Veloute of Bittersweet Chocolate with Cinnamon-Stick Ice Cream

Last but not least another French Laundry masterpiece.

I am not really sure what my favorite part of this dessert was but you can't go wrong with cinnamon ice cream and a warm chocolate cake that is nice and gooey in the middle. Put those two things on top of homemade chocolate syrup and you have the perfect dessert. Chocolate x 2 plus a little something to break it up.

Braised Breast of Veal with Yellow Corn Polenta Cakes, Glazed Vegetables, and Sweet Garlic

The fourth course was probably the craziest to prepare. Definitely not for the faint of heart. This one came from the French Laundry as well.

First of the veal stock alone took two days. Once the veal breast was mostly cooked you refrigerated and then had to cut out rounds out of the breast. I will tell you though after the initial step when you pull the veal and vegetables out it smells absolutely ridiculous. I wanted to eat it that night forget about waiting until dinner the next night. Once the rounds were cut out you cooked it again.

The polenta was interesting. Chris loves polenta it is one of his favorite things that I will only cook occasionally, mainly because it takes so long to cook. Although previously I thought you needed to stir it more often but TK seemed to indicate constant stirring was not necessary. The reason I used the word interesting was because when it was done cooking, I did not think it was that great. Then it had to be refrigerated and cut into circles. After it had set up it was sooo much better. Also we had leftovers which Chris rewarmed into traditional polenta and that was even better. The polenta was supposed to stay in a circle but it kind of came apart.

Also complicated were the vegetables. They were supposed to be cut into different shapes. We don't really have the exact tools to do that sort of thing but Chris gave it his best attempt and they looked pretty good. In the future I would probably just dice them normally.

Black Sea Bass with Sweet Parsnips, Arrowleaf Spinach, and Saffron-Vanilla Sauce

Third Course from the French Laundry

Originally this recipe called for black sea bass but sometimes finding exactly what you want in Charlotte is a challenge so we substituted Chilean. Although as an aside we did find a butcher this week (not in Charlotte but Waxhaw- only a 45 minute drive- yes I know we are crazy).

This dish was pretty straight forward and easy as far as Thomas Keller recipes go. Not a ton of prep work which was a relief after all of the other dishes. Really assuming you don't break the sauce you are good to go. This dish was fantastic but the star of the dish was really the saffron-vanilla sauce. I am not going to lie to you I could have eaten five courses of just bowls of this. I am going to to have to think up about 50 recipes that I can put this on. I might make this sauce again and just drink it like a soda. Amazing.

My only real complaint about this dish- it needed more saffron-vanilla sauce.

Truffled Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Creamy Tomato Soup

The second course for the birthday extravaganza was the only repeat. It was repeated due to popular demand. The truffled grilled cheese sandwiches with creamy tomato soup comes from Chanterelle.

This is definitely not your ordinary grilled cheese or tomato soup. For starters, you make your own brioche, grate fontina, and make your own truffle butter. Just think about that for a minute- pure heaven. Additionally it is probably one of the most expensive grilled cheese sandwiches around.

Tomato soup- growing up I always thought I hated it. As it turns out I hate the condensed in a red can tomato soup. No offense to Campbell's cuz I love me some chicken noodle, but I cannot stand their tomato soup. This however has zero in common with that soup and is absolutely amazing, that could have a little to do with all the heavy cream. Overall it's fairly easy and if you make the full recipe there will be plenty to reheat and as long as you do it on the stove its equally as delicious rewarmed.

Braised Pork Belly

For the second year in a row Chris cooked myself and some friends a fancy five course meal for my birthday dinner (New Year's Eve). He set the standards pretty high last year and he continued to impress this year.

The meals came from Ad Hoc, Chantrelle, and the French Laundry, needless to say we started prepping on Monday night. There were three different stocks involved not counting the other things that needed to be done well in advance.

The first course was braised pork belly. It was from Ad Hoc. We had had Thomas Keller's pork belly at the Bouchon in Las Vegas while we were there in June of this year. So when we saw this recipe in Ad Hoc we thought we would give it a try. Once again TK is pure genius. This was quite delicious.

Overall as with a lot of the recipes in Ad Hoc this recipe is not overly complicated and if all that pork fat was not so bad for you we'd probably have it pretty often.

Happy Thanksgiving- belated

I hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving and enjoyed some family time.

Ahhh I have had no time to post- well some but I have been busy first we went to Antigua for a week. That was amazing. It was sad to come back. We got back the Saturday before Thanksgiving and then I went into crazy prep mode from there.

Chris's parents and sister Ashley joined us as well as his Aunt Mary, Uncle Tony and cousin Holly. My Nannie was supposed to come but she was feeling under the weather that morning. I should have went and got her kicking and screaming but some how I was behind when that time came. Overall it was an excellent Thanksgiving. We had turkey, ham, three cheese macaroni and cheese, dressing, sweet potato casserole, green beans, field peas, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and and awesome chocolate cake. This year the award went to the mashed potatoes and gravy- everyone said the gravy was to die for.

Here's a picture of the turkey. Notice the sleeping terror in the back ground. He wore himself out watching all of the cooking. As usual he sat at the breakfast table the entire time we were cooking... then he went around begging to everyone once we sat down. Bad kitty.

Shepherd's Pie

While looking for recipes using sweet potatoes (they are still coming in from the CSA) and wanting to do something a little different than our normal uses, I stumbled across a recipe for sausage shepherd's pie on Epicurious. Chris loves shepherd's pie and although this is a completely different take since sausage replaces the beef and the potatoes become a perfect trifecta of sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and a russet I thought I would give this a try. The nice thing about this is you can do everything in advance, put it in the fridge, and then pull it out to bake when you are ready. If you are willing to do the prep work on the weekend that makes this an amazing weeknight meal. This was excellent and Chris devoured his portion before I was even half way done with mine. The leftovers were also delicious. Needless to say this will be making a repeat performance at some point in time.