Under the influence of Julia

Ahem. Pardon the epic rant in the last post. I was, apparently, feeling more homesick than I thought. And it came out as anger towards People Who Mean Well And Are Trying To Be Nice. Sorry, People.

"You are SO not under the influence of Julia right now." - Julie & Julia

I've made no secret. I LOVE that movie. And then Vivren made the famous Boeuf Bourguignon, and blogged about it. Which made me hungry.

I decided after reading Viv's post that I had to make my own B.B. And after her warning that it takes forever (and is better the next day), I straw-polled the fam and got approval to cook it for Christmas lunch.

As you can see, Christmas Eve was spent, chopping, browning, sauteeing, simmering, and otherwise cooking. The house (and the beef) smelled amazing.

Mmm...bacon. And, in a circular "I'm in the movie" moment, I had Julia's recipe printed out and held up by the wedding gift given to us by the actress who played Julia's idol in the movie.

[Space-time continuum collapses.]

Oh, you're all still there? Well, that's good. Since we have BACON!

And browned beef-y goodness!

And onions and carrots ("Oh, hi, Le Creuset from the John Lewis vouchers! Yes, we love you, too.")

And all mixed together, ready for the oven:

Julia's non-crowded butter-doused Mushrooms. These aren't mushrooms, they're MUSHROOMS. If you make nothing else from this page (but you should make the boeuf bourguignon), make these. 

Seriously. Can you resist? And yes, they tasted as good as they looked

Now the onions:

And all mixed together after three hours in the oven.

A few things.

1. This was not as intimidating hard as I thought it would be. (It's still intimidating.)
2. I've had this before - my grandma used to make it. I remembered as soon as I smelled it.
3. The "serves 6" actually gave us 4 servings on Christmas day, 3 supper leftovers on Boxing Day, and 3 lunches the following day (with pasta). The beef dried out slightly over the 4 days but the flavours just got better.
4. My excellent husband suggested that we watch Julie & Julia a few days before I made this. I was rockin' the J & J mojo when I made this (and had mini J & J sitting on my shoulders, yelling "Dry the beef!" "Don't crowd the mushrooms!").

LOVE. Go make it.