy eating?  Do you tend to make meals throughout the week, or are you like me and prefer to do most of your cooking on the weekends?

Julia Child Night #5

Another Julia Child Night has come and went!  We started planning the menu for this year's event in June when I was home for the CFA so it's kind of hard to believe it has come and went.  But it was a fantastic menu, and as usual, I had the best time.

The weekend went entirely too fast, as they always do, but I did pack a lot in.  I flew in Thursday night, had a doctor's appointment downtown on Friday morning and then did my grocery shopping in my old neighborhood.  The specialty cheese and wine shop wasn't open yet when I got there, so I took a little walk through my old neighborhood. 

Friday marked 7 months since my move to Charlotte.  All these months later, it's still very bittersweet for me to visit the area where I used to live.  I know I am over half way through my one year commitment to Charlotte, but gosh it is still really, really hard (more on that later this week).

Luckily I was heading to my aunt and uncle's next to start cooking so that helped me get past the sad feelings!  Friday was very busy as we made the soup, prepped many of the components of the salad for the next day and made the chocolate sauce.  After a busy day of cooking, we went out to dinner at the Mexican restaurant we always went to after the CFA exam each year.  It was really, really nice to enjoy a meal there and not be in a post-CFA fog!

On Saturday morning we started cooking at 9:30 and pretty much did not stop until the appetizer hour started around 5!  I will let the pictures do the talking!

A big chunk of Saturday was spent making our main dish, Pot au Feu, which translates to "pot on fire" as it's a dish that is cooked on the stove (or in a roaster).  It has beef, chicken, pork, sausage and root vegetables, so there were lots of different components to work on!

We had our typical appetizer hour of cheese, olives, olive tapenade, and gluten free crackers.  Our signature drink this year was a French 75, which has gin, compari, champagne, simple syrup, and lemon juice.  It's so good!

My aunt Barb and I snapped a quick picture together before the plating of the courses began!  Barb is the mastermind behind this event - she is a very talented cook.  I have learned so much from her through the years and we have become especially close thanks to this event! 

The first course was a cream of mushroom soup!  It was so good, we even had some people who don't like mushrooms finish their bowl!

The salad course was a Salad Nicoise.  This is my most favorite salad and is something I tend to order if I see it on a menu.  It has a french potato salad, tuna, green beans, green beans, tomatoes, olives, and anchovies.  I am not a huge anchovy fan, but when it's mixed in with everything else, it's actually good!

As I said, the main dish was pot au feu.  There were so many components so we took an assembly line approach to plating and had lots of help!  We served it with two sauces - a tradition gravy type of sauce with a broth base and a cream sauce with dried mustard and tomato paste.  They really amp up the flavor of the dish!

We took a bit of a pause between the main course and dessert as everyone was SO full!  Which gave us time to take our yearly "apron" photo!

Dessert was a homemade vanilla custard made by my sister-in-law, which was topped with a homemade chocolate sauce and a homemade truffle.

After dinner, I tabled hopped a bit so I could catch up with different groups.  I snapped this photo of my mom (on the left) and her two sisters towards the end of the night.  I love that they are all wearing stripes and berets! 

So there you have it - another successful Julia Child Night.  I love sharing my love of all things French with family and friends.  I see this tradition continuing for many years to come.  I hope and pray that I'll be living in the Midwest when we host the 6th annual Julia Child night, but I know that no matter where I am, I will always come back for this fantastic event!

In closing, I will say that eating all this French food makes me even MORE excited for my Paris trip - I leave 2 weeks from today!!