feast feast feast

Have you ever had the opportunity to eat Beef Wellington? If not, you should and if you have, then you know just how awesome it is! For the past several years I have tried my hand at making Beef Wellington at home and it is usually for very rare occasions or for a special reason. Well, we had my boyfriend's parents and grandma over for dinner on Saturday night and my boyfriend (Ian) had mentioned the idea of beef wellington a couple weeks ago when we were first finalizing plans to have his relatives over. I kind of felt like I was roped in to making the dish and am so glad that I did!

This past Saturday morning started like any other until about 11am when I needed to kick it in gear and start cooking! First, Apple Crisp. Next, the mushroom paste/duxelle, followed by the green peppercorn sauce and then wrapping the mushrooms and prosciutto around the beef and letting it sit in the fridge until it was time to cook. This was the first time I followed the recipe to a T and it turned out perfectly! I wrapped the beef, prosciutto and mushrooms in puff pastry and baked it for about 45 minutes. The end result was a med-rare filet mignon that was so tender you probably wouldn't need a knife to cut it.
All in all a successful dinner that also included roasted rosemary potatoes, steamed asparagus, salad and delicious butt-buns(see photo below). The buns are just Rhodes brand frozen bread rolls. Delicious!

Another weekend adventure was the newest big-kid purchase from Home Depot...a Leaf Blower/Mulcher. Sunday afternoon was full of leaf blowing, mulching and bagging! I really like how quickly you can see a difference from a full leaf-filled yard to a almost clear of leaves yard.