The Art of YouTubing
I am listening to Melinda Gates read her own book, Moment of Lift, as I write this blog post. Rei is knitting a sweater while watching Disney movie number two for the day, 101 Dalmations. They’ve already watched Tangled. I am perfectly fine with spending my day like this.
I was hoping Rei would take a look at the video we shot of our cooking last night to get an idea of what we have to work with, the quality of the sound, and whether we should change it up with tonight’s recording.
Rei wants to capture our cooking and banter and share on YouTube. I’m a reluctant participant largely because I don’t want to see myself on video. Rei expects me not to care. It’s not that I expect you not to care; I expect you to face your fear and do it anyways to get over your discomfort.
This coming from a kid who didn’t want their face in any of the pics in our blog posts. Rei has gotten over that so off we go. Yep.
Yesterday I picked up Rei from play rehearsal and we went to the local market to spontaneously decide on our menu for the evening.
We started with the d’affinois and then went to the meat/fish/poultry aisle to determine the protein. Rei had already vetoed steak, fish, shellfish, and we stared at the chicken before Rei said they had no preferences and it was up to me to decide.
I decided on veal (don’t judge) and said we could do something with mushrooms. A guy overheard and suggested a red wine reduction sauce with mushrooms so we headed to the wine aisle where I chose a Hess Cab.
Rei and I continued to think through the menu and added butter, mushrooms, leeks, green beans, tomatoes, garlic, a shallot, and a yellow onion to the basket. Rei wanted baked tomatoes. I wanted green beans cooked in shallot oil with crispy shallots. We added a baguette and considered ourselves done. Also I wanted to get a pretty picture of the produce section because why not, and I like parsley so voila ^^
I opened up Mastering the Art of French Cooking and decided on a few recipes…veal with mushroom cream sauce, braised rice, baked tomatoes with garlic, and the green beans I mentioned above.
First came the chopping and prep as we also got the rice going. We’ve made it before and blogged about it back in October. It’s a no fail, super tasty accompaniment to something with a yummy sauce. It’s super easy and yummy (much better than normal rice in my opinion).
We quickly and easily got the tomatoes and garlic in the oven with some rosemary and thyme from our garden. Which reminds me, we have our own garlic in the garage; time to use it tonight!
I trimmed the green beans and Rei prepared the water for blanching them before we sauteed them in the shallot oil.
Shallot oil is simple. Add oil to saute pan, heat it up, add the garlic and shallots and proceed to fry. Remove the garlic and shallots from the oil and set aside until you are ready to saute the green beans. The recipe came from an Alison Roman YouTube video of her preparing a Thanksgiving feast in a small kitchen.
Meanwhile, Rei was having a great time pounding the veal. There was a lot of banging and complaining. I only almost smashed my fingers a couple times.
Rei finished eating most of the d’affinois and moved on to cooking the veal and then the sauce. I sauteed the green beans in the oil and added back the garlic. On a related note, I warned Rei that they were going to fill up on snacks and not have room for dinner. Just going to put this out there: I told you so, Rei! Yeah, yeah, no need to rub it in.
We sauteed the mushrooms while the shallots were sauteeing in the juices from the meat. Rei then added some dry vermouth, cooked it down, added some cornstarch and water and the cream, cooked it down, and then added the mushrooms. And somewhere in there we added chicken stock. (The recipe called from brown stock or beef bouillon but we had homemade chicken stock and chose to that instead.) I added the stock with the vermouth. I also salted the sauce right at the end there. Then, of course, came the obligatory taste test (it was really good).
I started plating for the table as Rei finished up the veal by adding it back to the cream sauce to warm up.
Zeke had set the table, sat his butt down at the table, and impatiently waited for everything to be ready.
Dinner was amazing! Rei and LOOOOVVVEEEED the veal with cream sauce over the braised rice. Delicious! We all decided, though, that we don’t need to use veal. We could do this with chicken and get the same result. Or just make the sauce and put it over rice. Yum! I have a weakness for rice with a mushroom cream sauce and I cannot lie.
Rei and I disagreed on the green beans. I thought they were perfect. Rei thought they were overcooked. But the flavor profile was lovely. We will make these again. They were just too soft and squishy for my taste. I like them with a little more bite.
Rei’s angel food cake from the night before wasn’t great and we weren't going to eat it (and decided against giving it to the chickens) so I decided to do a modified bread pudding. I whisked 3 eggs, some whipping cream, vanilla, and some cinnamon and poured it over the torn up angel food cake. I baked it for 20–30 minutes and whipped up some whipped cream to serve on top. It was tasty, but there wasn’t enough liquid, making the cake bits kinda dry and crunchy which wasn’t great.
It was ok. I tried it for breakfast this morning and put it back in the fridge. I did enjoy the leftovers from dinner for an early lunch, though. Super yummy.
Rei, can you step away from the knitting needles and movie long enough to wrap this up with your super secret, super special, snarky seasoning? No.
And what about getting to the video from last night so we can continue to refine our process and learn the art of YouTubing? Also no.
Dinner was fine (this is Rei btw), but the veal was slightly overdone (my bad oops). I can’t complain, though, because the cream sauce more than made up for it.
The sweater I’m knitting is coming along nicely! I have finished the front and back panels, and now only need to make the sleeves and then it’ll be done!
Mom is now requesting I finish this up so she can get back to work, so I have to say goodbye.
Until next time, ciao, and have a lavteribric day!
Rei and Terri
