Cuisine française in the USA

The entire time I lived in France, I never really cooked any traditionally "French" food.  I cooked all the time but it was always American, Italian, Mexican or some kind of Asian.  I never really went searching for French recipes to try, and I never really took an interest in preparing French food.  Even though I love French food, it was something we rarely ate, not even in restaurants.

But now that we are in the US I am finally looking for and testing out some more traditional French recipes.  I guess it's a combination of that fact that in France it was more readily available so it didn't interest me as much (kind of like peanut butter...when I'm in France I eat tons of it, but in the US I rarely eat it) and the fact that now I want Lionel to get to enjoy foods from his culture so he feels more comfortable and at home.  And, of course, I'm also hoping to impress my friends and family with my impressive cooking skills and fancy French meals!

So here is a recipe I tried out last week and that turned out really well.  It's for a traditional French country-style daube and Lionel and I, as well as my parents, really enjoyed it.

I cut the amount of meat in half because there were only 4 of us eating, but I didn't change the amount of wine and it was just enough sauce, so if you really like sauce, like we do, then I recommend using more wine.  We also felt there weren't enough vegetables so I added a few more carrots and also some mushrooms and one chopped turnip.  I served it with homemade mashed potatoes and it was delicious and very similar to the daube that my belle mère served when we were staying chez les beaux parents in November.

Give it a try and enjoy!  And let me know if you have any great French recipes I can try out!