Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Wellington Woes

If you read my last post you would understand why I had delirious visions of cooking another peaceful meal. If yesterday I was Snow White floating around my kitchen, having nostalgic visions of comforting meals of the past, than today I was a Desperate Housewife.

Husband and kid were at running club and I was trying to pull together the Ground Beef Wellington (pg. 156) with a needy toddler under foot. Keep in mind that this involves raw eggs and raw meat smooshed between my fingers, something I needed to prepare for mentally.

I was able to finish most of the chopping (onions, carrots, celery, potatoes and mushrooms and garlic) during the toddler's nap time. The next step, saute the chopped ingredients in a pan with some olive oil, I was able to do while toddler was eating his snack. Before the pretzels were gone, I picked the rosemary leaves, chopped them up and added them to the pan. It smelled great, by the way! While they cooked for about 8 minutes I put Max and Ruby on TV, ran back to the kitchen, added my frozen peas, stirred them in for about a minute and then put the mixture in a bowl to cool. Beat an egg. Put the ground beef in the bowl with half the egg and that's about when he decided to come bug me. Max and Ruby was over. The smooshing and delicate preparation of the dough and meat together was done with lots of fussing and whining by the toddler and growling by me. Of course my hands were nasty, I couldn't help him stick the Little People into the bus. Now this child is awesome at playing by himself ALL day…until now. I let him watch me roll out the dough and that kept him interested for a little while. I poured out my beef mixture, shaped it into a log and wrapped it in the pastry. One more episode of Max and Ruby and I was able to get it in the oven. No sooner had the oven door shut than husband and kid walked in. Of course, toddler was sitting angelically playing with his blocks by this point.
"How's it going?" husband said.
"Oh, fine," I said with a sigh.


Recipes cooked: 87
Recipes left: 86
Days left: 87
(Oh no, that's about one a day! Yikes!)

3 comments:

  1. One recipe a day....OR....do 2 a day and take every other day off!!!!

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  2. So how did you like the Wellington? This recipe has become my son's favourite, and I make it often. It's even better if you have some left-over beef gravy kicking around the freezer, too.....

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  3. It was good! My kids weren't crazy about it but we liked it. I was really impressed with how well it reheated the next night. Happy Holidays!

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