Boss is Coming to Dinner

Hey, y'all. I'm Paula Deen

You know, when it comes to making a good impression, it's important to put your best dish forward

And today I'm making a meal to impress the boss, a mother-in-law, or even the president

And I'm going to be starting with a gorgeous veal loin that's stuffed with roasted bell peppers and goat cheese and basil

And it looks just as good as it tastes. and then I'm putting together a delectable crab mousse

perfectly served in shells. And for dessert, it's a sweet and spicy

old-timey pumpkin roll cake that's sure to earn you extra brownie points

So if y'all are expecting someone important soon, stick around. You don't want to miss this one

The first dish that I'm going to be starting off with this morning is veal, and can't go wrong with veal

So let's go ahead and get started on it. Now we're going to start with a long piece of boneless veal

and this one's rather on the thin side. So I'm going to cut it one time

I'm going to butterfly this one time, make it like a bifold

And I'm going to make sure that I don't go all the way through. Make sure you've got a sharp knife for this

Now that I've got it cut, I can come on in here and finish butterflying it

All right. Now this is what Gertie's been waiting on, isn't it, girl

We're gonna cover this meat so that I won't get meat juice all over me

And we're just gonna start pounding. We don't want it to come apart, so we'll concentrate more on the edges

This is gonna help make it even more tender. Somebody just said I look like Wilma Flintstone

Okay, so I think that'll get it. So now we've got it pounded out

I'm going to put a little house seasoning. All right, I'm going to wash my hands real quick like..

Now we're going to mix some cheeses together. I'm going to mix an herb-flavored goat cheese and a chive-flavored cream cheese together

And this is going to be part of the stuffing that goes in our veal

We're going to save out about a quarter of this because we're going to be making us a sauce later on

Now, I've got a pot of boiling water. We are going to blanch and shock some arugula

And that doesn't take but just a minute. Just that quick. I'm going to put it out over here on my towel to dry

All right, now I'm going to take about 16 leaves of basil

Nice big leaves. I'm going to do the same thing with that

I'm getting ready to stuff the veal

All right. The first thing we're going to do is take our arugula that we've blanched

and we're going to lay it out in about a two-inch-wide strip

And then we're going to take roasted yellow peppers. All right, now we're going to go with a layer of sun-dried tomatoes

I just love them, love them. And now we're going to go with our cheese

We're going to save about a quarter of that later on for our sauce

So you'll want to make sure you remember to save you some

All right, now we're going to come with our basil, roll it along, and you can see all the beautiful colors that this has

All right, so now we're going to roll this up, jelly roll style, just like that

Tuck everything in. All right, now I'm going to take about six pieces of twine

I know that probably most people do their entertaining in restaurants now because our time schedules are just horrid But this is so nice if you can take time to do this This needs to go in the refrigerator

and sit for at least six hours. So I would just wrap this one in plastic wrap

and I've got one here ready. Mmm

And we're gonna have to kind of curl him around in the pan because I don't have a pan that wide

So we're just going to curl him around. Add just a little olive oil to that

Now I'm going to just lay him down in this pan. And, oh, he's all right

So I'll take a quick break, and when we come back, we're going to get this in the oven

So join me back because not only are we going to finish cooking this

we're going to be making a heavenly crab mousse. While y'all were gone, I got the veal browned

and now we're ready to wrap him in a little pig and get him in the oven

So I'm going to come over here. I've got eight pieces of bacon. Going to just nestle them up together

There we go. All right. Now we're going to take this luscious piece of meat

and lay it right there. And then we're just going to fold our bacon over him just like that

And then we're just going to tuck, tuck. Now we're going to put him in a preheated 375-degree oven

and we're going to cook him to an internal temperature of about 140

You can see how beautiful he's gonna be when we slice him. In the meantime, let's start on our sauce

that we're gonna have to pour over him. And I'm gonna throw in our shallots

I'm just gonna run those around in all those brown crispies. Now I'm gonna take some chicken stock

and pour over the shallots. and let this cook until it's reduced

to probably about half that size. And then we'll come back to that

But for right now, let's move over to our crab mousse. This dish is so good

All right, I'm gonna take some water and I've got one packet of plain gelatin

So I'm just gonna pour that over there and let that bloom. Let that just sit for a minute

Give it a little stir. All right, and in this saucepan, I'm gonna add a can of cream of mushroom soup and an 8-ounce package of softened cream cheese

This is gonna be just delectable. All right, now we're gonna heat these two ingredients together until they're hot and bubbly

And then we're gonna be adding our gelatin just as soon as it's dissolved, and I think it's all right

So we'll pour that in, and that's gonna make our mousse tighten up for us

All right, you'll want to make sure that you use your whisk so that this won't be lumpy

And this is smoothing out beautifully, so that's great. All right, now I'm gonna add some spring onion

or green onion tops. I'm gonna add some celery. and this is very close to done. It gets starting to bubble

Now I'm going to want to switch utensils because I'm going to be folding in our crab meat

and I don't want to tear that up. I want it to still be in those big clumpy lumps

because we paid a lot of money for lump crab. So in that goes

along with the lemon juice, the Worcestershire, and the seasoning salt

And I'm just going to fold that in rather gently. I'm going to serve mine in the shell because I think they're so cute

It's going to give us such a variety with our meal. All right

You can see that I've reduced our chicken stock and our shallots

I'm going to throw in some lemon juice, some capers, and I've got some fresh parsley

And then I gonna whisk in our butter

All right. I hear the veal. I know it's ready because Gertie's sniffing

Oh. Look how delicious. All right. He's just beautiful

Now, how good are you going to look when you serve this meal? You'll have him eating out of your hands for at least a week

And I'm going to let him cool for a minute. I can't hardly wait

To taste. I've just got to try our crab mousse. So yummy

But this is what I can't wait to wrap my lips around

It's so good. All right, I've tasted our savory jelly roll. Coming up next is a sweet jelly roll

Pumpkin jelly roll up next. Well, we're going to go to just a little bit of trouble for today's dessert

but it's going to be worth it. I'm going to throw in some dark rum in the saucepan

and I'm gonna put in some plain gelatin, and we're gonna just heat this up

All right, that's dissolved, so pour that in there and let it get cool

Now to make our pumpkin roll cake, I'm gonna start by beating up our six egg whites

until they're stiff, and I'm sorry, but this is the boring part. All right

Now we'll just push those over to the side. Now over here, I've got three-fourths of a cup of cake flour

And we're just going to run those through the sifter along with cinnamon, ginger, and some allspice

All right. Now I'm going to cream our six yolks, granulated sugar, and my brown sugar

And we're just going to cream this together. We've got that nice and creamy and a pretty yellow color

And now we're going to add our pumpkin. This is just an ordinary canned pumpkin

Now I'm going to fold our batter into our egg whites

Oh, it smells so good. All right, so we're going to take that and fold it together

and I've got a prepared jelly roll pan sitting here waiting on me

that I've lined with parchment paper because we want our cake to come out easy

All right, now we're going to just pour our batter in. We're going to put this into a preheated 375-degree oven

and we're going to let it bake for about 15 to 18 minutes

Mmm, and you'll want to make sure that you level it out good so it'll be even

I'm gonna give it a little shake to make sure it spreads out evenly

All right, so 375 for 15 to 18 minutes, but you know I've got another cake ready

You know we ain't cooking just one cake. So let's pull this one out and see if it's ready

Oh, look at that cake. All right, we'll want to be very gentle now at this point

I'm going to ease him off. Now I'm going to dust him with powdered sugar

All right now I very gently going to curl up this edge And the cake still hot so you can use your towel to roll him up And I going to pull that parchment paper away

And a tip that I have in my dessert book on jelly rolls

When you're making jelly roll cakes, you can always trim the edges off your jelly roll

and it'll roll up nice and easy for you. Now we're gonna pop him in the fridge and let him chill

because we can't run the risk of using a cold filling and a warm cake, so this has got to chill

This is a must. Okay, but I've got one chilled in here

And I've got some whipping cream. Now we're gonna gently unroll this cake

All right, that's as far as I'm gonna open the jelly roll

And I'm gonna take some fresh whipped cream, and I'm gonna fold in our gelatin and rum

Mmm, that smells good. And I'm gonna take six tablespoons of an English toffee

These are English toffee bits, and you can buy them in the baking section at the grocery store

All right, and I'm going to take some extra toffee chips and just run them close to that line

Look how beautiful he looks. So now I'm just going to fold that gently back together

Now I'm gonna take a knife and I'm gonna cut mine in two

place him on the platter, seam side down. Start by dusting it with some powdered sugar

and I'm gonna drizzle it with a nice caramel sauce. Mm-hmm. A little extra topping

How beautiful is that? When we come back, I'm gonna share a good, quick one with you

I've got a little tip for you

And we're going to quickly make a stuffing for mushrooms. But I've got another chopped parsley, chopped green onions

a little parmesan cheese, and the cream cheese. And then I'm going to add the crab meat

along with a little house seasoning. All right, now I'm just gonna stuff this into our mushrooms

And the cream cheese with the crab is delicious. And that's all it is to it

Now we're gonna stick that in the oven and we're gonna bake it until it's hot. Now I'm gonna top them with a little breadcrumbs

I'm going to give it a spray with some nonstick cooking spray

and that'll just help it brown. Now, if you've got a portabella that needs to be used up

just take the gills out of the portabella, stuff in with our crab and cream cheese

a little house seasoning, a little breadcrumbs, a squirt, and in about 20 minutes, I'll have a hot appetizer

and I will serve this at the table. And it's yummy and no trouble

So I hope you like this one. I'm so excited to share these recipes with y'all today

The veal loin that's stuffed with that fresh basil and the goat's cheese and the crab mousse

it's just perfect for any time of year. And I don't think I have to say a word about this pumpkin jelly roll cake

I think it probably speaks for itself. Whether you got a boss coming, a client, or maybe even a new mother-in-law

I think all these recipes will have you shining like a bright star

And I've got one thing left to do, and that's to taste this pumpkin jelly roll cake

And I'll try to leave a little topping for the others. Until next time, America, I send y'all best dishes and love

From my fancy table to yours