Thursday, June 30, 2016

He's Married - Maggie Tideswell, Author



Beef Bourguignon 

Prep:
15 min
Cook:
3 hr 45 min

Ingredients

Marinade:
5 cloves garlic, smashed
3 fresh bay leaves
2 carrots, peeled and halved
2 ribs celery, halved
1 large onion, peeled and quartered
One 750-ml bottle red wine, such as Burgundy
4 pounds beef chuck, cut into 1-inch chunks
Stew:
Extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
8 ounces slab bacon, cut into lardons
1 pound cremini or white button mushrooms, quartered
2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch dice
2 ribs celery, cut into 1/4-inch dice
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 large onion, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch dice
1/4 cup tomato paste
3 to 4 cups beef stock
3 fresh bay leaves
1 bundle fresh thyme
1 pound red bliss potatoes, quartered
1/2 bunch fresh chives, finely chopped, for garnish
Crusty bread, for serving

Directions

For the marinade: Combine the garlic, bay leaves, carrots, celery, onions and wine in a large bowl or container. Add the beef; cover and let sit in the refrigerator at least 4 hours or overnight. (This is a really important step: it makes a huge flavor difference.)

For the stew: Remove the beef from the marinade. Strain the veggies and bay leaves from the marinade and discard. Reserve 2 cups of the marinade.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Coat a large, wide pan or Dutch oven with olive oil and bring to medium-high heat. Sprinkle the beef with salt and toss with the flour; do not flour the beef until you're ready to brown it. Add the flour-coated beef to the hot pan, but be sure to not crowd the pan; you will need to work in four batches. Brown the meat well on all sides, 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from the pan to a baking sheet.

After the first two batches, deglaze the pot with 1/2 cup of the reserved marinade, scraping up any browned bits. Drain the liquid into a small bowl. Add more olive oil to the pan to coat and cook the remaining two batches of meat. Add the meat to the baking sheet. Deglaze the pan with 1/2 cup marinade, scraping up any browned bits.

Add the bacon and cook until it gets brown and crispy, about 5 minutes. Toss in the mushrooms, carrots, celery, garlic and onions, and season with salt. Cook until the mixture starts to soften and becomes very aromatic, about 10 minutes. Add the tomato paste and cook, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the remaining 1 cup marinade and deglaze the pan, stirring up any browned bits, 1 minute. Add the beef. Stir to combine and cook until the wine has reduced by half, 1 to 2 minutes. Add enough of the beef stock to just cover the surface of the beef. Toss in the bay leaves and thyme bundle. Cover the pan, bring the liquid to a boil and put in the oven.

Cook the beef for 2 hours. During the last hour of cooking time, add the potatoes. Cover the pan with the lid and put the stew back in the oven to cook for an additional hour.

Remove the pot from the oven and skim off any excess grease from the surface of the stew. Garnish with the chives and serve with crusty bread to sop up all the sauce.



He's Married - Review by Martha A. Cheves, Author of Stir, Laugh, Repeat; Think With Your Taste Buds; A Book and A Dish

Her stomach knotted painfully and her fingers automatically found the black stone around her neck. Black, to match her shoes.  Dane saw the movement and touched the stone with his index finger. “Is this a superstition?” He grinned and winked at her. “It won’t save you, you know, once I get you alone.”  Between his chuckle and the cold stone against her sternum, her situation couldn’t be worse.
She hadn’t thought much beyond the wedding ceremony and reception, and then only in terms
of the honeymoon Dane had been so secretive about. Her going-away dress had topped the list,
and then she’d worried about what to pack if she didn’t even know where they were going.
The wedding night and sex for the first time hadn’t come into it.  She had better think about it now, because this was it, it was about to become a reality.  They had never been alone together, not really. In the frenzy of wedding arrangements, there had always been people around with the potential of interruption. This was the first time they were truly alone.

Eloise and Dane are married.  They love each other, at least Eloise thinks they do.  But how.  They have only known each other a few weeks.  It was almost a meet, date a few times and tie the knot.  And now it's their wedding night.  They are headed to the Honeymoon Suite and Eloise knows what that means.  But that simply can't happen!  See, Eloise has a secret that only she and her doctor know about.  There is no way Dane will still love and want her after he finds out!  

Then Eloise returns to the place of her wedding in the Hottentots Holland Mountains.  It looked the same but not quite as Gothic as the rainy night of the wedding a week earlier.  That is until she runs into Hugh Fleming and when he suggested that he knew she would be back she felt a bit of uncomfortable fear which will only increase as the horrors of the lodge begin to take place.

This is an erotic book but also a horror mystery.  It keeps you on edge until you discover where the events from the past are coming from and when you determine if they are actually repeating themselves or if its all in Eloise's head.  A really interesting book.

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