I have been too busy to post.
I am into making my bread, and loving it. SO yoummy.
I had a problem with my chickens, as a young red-tailed hawk got into my chicken run and ate the head off my darling little pheasant hen. She had finally started to lay eggs too! Poor darling. I was able to get the body away from the hawk and it is waiting to be plucked and cleaned and cooked. I figure, she gave us eggs and entertainment, I really want to be the one who eats her not that damned hawk! I was SO FURIOUS. I don't consider myself a violent person, but I have to admit, if I had a gun (which thank goodness I DO not) I think I would have shot that poor hawk. I know it sounds terrible, but it just stared at me as it was tearing my darling baby's head off, it was not a pretty site. But, if I am going to keep animals and try to have a mini farm, these are things that will happen. Circle of life and all, right?
I have some grapes on the way (bare root) and some apple trees (also bare root) on their way. I am hoping to really start my mini orchard and vineyard. I am gonna FILL UP my under one acre piece of suburban yard! We shall see how much farming I can get done with such little land, but really with the economy the way it is, I think the return to the earth and making your own only makes sense, right?
Well, until I get around to blogging again. I hope all are well.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Sorry
I have been SO busy since the beginning of the year. January always whizzes by for me. This year I am gonna be prepared and since I am back from the city last year and didn't get to have the whole season (spring into summer) I am not gonna let it get away from me this time.
I am planning on planting a little orchard this year and want to get my order in soon, so I can get my bareroot trees. I am not sure, though, because if I wait I can get a tree that may bear fruit this year, but it will cost more. I am definitely doing apples, but would really like to try some Asian pears. I got some this past year from our local farm where my friend works and made a pie ( I blogged about it and took a pic too!) and it was yummy, they were yummy. They are unique in that they look like an apple in a pear skin, you don't really have that weird time window in which to wait for a traditional pear to 'ripen'. So, if they are not too expensive, I will put in a couple. I wonder if they are cross-pollinated by my bees what would happen? Have to look into that.
One of my resolutions is to try to only use bread I have made this year. I am also really into the pasta making and today I am going to make a big batch of oregano pasta, let it dry and get out the new meat grinders and grind some steak for 'high end' meat balls. Now all I have to do is make my own cheese and it will be COMPLETELY made by me. Crazy, I know. I am determined to use a vintage flair to my 'back to the earth' approach to my yard and table this year. I am craving some 1950's gardening books and etc. I am even planning a root cellar, yay!
Well, I am going to try and be a good blogger and post if not every day, at least three times a week.
Hope all are well.
I am planning on planting a little orchard this year and want to get my order in soon, so I can get my bareroot trees. I am not sure, though, because if I wait I can get a tree that may bear fruit this year, but it will cost more. I am definitely doing apples, but would really like to try some Asian pears. I got some this past year from our local farm where my friend works and made a pie ( I blogged about it and took a pic too!) and it was yummy, they were yummy. They are unique in that they look like an apple in a pear skin, you don't really have that weird time window in which to wait for a traditional pear to 'ripen'. So, if they are not too expensive, I will put in a couple. I wonder if they are cross-pollinated by my bees what would happen? Have to look into that.
One of my resolutions is to try to only use bread I have made this year. I am also really into the pasta making and today I am going to make a big batch of oregano pasta, let it dry and get out the new meat grinders and grind some steak for 'high end' meat balls. Now all I have to do is make my own cheese and it will be COMPLETELY made by me. Crazy, I know. I am determined to use a vintage flair to my 'back to the earth' approach to my yard and table this year. I am craving some 1950's gardening books and etc. I am even planning a root cellar, yay!
Well, I am going to try and be a good blogger and post if not every day, at least three times a week.
Hope all are well.
Friday, January 2, 2009
horribly blogger
I have still not bothered to post any xmas pics as of yet. It is bad of me, I know. Pics always help a blog, but I just don't have the time. I am busy busy trying to rearrange the house and today is 'take down xmas decorations day'.
I hope everyone had a fun new year.
We have been hit with some hard snow and cold weather. We are not used to so much snow and ice here on Cape Cod. Usually we will get snow and by the next morning it is 45 and raining. But, now we are one day three of still seeing snow outside and feeling the cold inside. The chickens water needs to be defrosted twice a day! (I have not bought a heater as of yet for it, so it comes in the house and goes on the stove, gets defrosted, and back out to their grateful beaks.) They are still laying, the lil darlings, despite the cold. We have got some wonderful colors. A pretty pinkish brown and yesterday one that was almost robins egg blue, I meant to photo it, but instead ate it and into the compost with the shell. I am sure we will see another like it for photos.
It is nice to see the snow along the picket fence and the icicles outside my lil greenhouse window in my studio, but the cold! We keep it rather chilly in here to save on electric heating bills. My studio (the most heat effective south facing room) has become the room for all of us. We heat it up, leaving the rest of the house freezing, and cram in here with our computers and books and pots of teas and dogs. It is these times that I imagine our victorian ancestors, sitting in ther piles of rooms and rooms, locking themselvs away in some corner room, the library or drawing room perhaps, with the fireblazing, perhaps horsehair blankets on their laps, all the curtains on the windows and doors and the interior shutters locked up tight, holding onto the heat they could. Perhaps, and hopefully, too kind to pull the lever next the fireplace to summon a poor cold servant from the depths of the basement, where they were probably huddled against the stove for warmth. ALtho, I bet that was probably the warmest part of the house. Anyhoo, I digress. Here I am daydreaming my day away, when there is laundry to do, breakfast dishes to clear, and xmas deco to be stored away for another 300 odd days.
Has anyone made any particular new years resolutions?
I hope everyone had a fun new year.
We have been hit with some hard snow and cold weather. We are not used to so much snow and ice here on Cape Cod. Usually we will get snow and by the next morning it is 45 and raining. But, now we are one day three of still seeing snow outside and feeling the cold inside. The chickens water needs to be defrosted twice a day! (I have not bought a heater as of yet for it, so it comes in the house and goes on the stove, gets defrosted, and back out to their grateful beaks.) They are still laying, the lil darlings, despite the cold. We have got some wonderful colors. A pretty pinkish brown and yesterday one that was almost robins egg blue, I meant to photo it, but instead ate it and into the compost with the shell. I am sure we will see another like it for photos.
It is nice to see the snow along the picket fence and the icicles outside my lil greenhouse window in my studio, but the cold! We keep it rather chilly in here to save on electric heating bills. My studio (the most heat effective south facing room) has become the room for all of us. We heat it up, leaving the rest of the house freezing, and cram in here with our computers and books and pots of teas and dogs. It is these times that I imagine our victorian ancestors, sitting in ther piles of rooms and rooms, locking themselvs away in some corner room, the library or drawing room perhaps, with the fireblazing, perhaps horsehair blankets on their laps, all the curtains on the windows and doors and the interior shutters locked up tight, holding onto the heat they could. Perhaps, and hopefully, too kind to pull the lever next the fireplace to summon a poor cold servant from the depths of the basement, where they were probably huddled against the stove for warmth. ALtho, I bet that was probably the warmest part of the house. Anyhoo, I digress. Here I am daydreaming my day away, when there is laundry to do, breakfast dishes to clear, and xmas deco to be stored away for another 300 odd days.
Has anyone made any particular new years resolutions?
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Interesting article
My husband gave me this article and I quite liked it. I thought it was relevant to all you atomic ageophiles like myself.
The Lure of Opulent Desolation
By JUDITH WARNER
Published: December 29, 2008
About seven years ago, not long after settling into a little house on a tree-lined street in a city neighborhood all but indistinguishable from the suburbs surrounding it, I developed a brief obsession with mid-20th-century American anomie. I read “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” and “The Organization Man.” I re-read “The Feminine Mystique.” And I devoured Richard Yates’s “Revolutionary Road,” a then largely overlooked book that I found one day among the paperbacks in our local bookstore, snatching it up for what its jacket promised would be “the most evocative portrayal” of suburban “opulent desolation.” (“What in God’s name was the point or the meaning or the purpose of a life like this?” was the sort of gratifying payoff I found within its pages.)
I approached these books, I’ll admit, with a kind of prurient interest, a combination of revulsion and irresistible attraction, thoroughly enjoying the sad and sordid sexual repression, the infantilization of women, the cookie-cutter conformity imposed upon men. I couldn’t get enough of the miserable domestic underbelly of life in the period we like to call “the Fifties,” an era that spans the late ’40s to the mid-’60s. Some of the fascination was a kind of exoticism. More, however, came from the fact that, I found, in our era of “soccer moms,” “surrendered wives” and “new traditionalism,” the look and sound of the opulent desolation was eerily familiar.
I soon had a steady stream of new material to feed my craving for Lucky Strike- and martini-scented domestic disturbances. The films “Far From Heaven” and “The Hours.” The TV series “Mad Men.” And now, of course, “Revolutionary Road,” the movie, repackaging what USA Today recently called “the savagery of post-war domesticity” for the Oscars.
Why is there such a desire, even a hunger, to recreate images from such an unhappy past? A past characterized by every possible form of bigotry? A past, furthermore, that people like the “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner and the directors of “Revolutionary Road,” “Far From Heaven” and “The Hours” can’t possibly remember, having been born, like me, in the 1960s?
“Part of the show is trying to figure out,” Weiner told The Times’s Alex Witchel last June, “what is the deal with my parents. Am I them? Because you know you are.”
There’s some of that, I think. But there’s also much more.
Unlike the baby boomers before us, we “baby busters” of the ’60s never rebelled against the trappings of domesticity represented by our images of the 1950s. Many of us, deep down, yearn for it, having experienced divorce or other sorts of family dislocation in the 1970s. We keep alive a secret dream of “a model of routine and order and organization and competence,” a life “where women kept house, raised kids and kept their eyebrows looking really good,” as the writer Lonnae O’Neal Parker once described it in The Washington Post Magazine.
But that order and routine and competence in our frenetic world proves forever elusive, a cruel ideal we can never reach.
The fact is: as an unrebellious, cautious, anxious generation, many of us are living lives not all that different from those of the parents of the early 1960s, yet without the seeming ease, privileges and benefits. Husbands have been stripped of the power perks of their gender, wives of the anticipation that they’ll be taken care of for life.
How we seem to love and hate those men and women we never knew. What we would give to know their secrets: how Dad managed to come home at 5 p.m. to read the paper or watch TV while Mom fixed dinner and bathed the kids. How Mom turned up at school, every day, unrumpled, coiffed, unflappable. And more to the point: how they managed to afford the lives that they led, on one salary, without hocking their homes to pay for college, without worrying about being bankrupted by medical bills.
How we make them pay now, when we breathe them back into life. Our cultural representations of them are punishing. We defile the putative purity of the housewives — those doe-eyed, frivolous, almost simple-minded depressives — by assigning them drunken, cheating, no-good mates. We discredit the memory of the organization men by filling them with self-loathing and despair. Each gender invites its downfall, and fully deserves the comeuppance that history, we know, will ultimately deal it.
That’s where the pleasure comes in. No matter how lost we are, no matter how confused, no matter how foolish we feel, we can judge ourselves the winners.
The Lure of Opulent Desolation
By JUDITH WARNER
Published: December 29, 2008
About seven years ago, not long after settling into a little house on a tree-lined street in a city neighborhood all but indistinguishable from the suburbs surrounding it, I developed a brief obsession with mid-20th-century American anomie. I read “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” and “The Organization Man.” I re-read “The Feminine Mystique.” And I devoured Richard Yates’s “Revolutionary Road,” a then largely overlooked book that I found one day among the paperbacks in our local bookstore, snatching it up for what its jacket promised would be “the most evocative portrayal” of suburban “opulent desolation.” (“What in God’s name was the point or the meaning or the purpose of a life like this?” was the sort of gratifying payoff I found within its pages.)
I approached these books, I’ll admit, with a kind of prurient interest, a combination of revulsion and irresistible attraction, thoroughly enjoying the sad and sordid sexual repression, the infantilization of women, the cookie-cutter conformity imposed upon men. I couldn’t get enough of the miserable domestic underbelly of life in the period we like to call “the Fifties,” an era that spans the late ’40s to the mid-’60s. Some of the fascination was a kind of exoticism. More, however, came from the fact that, I found, in our era of “soccer moms,” “surrendered wives” and “new traditionalism,” the look and sound of the opulent desolation was eerily familiar.
I soon had a steady stream of new material to feed my craving for Lucky Strike- and martini-scented domestic disturbances. The films “Far From Heaven” and “The Hours.” The TV series “Mad Men.” And now, of course, “Revolutionary Road,” the movie, repackaging what USA Today recently called “the savagery of post-war domesticity” for the Oscars.
Why is there such a desire, even a hunger, to recreate images from such an unhappy past? A past characterized by every possible form of bigotry? A past, furthermore, that people like the “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner and the directors of “Revolutionary Road,” “Far From Heaven” and “The Hours” can’t possibly remember, having been born, like me, in the 1960s?
“Part of the show is trying to figure out,” Weiner told The Times’s Alex Witchel last June, “what is the deal with my parents. Am I them? Because you know you are.”
There’s some of that, I think. But there’s also much more.
Unlike the baby boomers before us, we “baby busters” of the ’60s never rebelled against the trappings of domesticity represented by our images of the 1950s. Many of us, deep down, yearn for it, having experienced divorce or other sorts of family dislocation in the 1970s. We keep alive a secret dream of “a model of routine and order and organization and competence,” a life “where women kept house, raised kids and kept their eyebrows looking really good,” as the writer Lonnae O’Neal Parker once described it in The Washington Post Magazine.
But that order and routine and competence in our frenetic world proves forever elusive, a cruel ideal we can never reach.
The fact is: as an unrebellious, cautious, anxious generation, many of us are living lives not all that different from those of the parents of the early 1960s, yet without the seeming ease, privileges and benefits. Husbands have been stripped of the power perks of their gender, wives of the anticipation that they’ll be taken care of for life.
How we seem to love and hate those men and women we never knew. What we would give to know their secrets: how Dad managed to come home at 5 p.m. to read the paper or watch TV while Mom fixed dinner and bathed the kids. How Mom turned up at school, every day, unrumpled, coiffed, unflappable. And more to the point: how they managed to afford the lives that they led, on one salary, without hocking their homes to pay for college, without worrying about being bankrupted by medical bills.
How we make them pay now, when we breathe them back into life. Our cultural representations of them are punishing. We defile the putative purity of the housewives — those doe-eyed, frivolous, almost simple-minded depressives — by assigning them drunken, cheating, no-good mates. We discredit the memory of the organization men by filling them with self-loathing and despair. Each gender invites its downfall, and fully deserves the comeuppance that history, we know, will ultimately deal it.
That’s where the pleasure comes in. No matter how lost we are, no matter how confused, no matter how foolish we feel, we can judge ourselves the winners.
Friday, December 26, 2008
xmas time post preamble
I would like to post some pics of our outfits and food, tho I think now how little pics I actually took of the prepared food. I always intend to do so, and then one gets into the swing of things and u just forget. I suppose that is how I know I am really enjoying the moment, as it seems, at that moment, that it shall go one forever. If only we could keep time like that, like little jewels we could take out and put on. To live again and again. But, alas...
I will go thru the photos and see what I can see and post what I do have.
We had such fun! My hair turned out rather nice and I might start waying it the way I did it every day! I curled my bangs (which reach over my eyebrows) with hot rollers and it gave them such a vintage twist, I even turned a little curl on my forehead and really liked how it looked. The rest of my long hair went into a french twist and the remaining hair on top went into large hot rollers. These I kept in tight curls and pinned them into place and of course hair sprayed the whole thing!
Everyone looked really good and definitely did their best to look 1950s, all save one person I won't mention, who looked more than silly in a modern zip up sweater modern jeans (well if u call the 90's modern) and silly ugg like slip on shoes! It's funny, because if u feel silly not dressing up at a costume type party u only look as silly as someone who shows up at a regular party in a clown costume! But, who cares, the rest of us looked quite good.
Our xmas swap was 50's themed, so most of us ended up buying repro vintage toys and then had a blast with wooden recorders, pop guns, slide whistles and tinker toys. One lucky person got a vintage electric red 1950's clock that I was coveteous of, o well, I do have a great 50s electric clock that is in the turquoise color I love.
The food was grand, tho my jello mold did not hold, as I am not familiar with the ways of jello. My tomato aspic looked very nice and I used a vintage mold for that. The recipe was from a 1956 Womans Day, I believe.
Nice all around nice.
Pics to follow and I hope all had a good xmas.
Xmas morning was nice as well and I got not one but TWO vintage (1890s) meat grinders that I wanted and will use soon to make good the leftover poultry and ham. I also got a nice old fashioned pasta maker that I wanted, so pasta is in my future. My mother in law gave me a wonderful library of books (from her foray into a farm in maine in the 1960s) on canning, cooking, keeping root cellars, even raising and butchering meats, all quite interesting and will be put to good use in the new year.
Well, pics to follow!
I will go thru the photos and see what I can see and post what I do have.
We had such fun! My hair turned out rather nice and I might start waying it the way I did it every day! I curled my bangs (which reach over my eyebrows) with hot rollers and it gave them such a vintage twist, I even turned a little curl on my forehead and really liked how it looked. The rest of my long hair went into a french twist and the remaining hair on top went into large hot rollers. These I kept in tight curls and pinned them into place and of course hair sprayed the whole thing!
Everyone looked really good and definitely did their best to look 1950s, all save one person I won't mention, who looked more than silly in a modern zip up sweater modern jeans (well if u call the 90's modern) and silly ugg like slip on shoes! It's funny, because if u feel silly not dressing up at a costume type party u only look as silly as someone who shows up at a regular party in a clown costume! But, who cares, the rest of us looked quite good.
Our xmas swap was 50's themed, so most of us ended up buying repro vintage toys and then had a blast with wooden recorders, pop guns, slide whistles and tinker toys. One lucky person got a vintage electric red 1950's clock that I was coveteous of, o well, I do have a great 50s electric clock that is in the turquoise color I love.
The food was grand, tho my jello mold did not hold, as I am not familiar with the ways of jello. My tomato aspic looked very nice and I used a vintage mold for that. The recipe was from a 1956 Womans Day, I believe.
Nice all around nice.
Pics to follow and I hope all had a good xmas.
Xmas morning was nice as well and I got not one but TWO vintage (1890s) meat grinders that I wanted and will use soon to make good the leftover poultry and ham. I also got a nice old fashioned pasta maker that I wanted, so pasta is in my future. My mother in law gave me a wonderful library of books (from her foray into a farm in maine in the 1960s) on canning, cooking, keeping root cellars, even raising and butchering meats, all quite interesting and will be put to good use in the new year.
Well, pics to follow!
Sunday, December 21, 2008
history of fashion on a snowy day
I thought this was an interesting view of fashion thru the years. I should be wrapping my presents, but am messing about with fashion, what's a gal to do?
can't figure out how to 'put' the video here so here is link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vdIPqsTvYQ
This is also cute and shows three french models starting I would guess around 1900 to of course, the 1980's. I love the 19teens with the Poirot gowns, loverly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEGwDuGBfR0
can't figure out how to 'put' the video here so here is link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vdIPqsTvYQ
This is also cute and shows three french models starting I would guess around 1900 to of course, the 1980's. I love the 19teens with the Poirot gowns, loverly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEGwDuGBfR0
Friday, December 19, 2008
For Housewifery and any who care...
Housewifery wanted my Wellington recipe. It isn't anything special, only I have done it a few times and it works quite well. If u cannot find good goose liver pate' the chicken or duck that is available at most large grocery stores works fine. I have also made it with or without sauce. I will make the sauce for xmas.
My next big cooking project to get under my belt is to make a good beef consomme. They say the test of a really good cook is their consomme, and I have never made it. The whole process sounds fun and any excuse to straing SOMETHING thru cheesecloth is always appreciated ;) non? Have any of u made it before and any good recipes for it?
Here is the Wellington recipe:
BEEF WELLINGTON
1 (6 lb.) whole beef tenderloin roastbutter1 (17 1/4 oz.) pkg. frozen puff pastry1 med. sized onion, minced1 (8 oz.) pkg. mushrooms, finely chopped1/2 tsp. dried thyme leaves1/2 tsp. salt1/4 tsp. pepper2 tbsp. red wine1/2 lb. goose or duck, liver pate or 17 oz. can liver pate1 egg, separated2 tsp. milkBordelaise Sauce (follows)Parsley for garnish
About 2 hours before serving:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. In large open roasting pan on rack, form tenderloin into ring so that thick end rests on thin end to hold securely. Brush beef with 1 tablespoon melted butter. Insert meat thermometer into center of tenderloin. Roast tenderloin 40 minutes or until thermometer reaches 120 degrees F. (very rare). Remove tenderloin from oven and let stand 30 minutes. Do not turn oven off.
2. Thaw pastry as label directs.
3. Meanwhile, in 10 inch skillet over medium high heat, in 3 tablespoons hot butter, cook onion until tender. Add mushrooms, thyme, salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until all liquid evaporates. Stir in red wine and cook over medium heat until mixture is dry. Remove skillet from heat; cool slightly.
4. On lightly floured surface, with floured rolling pin, roll 1 sheet puff pastry into 14x12 inch rectangle. Place puff pastry sheet on ungreased large cookie sheet. Center partially roasted tenderloin ring on dough. With knife, cut pastry with 1 inch border all around tenderloin; reserve trimmings for decoration.
5. Spread pate evenly over tenderloin; top with mushroom mixture. With pastry brush, brush some egg white on pastry around tenderloin. On lightly floured surface, roll second sheet puff pastry as above; place loosely over tenderloin ring, pressing pastry around base of tenderloin to seal; crimp pastry border to make a pretty edge.
6. With knife, cut trimmings into holly leaves; roll small pieces into holly berries. Use remaining egg white to attach pastry berries and leaves on top crust.
7. In cup, with fork, beat egg yolk with milk; brush top and sides of pastry with egg mixture. Bake Beef Wellington 10 minutes; reduce heat to 375 degrees; bake 20 minutes longer or until crust is golden. With 2 pancake turners, transfer roast to warm platter. Let stand 15 minutes for easier slicing.
8. Prepare Bordelaise Sauce.
9. To serve, garnish with parsley. Cut Beef Wellington into wedges. Serve with Bordelaise sauce. Makes 10 servings. About 640 calories per serving.
BORDELAISE SAUCE:
In heavy 1 quart saucepan over low heat, in 3 tablespoons hot butter, cook 1 tablespoon minced onion until tender. Stir in 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour; cook until lightly browned; add 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme leaves and 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper. Slowly stir in one 10 1/2 ounce can condensed beef broth (bouillon), 1/2 cup red wine and 1/4 cup water. Increase heat to medium high; cook mixture, stirring constantly, until sauce boils and thickens.
Be prepared to use TONS of butter, I mean, why not if u are making this, right? I used it in EVERY step. Don't forget to let the meat cool and I used more pate than it called for, I like to seriously coat the whole roast as if I am icing a cake, cover it all really well and I put it on the meat not on the pastry.
Good luck!
My next big cooking project to get under my belt is to make a good beef consomme. They say the test of a really good cook is their consomme, and I have never made it. The whole process sounds fun and any excuse to straing SOMETHING thru cheesecloth is always appreciated ;) non? Have any of u made it before and any good recipes for it?
Here is the Wellington recipe:
BEEF WELLINGTON
1 (6 lb.) whole beef tenderloin roastbutter1 (17 1/4 oz.) pkg. frozen puff pastry1 med. sized onion, minced1 (8 oz.) pkg. mushrooms, finely chopped1/2 tsp. dried thyme leaves1/2 tsp. salt1/4 tsp. pepper2 tbsp. red wine1/2 lb. goose or duck, liver pate or 17 oz. can liver pate1 egg, separated2 tsp. milkBordelaise Sauce (follows)Parsley for garnish
About 2 hours before serving:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. In large open roasting pan on rack, form tenderloin into ring so that thick end rests on thin end to hold securely. Brush beef with 1 tablespoon melted butter. Insert meat thermometer into center of tenderloin. Roast tenderloin 40 minutes or until thermometer reaches 120 degrees F. (very rare). Remove tenderloin from oven and let stand 30 minutes. Do not turn oven off.
2. Thaw pastry as label directs.
3. Meanwhile, in 10 inch skillet over medium high heat, in 3 tablespoons hot butter, cook onion until tender. Add mushrooms, thyme, salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until all liquid evaporates. Stir in red wine and cook over medium heat until mixture is dry. Remove skillet from heat; cool slightly.
4. On lightly floured surface, with floured rolling pin, roll 1 sheet puff pastry into 14x12 inch rectangle. Place puff pastry sheet on ungreased large cookie sheet. Center partially roasted tenderloin ring on dough. With knife, cut pastry with 1 inch border all around tenderloin; reserve trimmings for decoration.
5. Spread pate evenly over tenderloin; top with mushroom mixture. With pastry brush, brush some egg white on pastry around tenderloin. On lightly floured surface, roll second sheet puff pastry as above; place loosely over tenderloin ring, pressing pastry around base of tenderloin to seal; crimp pastry border to make a pretty edge.
6. With knife, cut trimmings into holly leaves; roll small pieces into holly berries. Use remaining egg white to attach pastry berries and leaves on top crust.
7. In cup, with fork, beat egg yolk with milk; brush top and sides of pastry with egg mixture. Bake Beef Wellington 10 minutes; reduce heat to 375 degrees; bake 20 minutes longer or until crust is golden. With 2 pancake turners, transfer roast to warm platter. Let stand 15 minutes for easier slicing.
8. Prepare Bordelaise Sauce.
9. To serve, garnish with parsley. Cut Beef Wellington into wedges. Serve with Bordelaise sauce. Makes 10 servings. About 640 calories per serving.
BORDELAISE SAUCE:
In heavy 1 quart saucepan over low heat, in 3 tablespoons hot butter, cook 1 tablespoon minced onion until tender. Stir in 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour; cook until lightly browned; add 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme leaves and 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper. Slowly stir in one 10 1/2 ounce can condensed beef broth (bouillon), 1/2 cup red wine and 1/4 cup water. Increase heat to medium high; cook mixture, stirring constantly, until sauce boils and thickens.
Be prepared to use TONS of butter, I mean, why not if u are making this, right? I used it in EVERY step. Don't forget to let the meat cool and I used more pate than it called for, I like to seriously coat the whole roast as if I am icing a cake, cover it all really well and I put it on the meat not on the pastry.
Good luck!
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