Banana and Nutella Breakfast Crepes

Mastering the Art of French Cooking never lets me down. I've been wanting to make crepes for a while now, and I knew this book would have the tastiest recipe for them. I followed the instructions for making dinner crepes versus dessert because 1: it was easier, and 2: it was easier. No judging.

Chocolate Clafoutis--Adapted from Stone Soup

If you've browsed my recipes you can't help but notice my love of French food. Although I have volumes one and two of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the recipes can be quite difficult to tackle. One of my favorite foodie blogs is Stone Soup. Jules is all about being a minimalist cook, which means leaving behind the ridiculously complicated recipes and sticking to basics. She recently released her (free!!) ebook which can be downloaded from her blog! I love the book because all of the recipes are guaranteed to use 5 ingredients or less. Genius!

Poulet au Porto

I swear to you, I've been cooking all week! This is roast chicken steeped with port wine, cream, and mushrooms. I ended up making this dish twice for me & hubby and a third time just for myself. Yum! The best part about this dish is you get to flambe the chicken, which is just too fun. I served it over lemon-parsley cous cous with a side of homemade pasta salad. I have to say, I took shortcuts with this recipe. For instance, I did not roast an entire chicken. I bought chicken breasts, and I cooked them in a skillet with the lid on to make a nice fond for the sauce. I'll give you instructions for how I did it, this will serve 2.

Oeufs en Cocotte (Eggs in a Ramekin)

Some of you may already know that I'm a big fan of Julia Child, as well as amazing French foods. I don't cook enough French food, mainly because of the time and unhealthy aspects of butter and certain meats, but I've been trying to do more French cooking lately. I love this dish because it's simple, and you can make it as healthy and as fancy as you want.

Potato Love: Gratin Dauphinois

This was an amazing side dish that accompanied grilled chicken and spinach salads for hubby and me. Gratin Dauphinois is French gratin potatoes made with Beaufort cheese (which is French Gruyere) and a lot of heavy cream. I had 5 ounces of Swiss Gruyere and a vision for a healthier version of this fabulous French dish.

For traditional Gratin Dauphinois you would use a lot more butter and there wouldn't be a roux. Instead the butter and cheese is layered throughout the potatoes. I like my cheese ultra creamy so I just made a quick roux, which actually stretches your cheese quite a bit if you don't have enough for all the potatoes! 

Croque Monsieur

I'm sure as you all know by now, breakfast is my favorite. I hate getting up early to make it, but something like this is well worth the 2 cups of coffee to get me going! Croque Monsieur (crunchy mister) is a classic French sandwich made easily with Dijon mustard, bread, ham, Gruyere cheese, and butter. There are many ways to make this dish but I wanted to stick with the easy and traditional way for breakfast. To make it more of a breakfast item and less of a lunch or dinner meal I left the sandwiches open and served them with fried eggs. This sandwich can be made elaborately with a bechamel sauce and Gruyere blend. I've also seen them with cheese over the bread to get nicely brown and crunchy. Traditional is usually best in my book, so I stuck with simple grated cheese. Please, no bechamel sauce-making at 7 am.

Now I didn't have any Dijon, so I made up a batch of spicy honey mustard last night. For that, which is quite simple, you only need a few household items that I'm sure are in your pantry. The trick with mustard is letting is sit out. If you mix up the water and ground mustard and stick a spoonful in your mouth it will knock you on your ass. It's serious business. I was perched over a mixing bowl with watery eyes and cleared nasal passages while I was whipping this up. Unfortunately I didn't have a week for it to sit out and mellow before transferring it to the fridge, so it sat out on the counter overnight and then mixed a spoonful of the spicy mustard with plain yellow French's mustard to mellow it out.

Bœuf à la Bourguignonne

This classic French dish has been around for ages, it is also popularly known as beef burgundy. Originally a poor persons dish it has transitioned its way into Haute Cuisine, and luckily it is incredibly simple to make. My mother has made this before, and I'm a huge fan of any kind of stew so now that I have my Rachael Ray dutch oven I was stoked to finally make this dish. I made it a couple of days ago, but due to my computers decision to be lame I had to wait for hubby to get home so I could use his =*( We don't know what's wrong with it, but hopefully it will get fixed soon!! Grab your skillet and lets get to cooking, you don't want to miss out on this one!