Mother’s Day meal – Featuring Cheese Sauce

One of the many many reasons I love Bunneh is because he cooks for me on Mother’s Day and it’s always tha awesome.  This year we had a nice rack of ribs, which I got on sale, in the freezer so we went for a braised rib with potatoes, broccoli and cheese sauce.  The ribs were made using Bunneh’s dry rub and braise method and the broccoli just simply steamed.  The potatoes he peeled and chopped, then they went through a three step, parboil, quick oil fry and bake.  They were so yummy and yet very light tasting and not at all greasy.  He pulled it all together with a lovely cheese sauce, which added color and a bit of richness to a fairly lean meal.  It was beautiful…and yummy…and we had ribs for lunch the next day too.  Gotta love leftovers!

So what was your Mother’s day munch?

Cheese Sauce

1/4 cup butter

1-2 Tablespoons Flour

3 cups milk

Salt

Pepper

1/2-1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Ultra Gel

In a small sauce pan melt butter on medium heat.  Add flour and whisk well, cooking until a pale tan.  Add milk a little at a time whisking well with each addition until completely smooth.  Add cheese and spices, stirring constantly until cheese is fully melted.  Add Ultra Gel as needed to reach desired consistency.  Serve over vegetables or combine with cooked pasta for killer mac and cheese.

For a gluten free version omit the flour and increase the Ultra Gel to compensate.

Tarragon Beef

One of the things we enjoy getting from Bountiful Baskets is their Herb Pack.  I’ve talked about this before when we were making herb oils and butters, but despite these great uses there have been times where we’ve had more herbage (yes, that’s a word even if I made it up) than we could use through.  Recently we got another pack and I’ve made it my goal to look for recipes which use the fresh herbs so we can use them all before anything goes bad.  This is what lead me to my Tarragon Beef recipe, which was yummy…

The base for this is just a couple of thin beef steaks, in my case I used a couple of cube steaks I had in the freezer.  We’ve been working hard to avoid too many white starches, so we served up with steamed broccoli and some baked brown rice. The Ultra Gel replaces cornstarch which is often used in this kind of application and makes it so that we don’t have to keep the sauce at a boil which breaks down the veg too much for my taste. It made a nice total meal with a peppery tang from the tarragon.  We’d eat it again.

Tarragon Beef

1-2 Tbl olive oil (I used our herb oil)

2 4 ounce beef steaks

1/4 cup red wine

1/4 cup beef stock (Homemade gives an awesome depth to the dish)

1/4 cup water

2 teaspoons fresh tarragon, chopped

1 teaspoon fresh chives, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

4 ounce sliced button mushrooms

1/2 medium yellow onion, sliced

1-2 Tbl Ultra Gel

Season steaks on both sides with salt and pepper.  Heat a cast iron skillet and add the oil, giving it just long enough to come to temperature.  Add steaks and cook for 2-3 minutes per side.  Remove from pan and hold in a warm oven.  Deglaze pan with red wine (I just use a cooking wine), beef stock and water.  Add spices, mushrooms and onions and cook until the mushrooms and onions are soft.  Add salt and pepper to taste and thicken with Ultra Gel.  Serve sauce over beef with rice or potato.