Things I LEARNED cooking my FIRST real recipe!!

I did my FIRST meal of the year... and it was my FIRST real recipe that I had EVER made! 

It only took 4 HOURS to make!  I was so thrilled that Chuck was all IN with me too...   Because... THIS is what I DID!!  I couldn't even boil the water!!!  I turned on the back burner... NOT the water!!

I read ALL the instructions first... and we went and got ALL the ingredients!!  To start... we "blanched" the bacon...  I learned HOW to blanche!!  It is just boiled =)  That is what I needed the boiling water for - I really am PRAISING GOD that Chuck was with ME thru the WHOLE process!!!  I BLEW it on the FIRST step!!

After the bacon was boiled... which made the house smell WONDERFUL =) - we browned the bacon and beef - a LOT of beef!!

Now it came to the vegetables...  I read it WRONG... are you surprised???  HAHA!!  I read it needed 1 onion... my mind pictured the little white onions because later in the recipe it calls for those!  So now to brown the vegetables - I freaked out a bit - I was trying so HARD to peel all those LITTLE TINY THINGS!!!  I finally got online to see if there was an EASIER way - AND FAST!!  They had to brown =)

I did LEARN that there IS an easier way to peel them!  BOIL them - and YES I did LEARN to boil the water right =) - They need to boil for a couple of minutes and then put in ice water to stop the cooking.  I then cut off the root end and they just POPPED right out!  PRAISE GOD for Chuck for questioning me thru this ALL... because I then REREAD it had to be a regular ONION to be browned at this point!

Then we put the all the meat and veggies into the pan and added the wine and broth and put it INTO the oven to simmer for 2.5 hours...

Meanwhile...  we then really browned the little onions - which took another 40 minutes!!  HAHA!!!  Then I learned how to REALLY saute mushrooms!  Once the butter is melted and HOT - add the mushrooms - then the mushrooms soak up ALL the butter (I used to add more butter at this point) but I read that this would happen... and to wait... then all the juices would come back out!  It DID!  WOW!! both Chuck and I were AMAZED watching it!!!  HAHA!!

Then we waited...  for the beeper to BEEP =)  Out of the oven!!

Then we drained it... cleaned the pan and boiled the juice that was drained...

Poured the YUMMY sauce OVER the meat and simmered for a few more minutes...

AND FINALLY... the actual MEAL =)  Which was so YUMMY!!

No more pix... by this time I was STARVING and we just HAD to EAT!!  HAHA!!

It was FUN to do this with Chuck... I did learn that I really could NOT have done this with HIM!  I don't know HOW anyone cooks by themselves!!

This was such a FUN day!!