Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon

In the spirit of Julia and Julia, which is a GREAT movie, I decided to make Julia Child's legendary Boeuf Bourguignon for dinner tonight! But first ... lunch!

I had a tuna sandwich on whole wheat bread around noon. Then I walked to the grocery store to pick up all the ingredients for my Boeuf Bourguignon. I also made a stop at the liquor store for 2 bottles of French wine - Chateau Courteillac Bourdeaux 2007. One bottle was to go in the dish and the other was to enjoy with husband when it was done!

Now, let me tell you, this dish is rather time consuming! Not a whip it up in an hour kind a thing by any means! I started cooking around 1 and was kept pretty busy until about 5:30. There are MANY steps and basically 3 recipes in one (you have to use 2 different recipes to prepare the onions and mushrooms, and both are found in a different part of the book).

After you simmer the bacon, you dry it, saute it, then remove it, then dry the beef, then add it and brown, then remove the beef, add the veggies and brown them:

then add a bottle of wine and some spices and broth. Then you cook it for a long time in the oven. Meanwhile, you prepare the baby onions:

And then the mushrooms:

Julia is very specific about how to do each of these steps properly (so the mushrooms don't shrink etc.). Once the meat has been in the oven for a while (about 3 hours), you take the liquid out and reduce it.

This is the meat and veggies without the sauce.

Once you have reduced the sauce, you put the onions and mushrooms on top of everything and pour the sauce over:

Julia suggests serving this over boiled potatoes, so that is what we did!

This is my serving:

And 1 glass of red wine to go with it! It was delicious! The recipe says it is even better a day or two after when it is reheated, so I can't wait to enjoy more of it over the next couple days!