Gruyere Popovers Are the Ideal Weapon for this Artic Winter

Popovers Warm from the Oven Fill the House with the Most Amazing Smell.

It's cold in Chicago nowadays. Like, really cold. 10 degrees below zero when we wake up cold. Our driveway is an ice rink cold. Walking around without a hat is not an option cold. The only way to fight back with all that ice and snow is with baking and filling the house with the sweet and savory smells of warmth.

On a bitter winter night, when I want to make an average meal something really memorable, I whip up a batch of popovers. These little puffs of cheesy bread just melt in your mouth. They're the ideal complement to a pork roast that's been braising in cider all day long in your slow cooker.

This recipe whips up in less than five minutes with just a quick pulses of your blender. The toughest part is keeping the oven door for the full twenty-two minutes they take to bake. The penalty for peeking is pretty dire. These babies will fall and you'll be having warm cheesy pancakes instead of light and fluffy popovers.

Plunging a knife into the popovers is scary, but it will keep them beautiful and tasty.

Gruyere Popovers
Makes 16 popovers
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 22 minutes
Ingredients:
4 eggs
1 cup of grated Gruyere cheese (I love the sharp nuttiness of gruyere but if you can't find it at your local grocer, substitute Swiss cheese)
3/4 cups of skim milk
3/4 cups of heavy cream (alternatively, you can use 1 1/2 cups of whole milk)
4 Tablespoons of salted butter, melted
1 Tablespoon of Dijon Mustard
1 1/3 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of kosher salt
a little extra butter or pan spray for the pans

1. Take two muffin tins (or popover tins if you have them. I don't and am very happy with these.) and grease them, then place them in your cold oven on the middle shelf.
2. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. IN a blender, combine your eggs, milk, heavy cream, mustard, and melted butter. Pulse a few times to blend and break up the eggs.
4. Add the flour, salt, and gruyere and pulse until just blended.
5. Once your oven has reached its temperature, remove the pans and fill each muffin hole 3/4 of the way, moving as quickly as you can.
6. Return the filled pans to the oven and cook until puffy and golden, between 22 and 25 minutes.
7. Remove the popovers from the oven, pierce each in the middle to let the steam escape and pop them out of their holes with the tip of a knife. Serve them while they are still steaming.
8. Leftover popovers can be kept in a sealed container on the counter for a few days. With 10-15 seconds in the microwave, they make a fantastic stew sandwich for lunch.

Beef Bourguignon Stew, Equally Delicious in the Crock Pot or the Stove Top

Beef Bourguignon is so satisfying on a cold winter night.

Do you have a dish that you can make with your eyes closed? That your hands know by rote? For me, that dish is Beef Bourguignon. It was one of the first dishes my mother taught me how to make. I started by peeling the carrots, and eventually graduated to browning the meat. It's a classic beef stew that I make when I'm having friends over for dinner or just for my family on uninspired mid-week nights. Beef Bourguignon is easy, cheap, and incredibly delicious.

You don't need a long list of ingredients to whip up this French stew. If you have a $7 to $10 bottle of Bourgogne or Pinot Noir (never use the cooking wine they sell at the supermarket - if you wouldn't want to drink it, you shouldn't cook with it), and a couple of pounds of beef chuck, you're pretty much all set and halfway to filling your kitchen with the delicious aroma of this quintessential beef stew.

On lazy Sunday afternoons, I make the stew in the same big blue cast iron I've been using since college. But on weekdays, I turn to my slow cooker to work its magic while I'm running around car pooling. Either way the end result is the same: a satisfying dinner of melt in your mouth beef stew.

Beef Bourguignon Stew
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 3 hours
Ingredients:
2 pounds of beef chuck, cut into 1 1/2 inch medallions
1 bottle of full-bodied yet fruity red wine such as Bourgogne or Pinot Noir
1 bunch of carrots, peeled and sliced into 1/2 inch rounds
1 white onion, minced
1 1/2 cups of white mushrooms, sliced
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
1/4 cup of cognac
2 tablespoons of flour
2 tablespoons of butter
1 Bay Leaf
salt and pepper to taste

1. Regardless of whether you'll be using a crock pot or cooking this on the stovetop, the recipe begins the same way. Heat a cast-iron saucepan or large stockpot over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon of butter and melt. Add a layer of beef pieces and brown for 2-3 minutes on each side. Set aside on a plate and repeat the process with the rest of the meat. The browning is a key part of the recipe as it imparts a caramelized taste and creates yummy brown bits on the bottom of the pan that begin the sauce. 
2. When you're done browning all the meat, put all the meat pieces back in the pot and sprinkle with the flour. Stir vigorously to have the flour mix with the pan juices. Take the meat back out and set aside.
3. Add the remaining butter to the pan and toss in the minced onion. Saute over medium heat until translucent. Add the carrots, the mushrooms and the browned meat and the tomato paste. Toss it all together with a wooden spoon.
4. Now pour in the wine and the cognac, scraping up the bottom of the pan with the wooden spoon to add all the onion and beef browning to the wine. Bring it all to a vigorous boil for 3-4 minutes, stirring frequently. 
5. You are now ready for the slow cooking (pour mijoter) in either your crock pot or on the stove top. If using a crock pot, transfer the contents of your stockpot to the crock pot. If you'll be cooking your stew in the same container, then just bring the heat down to low, to a light simmer, and cook for 3 hours, until the meat is tender. Same timeframe in the crockpot, on high setting. 
6. Three hours of slow cooking later, the meat should fall apart easily with poked with a fork.
7. Serve with rice or egg noodles.
8. A note on the mushrooms. In the recipe above, to keep things simple, I threw them in with the carrots. However, traditionalists will tell you to blanch the mushrooms and throw them in during the last 10 minutes of cooking so they retain their shape and texture. It depends on how you like your mushrooms and how easy you want to make your life.

Short Ribs and Crock Pots: a Marriage Made in Heaven

Our driveway is now covered with a treacherous mix of ice, slush, and powdery snow. My pants are constantly wet and stained from dragging in the slushy mix. And our house is becoming an island because of the large pond of semi-melted snow at the end of our driveway. I'm so ready for winter to end, but that little rodent saw his shadow yesterday and that doesn't bode well for my wishes.

The only thing to do is to hunker down and cook. Last weekend I was at a friend's house and was amazed to spot a gorgeous gleaming Cuisinart slow cooker on her counter. This particular friend is always on the cutting edge of cool with both her clothes and her home. She was the last person I would expect to use a 1950s appliance, even remodeled with a modern look, but she raved about how much she loves her crock pot. She inspired me to dust off mine, even though it is definitely not stylish!

I had done short ribs a few times before, but never in the crock pot. I am now convinced that they were made for the crock pot. I just assembled the ingredients and let it all simmer for the afternoon. The meat just fell off the bone and the sauce was caramelized and complex. We finished all the meat that first night, but I kept the leftover sauce to dip bread into for lunch the next day. And one of the best things about short ribs is that they're cheap!

Crock Pot Short Ribs
3 lbs of beef short ribs
juice from one lemon
2 tablespoons of Worcestershire Sauce
1/4 cup of fresh parsley
2 bay leaves
4 tablespoons of brown sugar
2 teaspoons of salt
1 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes
1 white onion, chopped coarsely

Put all the ingredients except for the bay leaves and the short ribs in a food processor. Pulse five or six times until all chopped and blended. Pour the contents of the food processor into the crock pot, add the bay leaves and the short ribs. Set to high and walk away. Your short ribs will be ready in 4-5 hours, once the meat is falling off the bone.

We served ours with broccolini sauteed with garlic.