Cooking with Ben and Ellen

What do you do if have a Saturday night with no plans and you aren't in Paris?

You make Beef Wellington!

On the way home from a long and lazy Starbucks trip, Ben and I decided to go home, pick something fun out of a cookbook and spend the evening chopping and sauteeing and stuff. We ended up picking "Beef Wellington for Two" out of The New Basics Cookbook. We had never made it before. Ben loves steak. I love pastry crusts. Beef Wellington would be perfect!

First we had to make Potted Mushrooms. Hmm, okay. So Ben prepared for choppin'.


And went to work on the mushrooms.


Ben does most of the chopping work in our kitchen, because I do not play well with sharp objects. Note the band-aid on my finger.

That was from just taking the knife out of the drawer. Imagine what happens when I actually try slicing things.

I am fabulous at sautéeing though.


And in case you were wondering, Potted Mushrooms are made with finely chopped mushrooms, leeks, shallots, chives and about 12 pounds of butter.


And what on earth do you DO with Potted Mushrooms? You put them on your steak!


And then, it was time for the puff pastry. I love pastry of any sort. And wrapping a hunk of beef in a rich, buttery crust sounds so heart-attackingly delicious, I knew this would be the best part of the dish. Apparently Spud thought so too, because when our backs were turned his little nose made its way up to the counter where he managed to chew the corner of the sheet of pastry before we saw him and yelled.


He looks so innocent. But that little bottom lip that's sticking out so sadly is the same one that drips with drool at the thought of your Beef Wellington. Don't let the beagle fool you.


So we draped the pastry all around the meat, and the recipe said we could use any excess pastry to decorate the crust. Excellent idea! So after a few minutes of deliberation, we decided on a jungle theme!

You won't get elephants and rhinos in any fancy restaurant. Only Chez Morrison.


And then they go in the oven. And we wait, some more eagerly than others.


And finally...

Elephant and rhinoceros decorated Beef Wellington in a jungle of fresh greens! And a carrot, hand-carved into a flower by Ben. Amazing! I don't even want to think about how many band-aids I would need after I tried to do that.

Cheers!

When we arrived in France, Ben declared that his main goal for our time there was to eat as many crêpes as possible. My Dad decided that sounded like a fantastic idea and said he would match him one for one. And so the crêpe competition began, and in the end, Ben was far and away the crêpe eating champion. There were crêpes in Normandy, Versailles, and several locations in Paris. There were butter and sugar crêpes, sugar and lemon crêpes, and a number of melty hot cheese crêpes. Suffice it to say, this is how Ben spent most of his France vacation.


He was very happy and full of cheese by the time we left.

Besides the frantic crêpe eating, our Paris time was pretty leisurely and relaxing. On our way to Paris from Normandy, we made a short trip to Versailles where, after standing in line forever, we decided to not buy tickets for the palace and just do the gardens, which had a totally different ticket line. They do not tell one this at the beginning of the long ticket line. Or in the middle. Only at the end when you tell them you want to buy tickets to see the garden. Nope.

Luckily the line for tickets into the garden was practically nonexistant so we spent some time wandering around before getting sandwiches from a tourist-trap café (they were good sandwiches though). And Ben and I rented a rowboat and rowed around for a half hour. Or, I should say, Ben rowed for a half hour while I sat daintily in the rowboat pretending I was French royalty and living at Versailles.




From there we headed for Paris, which was a relatively short drive, but really nervewracking because Parisian drivers are craaaazy. They're definitely not as bad as the Roman drivers, but that's not saying much.

Once in Paris, we just relaxed. We sat at our favorite café.


We ate good food.


And we just spent time sitting in front of Sacré Coeur, people-watching and maybe eating a crêpe or two.


We also spent some time in the Louvre this time, something we didn't do last time. It got cold and rainy one morning so we thought it seemed like a nice warm and dry activity. We saw the obligatory Mona Lisa and Venus di Milo, and then wandered for a while until it looked safe to go outside again. And then we resumed the walking, and sitting, and eating. It was magnifique!

Overall, our time in France with my mom and dad was merveilleux! If anyone else feels like coming to visit, the guest room is ready and your friendly Paris tour guides would be happy to travel there again and show you all the best sidewalk cafés.

While the Netherlands part of my parents visit was great because it was fun to have them here and show them the sights, the French portion of the trip was what we all were really looking forward to. I mean, A) It's France, B) They have pastries, and C) There is lots of wine. What's not to love? We were eagerly looking forward to it, and when we got to Normandy on Friday morning we weren't disappointed.

We met my parents at the gite, or holiday cottage, they were renting. It was really beautiful. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of it, but the main house where the owners lived was 800 years old and the part that we stayed in was... uh... I forget how old it was. Not 800 years old, but maybe 200. Definitely oldish, though. And we were in a très petit town, and it was a little rural, and the "front yard" had a stream with geese who got quite fussy if you approached them. And then, of course, there was the owners' dog Oslo, a big black Rottweiler and Black Lab mix. He was very large, awfully friendly, and perhaps the only one there who understood any English. We thought he was charming.


Shortly after our arrival we headed out to see the D-Day beaches...

This is an artillery battery between Omaha and Gold beaches. They were really big guns (if you couldn't tell) set back from the coast, with a twelve mile firing radius so they could, as Ben said, "rain fire from above" down on the beaches or even at ships.


Ben at Omaha Beach (think Saving Private Ryan)...

And then a minute later. "Ooh! The water is COLD!"


La Pointe du Hoc


And then the next day we went to Pegasus Bridge and had lunch at the café there, which was a really cool experience.


And then, it was especially cool because a huuuge boat came and they raised the bridge for it! It was big! And exciting! And all the tourists grabbed their cameras and took pictures!

We're pretty easy to please.

I know I said I would also write about crepes and Paris, but I lied. I promise I will write about zee grand Pareeee tomorrow. I am, how you say, so fatiguée from all zees blogging. So bonsoir, mes petites baguettes.

For so long, Ben and I were sitting around the house, doing nothing but watching dvds and drinking wine. I wondered to myself, "What do I blog about? Do have anything interesting to say? What can I do that would be blogworthy?"

The answer to my questions came in the form of two world travelers who finally made it to the Netherlands and were the first guests to stay in the guest room. Yes, on May 19, my parents arrived in Amsterdam.



Ben and I had never been to Amsterdam, so we gave them a day to sleep off the jet lag a bit and then took the train up to meet them and see the city before escorting them back to Eygelshoven. Amsterdam was pretty much as we expected it to be - pretty, rainy, and full of very mellow and happy people who had no doubt spent some time in one of the many "coffee shops" (where they can legally buy pot, and perhaps coffee too, but we wouldn't know). If anything, I think Amsterdam was a little tamer than we had expected. We totally missed the red light district, and the coffee shops were no more abundant than they are in our area. There sure were a heck of a lot of bikes though.



After Amsterdam, we came home and did all the local activities. There was much biking, and walking of dogs, a trip to Cologne to see the chocolate museum. It was a flurry of activity until early early Saturday morning when Ben dropped them off at the Maastricht train station so they could continue their European adventure in France, with plans for us to join them the following weekend.

In the next blog installment: Normandy beaches, crepes, and Pareeee. A demain!