November Dinner Party! Easy, Elegant, and Make-Ahead!

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining me again. My friends Vicki and Aubyn are coming for dinner tonight. I thought, because Vicki loves a meat and potatoes dinner, I thought we would do a chuck roast that I will cook in the Instant Pot with a side of maybe roasted carrots or glazed carrots. I'm not sure which yet. And for the potato component, instead of doing mashed potatoes, I'm going to make a French dish called Pomme Anna. Thinly sliced potatoes that are piled on top of each other. Super delicious. And for dessert, we're going to do a pumpkin bundt cake. We're going to start with the pumpkin bundt cake dessert. I need my scale and flour and a bowl. I like to weigh out my flour and before I go any farther I need to preheat my oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Into the flour I'm adding pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, which I need to refill this container, baking powder, and salt. Give this a whisk. I will link the recipe for this pumpkin bundt cake in the description box below. Today is November 2nd and Fall is definitely in the air, and this cake looks and smells like fall. Well, it will look like fall when I finish with it. And on to the wet ingredients. I need butter, this is softened butter, and brown sugar. My recipe calls for dark brown, but I only have light brown sugar today. And I need to cream the butter and sugar together until they become perfectly smooth. That's going to take anywhere from three to five minutes. Scrape down. Well, this looks perfectly smooth to me. So now we can add two eggs, one at a time. Do want to scrape down the bowl. Anytime you see that your cake batter is adhering to the walls of the mixing bowl, you know it's time to scrape down the bowl. Carry on. Next, a 15 ounce can of pumpkin puree. Going to make a mess unless I do it this way. My recipe calls for full fat sour cream, which I forgot to buy. So I'm going to substitute with full fat yogurt. This is Greek yogurt. And I need just a splash of pure vanilla extract. This smells wonderful. Now at low speed, I'm going to add the dry ingredients bit by bit. Now I need to grease my 10 inch diameter bundt pan. I'm going to do this over the sink and I'm using baking spray which contains flour. I want to give this batter one good last stir just to make sure all the flour is incorporated and in it goes. Bundt cake batters are always thicker than regular cake batters that are baked in regular cake pans. And this goes into the preheated oven until a skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. That will take about one hour. And while the cake is baking, I'm going to get cleaned up here and we can get started on the chuck roast. Before we get started on the chuck roast, I need to grab some ingredients from the garden. Come outside with me. From the garden, I need carrots, chives, and rosemary. So my carrots are scrubbed. I'm not going to peel them. And I think since they're really fresh carrots, I'm going to roast them. And I've got my rosemary here. I will deal with the chives later. And here is the chuck roast that you and I got together at Costco the other day. I need to pat this dry. Now I need to wash my hands. Hands are clean. I need my tongs. And I need to brown this beef really well in the Instant Pot. And of course it's too large for the pot, so I'm going to do it in sections. My dog is at my feet. She knows there's a good thing on this workstation. I need to add some oil to the Instant Pot. My Instant Pot is set to the sauté mode. I'm going to brown the beef in batches. Now the reason you want to brown the meat really well is because the caramelization contributes a ton of flavor. And I've decided that I'm going to make this a New England style pot roast, by which I mean horseradish will be added. And have this ready. But first, I need to deglaze the pan here. And to do that, I'm going to add A handful of chopped onion. This is homegrown onion that you and I grew together. I also want to add some garlic pucks from homegrown garlic. Do three of these. And I want to add some homemade vegetable stock. I don't have any beef stock on hand. There we go. Smells wonderful. And as this liquid comes to a boil, I'm going to scrape up all of the stuck-on bits of beef. Because they too are loaded with flavor. Now we can add some prepared horseradish and some Worcestershire sauce. The remaining vegetable stock. The beef. Now this is a lot of beef so I will undoubtedly have plenty of leftovers. And that's a good thing because I can turn the leftover beef into a freezer dinner. I also want to add a sprig of rosemary. Oh before I add that I want to add salt and pepper. There was no salt in my vegetable stock. Then we can add the rosemary. And on with the lid. And I'm going to move my Instant Pot to the counter over here because I need space on my workstation for another project. But I'm going to cook the beef at high pressure for 18 minutes. Let me clean up here. And then we're going to work on the carrots. Just like that, our cake is ready. Oh this is absolutely beautiful. Smells heavenly. I'm going to let this cake cool in the pan for about 12 minutes. Meantime we can deal with the carrots. And there's not much I need to do with the carrots other than slice them lengthwise. Do I want to remove the little tails? Yes. Now I didn't add carrots to the beef because under high pressure they would just turn into Mush. This is an odd shaped carrot. Then carrots can go onto a baking tray, side up. They need to drizzle them with olive oil, kosher salt and pepper. Then I'm going to pop this into the refrigerator and I will roast the carrots shortly before serving time. I'm going to go ahead and unmold this cake onto a cooling rack. Sweet. Once this has cooled, Once this has cooled completely, I'm either going to glaze it or just dust it with confectioner's sugar. On to the pomme anna. Pomme anna is a famous French side dish. It is beautiful to serve and unfathomably delicious to eat. And I'm going to make mine with russet potatoes and chives. And there are really only four ingredients in this dish. Just potatoes, butter, Salt and pepper, and then chives. So five ingredients. And I need butter, which I'm going to melt in the microwave. Transfer my chives to a little food prep bowl. Let's see if the butter has melted. My butter is melted, so now I need to peel potatoes. I have an automatic potato peeler called the Rotato, but I'm not going to use it today. So it's only three potatoes. My chives over here have my butter right here and I need to slice these potatoes very thinly. I love this handheld mandoline and I can link it in the description below if you are in the market for a handheld mandolin. Now I will link the recipe I'm following in the description box below. And included in that recipe is the story about the young woman for whom this dish is named. It's a very colorful story, actually. Anna was not exactly the girl next door. Okay, and now we can plunge these potatoes into the melted butter. I'm just roughly separating the potato pieces here. You don't have to be too fussy with this step. To give the potatoes a toss, they should all be coated with the butter. Now I need my 10-inch skillet, and I'm going to spray this just for anti-stick insurance with a little non-stick spray, and then I'm going to add one-fourth cup of a neutral oil. This is avocado oil. If you have a non-stick 10-inch skillet, that would work great here. Here I'm using cast iron. Now I need to take four of my prettiest Potato slices and arrange them in the center of the skillet. Going to continue to add potato slices in one layer. And this first layer is going to be the top of the panna because it will be unmolded. Need to keep a towel handy here. Now, once you have the first layer, sprinkle it with a little salt, pepper, and if you were using them, the chives. And then continue making layers and top each layer with salt, pepper, and chives. Now, the outside of this side dish will have a crunch like potato chips, but inside will be very creamy and wonderful. Yeah, if you were looking for a fancy side dish to bring to a holiday party or any special gathering, pomana is your friend. It's a little time consuming, but as you can see, it's actually a very simple dish to make. So I think I have eight layers here. I actually lost track. Now this dish starts out on the stovetop and then it finishes in the oven. And I have preheated my oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. We have to go to the stovetop first. So I'm setting my skillet over medium high heat and then as soon as I hear the oil start to sizzle I will start pressing down on the potatoes with this eight inch diameter cake pan and that's to compress the potatoes. I don't know if you can hear it but the oil has started to sizzle. So now I'm going to gently press down with this cake pan to slightly compress the potatoes. And you just keep moving the pan around so that all of the potatoes become compressed. You don't want to smash the pan down. Just be gentle here. Okay, my potatoes are compressed. Now I'm going to cover the skillet and let the potatoes cook for exactly 10 minutes. So my potatoes have cooked on the stove top for exactly 10 minutes and I've just turned the heat off. But I've decided I will not bake the potatoes right now because it's only one o'clock in the afternoon and my guests aren't coming until 6 p.m. So I will come back later and show you how I bake the potatoes in the oven and then we can unmold them. And in the meantime our beef is ready. So the beef is done. I gave it a natural pressure release for 10 minutes and now I'm going to let out the remaining pressure. I really wish you were in my house right now. The perfumes here are just overwhelming. I can smell the rosemary that I added to the beef and then I have the gorgeous scent from that pumpkin cake. And now here is the beef. Oh it's gorgeous. It's super tender. You can also smell the Worcester sauce in here and the garlic. It's going to be a fantastic dinner. Very casual dinner, but a fantastic dinner. So my plan is to shred this beef and then I will degrease the broth in the instant pot and thicken it up with some corn starch. So we can start shredding. Oh, look at this. It is shredding just perfectly. Now, before... Vicki and Alban arrive. I will reheat the beef, and I think I will top it with the gravy we are going to make. Of course, the gravy can be reheated too. I can shred this beef just with this flat spatula. That's how tender it is. So I have my little degreaser gadget here. Pull this out. With the degreaser, the fat rises to the top, and then the spout is located at the bottom. So when you Pour off the broth. You get just the broth and not the fat. And it is time to make the gravy. So I'm going to pour off a good part of this broth and I'm going to add some wine. Oh, this has a nice perfume. This is Nero di Vola, 2020. I'm going to bring this to a boil and then I'm going to make a cornstarch slurry. Cornstarch slurries are generally made with cornstarch and water. I'm going to make mine with cornstarch and wine. As lovely as this broth already was, it's even better now for the wine. I do want to add a little salt to this. We have achieved a boil. So in goes the cornstarch slurry. Then I'm going to stir and let the gravy thicken. Now we can turn off the Instant Pot because our gravy is done. How hot is this? Not too hot. The tip. And now you will see later that I will transfer this to a proper gravy boat. I'm going to cover the beef and the gravy and pop them into the refrigerator. And then I want to set the table and when we come back I think the cake will be cool enough to either glaze or dust with confectioner's sugar. For a casual layered look, I'm using a green tablecloth topped with an old lace cloth. And instead of flowers, I'm filling an old pedestal bowl with miniature pumpkins. Gold chargers will look well beneath the Johnson Brothers china I'm planning on using. I can't believe how much we accomplished in such a short amount of time. And I think this cake stand will look Well, I think it'll work very well for this cake. And all I have to do is dust it with confectioner's sugar. And there, our dessert is ready. Going to go practice piano for a couple of hours. And then shortly before my guests arrive, I will show you the dinner. We turned our clocks back yesterday and I cannot believe how dark it is outside already. And it's only 5:33 in the afternoon. Anyway, Vicki and Alvin will be here soon. So I need to cook my carrots at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes. And I need to cook my panna at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes. So carrots go in the lower oven. And the panna goes in the upper oven. Then I have our beautiful beef here. And I think this is way too much beef for three people. So I'm going to transfer some of this to another dish. I think this is enough for three people. I'm going to pour some of the winey gravy that we made right on top. And then I can cover this little dish with cling film. And I will microwave this shortly before Vicki and Alvin, well, shortly before we're ready to eat. I'm also going to heat the gravy in the microwave. And I have my little gravy boat over here. And with all of that out of the way, I'm going to go light a fire and change out of this sweatshirt. It's a very casual dinner, but I'm not that casual. Well, I hope I'm a little more presentable now. And I wanted to mention that All of the food has finished cooking before we are ready to eat. I will simply lower the oven temperature 200 degrees Fahrenheit to keep everything warm. Vicki and Alvin are here. All of the food is cooked. I'm just keeping it warm. Now what I do have to do is pour off some of the fat, which is just butter. I hope you like it. And it's just potatoes. Chives. Salt, pepper, and butter. Here we go. Wish me luck. Potatoes and butter? I'm gonna just love this to death. It's like poor man's potato anna or something? Yes. No, it's potato's anna. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. This is parsley from the garden. And so we have our pomme anna. We have our beef. Oh, I need to put my gravy in here. And this is beef. I know you recently joined Costco. So I got this chuck roast at Costco because Hannaford does not have chuck roast. At least they didn't last time I was there. Thank you, Vicki. We always have such a good time when we're together. Vicki, Alvin, and me. And I wish that you were here too. Gravy too the parlor. Thank you for spending time with me today as we made this delightful little autumn dinner. I'll have another video for you next week. Until then, please treat yourself extra well. I can't wait to see you again. Bye for now, friends.