Olympic National Meals! Night One.

Night one featured foods inspired by the country of France.  When (not if) Ryan and I become super rich (haven't exactly figured the logistics out on that) we want to move our family to France.  We love everything about it (food, wine, culture, history, people, fashion, beauty, etc.), so it only seemed right that on the first night on our Olympics-inspired meals, we chose France.  We made something that we've never made before...coq au vin and lemon-thyme bars for dessert.  It turned out even better than I could've imagined! It did take awhile and had many steps, but it was well worth it!

Ingredients for Coq Au Vin:

1 whole cut-up chicken

6 slices of bacon, sliced into lardons

1/3 bottle of red wine (we used cote du Rhone)

1 cup chicken stock

1/4 cup marsala wine

1 pound of carrots (we used baby carrots because that was on sale at Publix)

2 large onions (1 diced and the other sliced)

2 cups sliced mushrooms

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/4 cup flour

2 cloves minced garlic

Salt & pepper

1 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme

Parsley for garnish

Pre-heat oven to 325.

To start with, cook the bacon in a dutch oven at medium heat until crispy (about 10-15 minutes); meanwhile pat chicken dry with a paper towel and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and flour.  Once bacon is cooked, remove bacon and set aside, but leave the fat behind.  Add the chicken and brown chicken on both sides (about 10 minutes per side) at medium heat (chicken will finish cooking later), remove chicken from dutch oven.  In the same dutch oven, add the diced onion and carrots and thyme and cook until onion is softened, about 10 minutes.  Add the marsala, red wine, and stock, and some more seasoning.  Cook until liquid starts to boil, add the chicken back in, making sure it is completely submerged (add more stock if needed); place dutch oven in the oven and cook for 1 hour.

In a frying pan, add butter, oil, remaining onion, and mushrooms on medium heat.   Stir until butter is melted and then turn the temperature down to low.  Continue to cook and stir about every 10 minutes, for the same time as the chicken.  

Coq Au Vin

After, an hour, take the dutch oven out and put back on  a medium-low burner.  Check that the chicken is cooked (by this time, it should be falling off the bone).  Add the remaining flour to the onion/mushroom mixture and stir to get rid of any lumps. Add that into the dutch oven (this will thicken the sauce).  Add parsley and the cooked bacon to the dutch oven.  By this time it is ready to go, but you can continue reducing the liquid to get it to the desired consistency.  Serve with a garnish of fresh parsley. 

Vive La France (except when beating the US 4x100 men's swimming relay)

Lemon-Thyme Bars:

This recipe was taken from Giada on the Food Network.  Ryan made this one, and it turned out wonderfully!  Who knew I had a talented pastry chef as a husband!

Here's a link to the recipe:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/lemon-thyme-bars-recipe/index.html

Lemon Thyme Bars