I made my Beef Stroganoff for dinner last week because it was raining and chilly, and I wanted to have this winter regular in the Reeve house just one more time. Definitely too heavy for summer, with all that sour cream and beef. But awesome on a damp, cold night.

And entirely by accident, I flambéed for the first time! And it was so much fun that I did it again, but bigger!

I’m usually exceedingly careful when cooking with alcohol, especially because it’s taken me years to perfect the shape of my eyebrows and I cannot put them at risk now. But a splash of brandy from a heavy bottle (I used to always use whiskey in this recipe, but most recipes use brandy and it’s yummy) ignited on the stove in a big, exciting, not-that-scary fire. And my love of flambeeing was born. I grabbed my camera as the flames were dying, so I have no wonderfully dramatic pictures of the flames (it’s just a little extra-glowy and orange near the bottom of the pan, see?). Then I did it again, this time getting bold with a measuring cup full of brandy carefully poured in. Then I tilted the pan towards the fire like they do on Iron Chef and boom! Fire! But my camera battery died, and I could not get a better picture of the flames.

Next time I’ll have Adam standing ready to photograph my fancy new fire-taming trick. If I’m brave enough to actually do it again.