Harvest Salad and Beef Mushroom Montage

Harvest Salad and Beef Mushroom Montage

This meal was a two part ordeal. Part one…failure; part two…only partially successful. So Jeff and I try to make these two dishes. I work on the Beef Mushroom Montage (Gretchen) which is a creative name for Mushroom/Beef Stroganoff and Jeff was in charge of emptying the dish washer and toasting the pecans for the Harvest Salad (Amanda). Jeff was a little late getting the pecans out of the oven, but I don’t think it would have mattered anyway. The directions were either off or our stove is entirely too hot! So in conclusion, the pecans were a charred black that gave a charred ‘character’ to my cookie sheet that will never come off. Those were the last of the pecans so we scratched this recipe for tonight and just had a normal salad.
The Montage was supposed to simmer for 30 minutes to thicken. I gave it 30, I gave it 45, I gave it an hour, I turned the heat down, I turned the heat off, I left the cover on, I took the cover off, I even added copious amounts of corn starch…slosh, slosh; why won’t this dang dish thicken? I realized that maybe the problem was the type of Cream of Mushroom Soup we bought. I had gone to Whole Foods today and got a natural organic yadda yadda soup. I think this recipe calls for more of a Kroger type of soup…full of who knows what but it will thicken!
So we gave up on waiting and poured the still soup (not sauce) over some noodles that I had horribly overcooked while waiting for the dang soup to become a sauce! So I took no pictures and decided to try another day. The leftovers would surely thicken in the fridge and I could cook up new noodles .On this day, the pecans were not burnt, the noodles were great…but the stupid sauce was still not thick! What could I do!? I dumped it on the noodles and finessed the noodles a bit until it looked like something reasonable to take a picture of.
On a positive note I made some toasted French bread with Spanish olive oil, fresh basil from my dying garden, tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. What a glutinous meal this has become, but the taste was worth the tummy ache.

Beef Stew and Sweet Potato Casserole

Beef Stew and Sweet Potato Casserole

I was excited to cook and even more excited that Jeff had gone grocery shopping, it sure makes it easier! I really need to read the recipe instructions before I start cooking, as I thought this would be an easy night. Oh how I was wrong! The Beef Stew (from Aunt Virginia) took me 4 hours to complete! I started by browning stew meat, which I decided after it was already cooking that the precut cubes were not as small as I had hoped. So I took a fork and pulled the pieces out one at a time, cut them in half and replaced them back to cook. Then I had to add a lot of spices, some water and let it simmer for an hour and a half. I got smart this time and cut the recipe to a 1/3. The original recipe called for 3 lbs of beef! As well as a lot of other ingredients in massive amounts. I had a few close calls though, when I forgot that I cut it in thirds and almost added the full amount. Thank God I have all the brains in my head and had a careful thought session before adding anything. As the stew simmered, I removed the lid and took a large whiff to smell the progress. Horrible idea! The covered pot had created an intense steam that came rushing out and into my nostrils. BURN! I may have even singed some nose hairs. I sniffled my way through the rest of the stew, more veggies, and another 45 minutes cooking. I then had to sauté in butter some mushrooms which I have despised my whole life. As they were cooking I thought maybe I could wean myself into liking mushrooms; they are covered in butter, so it shouldn’t be hard! I gave a mushroom a taste….nope, I still despise! Add the mushrooms, cook another 45 minutes.
The recipe states 6 servings…which could mean 6 servings if you are a professional eater, or Jeff or Devon. With only 1/3 the portion, it was plenty!
The sweet potato casserole is one of my recipes I pulled out of foodnetwork.com. It is very easy, very tasty, and kind of healthy. It seems like it would make a great side dish for Thanksgiving.