Shopping for "All Things Beef"

This time around, our theme was beef. Don't worry, dessert was not beef, but instead we complemented our beef selections with a molten chocolate cake. The menu was:

• Beef Carpaccio with watercress, fried capers, and shitake broth by Casey Thompson (page 71)
• Crusted Ribeye with Carmelized Celery by Bryan Voltaggio (http://www.bravotv.com/foodies/recipes/crusted-rib-eye-with-caramelized-celery)
• Molten Chocolate Cake by Hung Huynh (page 230)

These recipes called for quite a list of ingredients; the shopping list was about a page and a half.
We started at the local Giant and found almost everything, except for creme fraiche, maldon sea salt, xantham gum, and a butcher that can thinly slice our beef for the carpaccio. Yes, we could have gotten a hunk of sirloin to cut ourselves, but I wasn't too sure of my slicing skills for that.

We then made our way to Whole Foods. Creme fraiche and maldon sea salt were easy to find. We also found xantham gum, but since we only needed 1/4 tablespoon for the ingredient, we didn't feel like spending over $10 for an ingredient we wouldn't really use again. We substituted that with gelatin.

The butcher at Whole Foods didn't have a slicer either, but luckily we found some "sandwich cut" sirloin that while not paper thin, was thin enough that it would do the trick.

Total spent: about $110 for dinner for 7

Next entry: the prepping, cooking, and eating of All Things Beef.