I made this yummy, surprisingly straightforward dinner a while back (and added some asparagus to the mix). I love Steak au Poivre, or really anything peppery. The tips were nice for a weeknight when you don’t necessarily want an entire steak. I bought one nice sirloin steak, and it was more than enough to feed us both.

The steak was the easy part; the oven fries were more labor intensive. I started those waaaay before the steak. In the end, mine probably could have come out of the oven a little sooner. But, the fries weren’t fried, and overall this was pretty great. Both recipes are from Cook’s Country. These are the original recipes below, which serve 4.

Steak Tips au Poivre
Serves 4

“The browned bits left in the pan after cooking the steak tips are essential for this recipe and give complex flavor to the pan sauce. To release them, deglaze the pan with a combination of wine and broth”

1 1/2 pounds steak tips, cut into 2-inch chunks **Tips are from sirloin, so if you’re butcher doesn’t have them just buy a sirloin steak and cut it into chunks
1 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
Salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 shallot, minced
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup low-sodium beef broth
1/2 teaspoon minced fresh thyme

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Oh, man. I’ve been on a Cook’s Country bender lately, making delicious recipe after delicious recipe. That includes this take on an old-school throwback that Adam had as a kid all the time and which I’d never heard of. His mom made whole baked apples stuffed with dates (and no pastry), and this recipe mentions a sort of 1950s dessert that every good housewife could make–again, with whole apples. These dumplings were amazing, but I made far too many of them. The original recipe makes 8 half-apple dumplings, and I halved it for dessert one night (the other half of the dough is in the freezer for another time). But I guess I didn’t really understand how HUGE each of these dumplings were, even with half an apple, so 2 each was just out of hand. They were so delicious that we kept trying to make a dent in our 2nd helping, but it was no use. We were defeated by their amazingness. Next time I will just make 2…or invite more people over.

The original recipe below uses raisins in the filling, but I’m not such a fan. I just diced up another quarter apple and replaced the raisins with that. Why not?

Baked Apple Dumplings with Cider Sauce
Serves 8 (I halved everything but the dough and made 4–the remaining dough I put in the freezer)

Dough

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces and chilled
5 tablespoons vegetable shortening, cut into 1/2-inch pieces and chilled
3/4 cups cold buttermilk

Apple Dumplings

6 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3 tablespoons golden raisins, chopped
4 Golden Delicious apples (I actually used Granny Smiths, and the recipe also suggests Braeburns or Galas)
2 egg whites, lightly beaten

Cider Sauce

1 cup apple cider
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon lemon juice

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Ohmagoodness.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day next weekend, I give you this bowl of heaven. The recipe was from the March issue of Food Network Magazine (the CHEESE issue…I mean, honestly). I don’t know how much more I can say that the name of the recipe doesn’t already say a million times over. I made this exactly as directed and froze the rest of the filling and dough for future pie eating. Sometimes you just don’t need to mess with perfection.

To pay tribute to the incestuous and oft-overlooked relationship between Irish and English cooking, and for my Brit husband who will never understand about St. Patrick’s Day, I used this English stout instead of the obvious choice. I thought the label would made me look like I know stuff in the Whole Foods checkout line.

Side note: do you like my new individual pot pie bowls? I’ve been spending time in Williams-Sonoma this week.

Beef Pot Pies with Cheddar-Stout Crust
For the dough:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
3/4 teaspoon fine salt
1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3/4 cup grated Irish cheddar cheese (about 3 ounces) **I did use a nice aged yellow cheddar, that’s my only change
6 to 7 tablespoons stout beer
1 large egg, lightly beaten

For the filling:

2 1/4 pounds beef chuck roast, trimmed of excess fat, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/3 cup stout beer
3 medium leeks, white and light green parts only, halved lengthwise and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 pound carrots, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 stalks celery, cut into 1-inch pieces

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Adam and I have started Saturday Movie Nights this year in an attempt to stay relevant with the world of pop culture. I can count on one hand the number of movies I’ve been to in a theatre in the past couple of years, and so we’ve been trying to do it at home.

We’re not always successful. Some weekends we’ve just been too exhausted to sit through anything more than an episode of Project Runway. And last night we had all the best intentions of finally watching Argo before the Oscars tonight. It would have been the only of the Best Picture nominees we would have seen. But for some reason our Amazon download took 1.5 hours to download 15 minutes. We finally gave up and watched the first episode of the BBC’s Sherlock, a series I watch religiously and Adam has never seen.

However, I did manage to pull off Fondue Night despite our movie problems. And it was pretty awesome. All the recipes are after the photos.

For dinner I made this Cheese Fondue recipe from Food Network Magazine. I halved the ingredients since it was just Adam and me, and we had this with a bottle of homemade cider that Meredith gave us for Christmas.

Cheese Fondue
6 ounces gruyere cheese, shredded (about 2 cups)
2 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (about 1/2 cup)
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 clove garlic, halved
1/2 cup dry white wine or vermouth
1/2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
Assorted dippers, for serving–I used cubed pumpernickel bread, apples, and baby carrots

Toss the cheeses with the flour in a bowl. Rub the inside of a saucepan with the cut sides of the garlic; discard the garlic. Whisk the wine, lemon juice and mustard in the saucepan and bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Add half of the cheese mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until melted. Add the remaining cheese mixture and stir until smooth. Continue to cook, stirring, 2 more minutes. Transfer to a fondue pot or slow cooker to keep warm. Serve with your choice of dippers.

Then for dessert I made a straightforward Chocolate Fondue, which I improvised after reading a bunch of different recipes that threw too much stuff in.

Chocolate Fondue
8 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup heavy cream
1 Tbsp brandy
Treats for dipping–cubed pound cake, marshmallows, strawberries, bananas

Simmer the heavy cream in your fondue pot or saucepan, but don’t let it come to a boil. Slowly add in the chocolate a few handfuls at a time, whisking to make sure it’s completely melted. Stir in the brandy and cook for about 2 minutes. Serve warm in your fondue pot or slow cooker with goodies for dipping.

Adam also whipped up these S’Mores Martinis from an old issue of Food Network Magazine I saved. It was pretty good, but the scotch was just way too overpowering. I would use bourbon or just vodka next time, and we didn’t bother with cinnamon vodka–just straight, plain stuff. I’m not that wild about cinnamon anyway.

I’ve worked with beef shanks once before, and it wasn’t pretty. The finished product was delicious, but I never thought I’d go near them again. The stress of prepping it outweighed the awesome finished product. That recipe called for boneless shanks that you just cut into pieces to braise. I couldn’t find a boneless shank, only a whole piece of shank with the bone. That I then had to trim and get off the bone. The membrane around the shank is so tough and slimy, it was really unpleasant for someone who had no idea what she was doing.

This recipe, from Anya Fernald in the January ’13 Food and Wine, seemed really promising from the start. You didn’t need to cube the shanks, just get bone-in shanks that were cut into 2″ steaks, for lack of a better word. And, luckily, Whole Foods had sliced shank rather than an entire piece of shank. The recipe says “trimmed” shanks, but I just left them on–I knew the membrane would just peel off easily after braising, so I didn’t even deal with it raw. And that’s exactly what it did.

Her recipe was served over polenta, but for us fresh fettuccine (couldn’t find any pappardelle) was perfection. And this recipe made a huge batch, enough to freeze 5 more servings of this for the future. It was such a gloriously thick ragu that by the time it cooled enough to portion and freeze I could slice it like a pie. I braised it the night before and served it the next day, so I just added a little more wine to reheat the portion. I put it in a covered saucepan for a couple of minutes on medium heat and it came right back. This. Was. Amazing. A great addition to my sauce making days.

Beef Shank Sauce (from the January 2013 Food and Wine magazine)
Makes 10 cups of sauce

5 pounds trimmed beef shanks, cut 2 inches thick
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 onions, cut into 1/2-inch dice
4 celery ribs, cut into 1/2-inch dice
2 carrots, cut into 1/2-inch dice
2 cups dry red wine
One 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth or water
Cooked polenta or pasta, for serving

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