GCC: Menu 13 - French Onion Soup and Spinach, Pear and Endive Salad

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This is the last menu of the year for the Gutsy Cook Club.  So far we have done 29 dishes making up 13 menus.  The Gutsy cooks have been tremendous in their participation.  The diversified menu chosen by the last 3 home chefs have given each of us the opportunity of cooking things we love, tasting new ingredients and techniques, and trying new things, some of which have pushed their comfort zone.  I could not have been more proud to cook along with such a great group.  One, which I know will continue to grow and get gutsier as we work our way thru the Kitchen Bible Cookbook.

When I started this cook-along club, my main goal was to meet other home chefs that were willing to ride along with me and have fun and share our twist and turns of the whisk.  I say we have done well for 2010 and I’m looking forward to the New Year, with such great menus in the horizon I know we will continue to have a blast.

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GCC: Menu 12 - Pork Chops with Blue Cheese Stuffing, Warm Green Salad and Potato Herb Galette

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How late is this post?

2 days late.  This was supposed to post this past Sunday.  But, well, I been a bit busy, celebrating my birthday for the past 3 days. Yes, folk, over at my house we celebrate birthdays for days - not for A DAY, but FOR DAYS.  This way we get the maximum celebratory moments in there.  Plus this year, my birthday fell on a weekday – and not any weekday, but Monday.  How much do we hate Mondays? We hate it much. And a birthday day? Even more, so we needed to balance it out and maximize it.

And in order to do that, I decided take the day off on Monday, and made it into a long weekend and to basically run with the flow, which was let Tom pamper me silly.  So he did most of the cooking this past weekend.  That is why the Gutsy Cook menu of the week did not even get done until Sunday for a quick lunch.  And the only thing I did was the Pork Chops with the Blue Cheese stuffing.  The green bean salad and the potato herb galette fell of the list.  Ok, a potato gratin took it’s place, which had nothing to do with the original menu - but it’s so good I now you guys will forgive me.

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GCC: Menu 11 - Gruyere Tart

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This past weekend the Gutsy Cook menu included this tart, a Carrot and Orange soup and Arugula Salad with Parmesan.

As you can see, I played lazy and only did the tart.  But, after reading Raymond’s take on the soup, I think I may have to back track and cook up some carrots!

The whole menu was totally on the fence up until Sunday. I had spent Friday and Saturday baking up about 7 dozens of cookies for my first cookie exchange party (recipes and post coming) so, my kitchen and I were taking a break from eachother.  But, on Sunday as I was whipping up my brunch menu, and felt something was lacking, so I took a look and decided to include this tart in the list of things to serve.  I came together pretty quickly.

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