I believe I once heard many of Child's recipes from Mastering the Art were more in the vein of restaurant, rather than home, cooking. I like her Bouguignon recipe from The Way to Cook ( that is the book which taught me the most about how to cook and how to think about the process.)

This recipe from an old Cooking Light magazine is my beef stew recipe. I probably double or more the carrots, I love carrots. And my sons insist on the egg noodles.

Yum. My Le Creuset Dutch oven is a large oval one, too big for our small family. Can I use my smaller Danish Kobenstyle as a Dutch oven? Or isn’t it heavy enough? It’s my mother’s and I don’t think I’ve ever used it except for serving vegetables.

Any recipe that requires longer than an hour in the oven, I adapt to my slow cooker. The initial steps in these recipes would be done in a saucepan or dutch oven, but I'd then transfer all to a slow cooker (I put mine in the garage because I don't care for lingering cooking smells in the house). I have some Herbes de Provence from Trader Joe's that I need to use, so will hunt down a recipe. Localeater's looks good! I like the cloves...

This streamlined recipe from the NYT — A Boeuf Bourguignon In (Gasp!) Five Steps — is a great favorite. Another family pleaser is the “Beef Vegetable Medley” from The New Basics Cookbook — my teens will eat everything but the leeks!

Edited: if you have conquered Julia and are looking for another project, try Madeleine Kamman’s Beef Bourguignon from Fine Cooking. I have both Le Creuset and Staub Dutch ovens, but I still use Kamman’s technique of parchment paper and foil with all my braises.

I have Julia Child's The French Chef Cookbook, which is based on her shows. Unfortunately, it starts with the 14th show. She did kick off the series with Boeuf Bourguignon, but later on, she did it again. The Boeuf Bourguignon recipe in the cookbook is from the 96th show. It does read simpler that the Mastering recipe.

I am so happy you posted this, bpath. Our dutch oven is supposed to be delivered tomorrow and I bought the basic ingredients in anticipation as this is my favourite beef dish (just in general, I haven't tried Julia's). I did forget about the egg noodles, but maybe I'll do mashed potatoes.

We use the original recipe from Mastering. It's one of our absolute favorites, Don't leave out the onions and mushrooms!

Sushi, I ran out of time and onions!

Elunia, I couldn’t find that recipe. The free access to their menu database took me to only one BB recipe. Which looks really good, too!

Suero, I will check if we have that The French Chef cookbook somewhere. My mother had many! I’ve given so many away to our library cookbook sale, and there are still more!

Feathers, I use my crockpot, too, and now that I am experimenting with stews and daubes and the like, and with the Dutch Oven besides, I am trying Recipes using both! The crockpot is nice in normal times when I might be gone, especially in the hours before dinner time. Now that I’m not running around in the afternoons, the Dutch oven is good, too.

BPath - I did the same project as you; I read the book, saw the movie (many times) have the cookbook. The only part I didn't do was cook the meal! I will at some point. I had so much fun. Maybe I'll put the movie in for a re-watch soon. Thanks! (I've mentally shopped for ingredients many times. Too weird)

I'm going to have to watch the movie. I regrettably missed it when it came out but now that my whole family is in one place, I've been cooking more than ever. Would love it for some new ideas and the entertainment.

Skinny, it’s not as scary as I once thought! She includes little notes on what to serve things with, whether it’s good for company, and techniques and tools. And then there are little morsels like this: “Petits pois frais à la française — This dish is considered the glory of pea cookery; it should really be served as a separate course and eaten with a spoon.” The glory of pea cookery! I can hear her saying that! And, delightfully, this recipe is followed by ones to perk up frozen and canned peas.

Daisy, what’s the first thing you’re going to cook in your new Dutch oven? Remember to share a picture!

Feathers - by all means watch the movie. It's just plain fun and good for any age. You might be able to find it on Amazon Prime or even YouTube. We want a full report!

It took me a while figure out that Julie was making more than one recipe per meal. For example, the bœuf bourgignon has two other recipes as part of it, for the onions and for the mushrooms. And besides that Julie was sometimes making side dishes, too, but not always from Mastering. And after watching the movie, I wondered how they had dinner at a reasonable time? Turns out they didn’t, they often had dinner at 9 or 10.

That must have been a very expensive year!

I’m watching Mad Men and Megan Draper was making bœuf bourgignon in a Kobenstyle—and a yellow one like mine! Mine is a tad smaller, but it will hold enough for us three. So, thanks Mad Men, good to know!

If you enjoyed the movie, you might enjoy reading the book: My Life in France (which her nephew wrote with her if I recall), on which the movie was partially based. Also, there’s a book about Julia and the cats she lived with throughout her life: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=2ahUKEwigjqmJm_voAhVxZTUKHcd1B5YQFjADegQIBRAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fjuliascats.com%2F&usg=AOvVaw0v-YPrd27Os90AlWEMLX5k. 🥰🐱

My Chicago PBS station has been running 2 episodes of Dishing with Julia at 10pmCT on Fridays

https://www.thekitchn.com/pbs-dishing-with-julia-child-23008374

The Julie & Julia book by Julie Powell was also good, I enjoyed both it and the movie. Also love the bb recipe, and we do use the pearl onions, but no 'shrooms, neither DH nor I like them. We also love her creamed spinach recipe, and often make that with grilled steak or steak au poivre. And now I'm craving dinner food at 8:25 am.

Lakeaffect, Mastering does have a whole chapter on eggs... for that breakfast craving. :)

bpath, good suggestion, I do love a good Eggs Benedict and we have plenty of good local eggs. I need to pull out my copy of Mastering (a garage sale find a couple decades ago) and check the section on les oeufs out.

I love Julia's beef bourguignon. I do the mushrooms and onions differently than the recipe. I have my grandmother's Mastering the Art of French Cooking cookbooks. The recipes I have made have been easy to follow, and have all been delicious. I also enjoyed the movie Julie and Julia and the book My Life in France.

Texanjana, you lucky duck. I don’t have volume 2. What year is your set from?

Tonight I made her beer-braised beef, because it is the next recipe after the bœuf bourgignon. Oh, my, so easy and so yummy. During our after-dinner walk we were still talking about how good it was. And, I used my Kobenstyle, just the right size for us and not as heavy as the LeCreuset!

I am lazy and use Ina Garten’s recipe for beef bourgignon. It’s good, as any recipe that calls for an entire bottle of red wine would be!