Beef Bourgignon and a Surprise

Happy Birthday to Me!
So today is my birthday.  And my big plan for 35 was to host a dinner party for my friends and make them Beef Bourgignon.  One would think that the complicated part of this plan was the beef, but I was wrong.  It turned out that while I was planning my own dinner party my friends and sister were planning a surprise party.  My excitement and insistence on my dinner party created quite the complicated scenario for my friends.  After generously offering their nicer and bigger apartment for my party, my friends had to deal with my constant trying to go over to their house too early, so the party turned into a day long affair.  I arrived at their house at 1 with many grocery bags of lovely ingredients, only to find a house full of all of my favorite people (including sister and nephew from Maine and friends from Ithaca) and a dining room filled with food.  After recovering from my initial shock - with the help of several beers - the party became the perfect combination of friends, babies, and kitchen activity.  I still got to make my beef, and it was fabulous.  We followed Julia's recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking (a little different from the recipe she follows on the French Chef cooking episode).  Because of all of the excitement I only ended up with one picture, taken after the beef browned and went into the pot, but before the braising.

 

Beautiful, right?

The rest of the menu was fairly traditional and fabulous -

a variety of cheese and crackers

small yukon gold potatoes cooked in duck fat my friend just happened to have in his freezer

buttered peas

french bread

salad of arugala, belgian endive, and herb mix tossed with candied walnuts and a lemon/olive oil dressing.

Oh, and I made a non-french appetizer adapted from this recipe from Giada De Laurentiis for Cheese Stuffed Dates with Prosciutto.  I used 5 oz. goat cheese, 4 oz. marscapone (ended up with some left over which turns out to be a fabulous spread on its own) and increased the chives.  Also, I don't know if it was the size of the prosciutto I used (I bought the Trader Joe's brand) but I ended up cutting each piece in quarters instead of halves and that was enough for each piece.  It helped to cut the prosciutto with kitchen shears while it was still on the paper.  Maybe it was the size of the dates I used (I couldn't find Medjool and mine might have been smaller - just generic dates from Whole Foods).  They were a big hit and even better after several hours in the fridge.

The day became the perfect party extending from lunch into evening and continuing the next morning with apple pancakes and leftover prosciutto, cheese, and peaches in champagne.

Yum, and a perfect beginning to 35.

Here are some pictures as the beef reheats for dinner tonight.  Leftovers are the best.