"Good morning David,

I cannot let the disparaging remarks about custard go unanswered.  Custard, as every Brit knows, is a food group of its own.  It is healthy (the milk), goes with absolutely any dessert, and , along with fish and chips, is a source of national pride.  Quite rightly so.  Perhaps one of the reasons the Brits adore it is because we were occasionally served it at school meals (this was in the days before pizza and other such food was served and (horrors!) now eaten with the hands).  It was only served every few week or so.  If word got out early enough in the morning, some kids would skip class to go home and beg for lunch money.  I remember going back for about 5 additional helpings and being sick the rest of the day.  But worth it, obviously.   Attendance at the cafeteria at least doubled.  Even my wife knows that there will be a year of marital strife if I am not served something with custard on my birthday.  So – no more comments on custard please, or I will have to retaliate by sending your name to the Custard Pie Appreciation Consortium (yes, there really is one).  I feel certain that they will not be as forgiving as I."

Well, that nicely puts me into my place. I'll never disparage custard again.

On that high note I'm off to my vacation. More tales when I get back.

Its Great to have our friends back!

Its really great to have our good friends Ruvé & Michael back with us. They've been away for the past few months in New Zealand visiting Ruvé's family and touring around in their 4WD vehicle. They did some amazing camping trips, seeing some very spectacular scenery. They had a great time, I think, are happy to be back home.

Them being them & us being us the first thing we did together was to have dinner. They like to cook as much as we do so we've had many a memorable meal together. We've also been lucky enough to visit some of the best restaurants in this part of the world. We both rate Le Vieux Pont in Belcastel as our favorite. In any case we did dinner last night. Nothing too fancy, but interesting. I'll describe it, but descriptions of the dished rather than full recipes. I'm feeling a bit lazy today after quite a bit of yard work earlier.

We started off with a nice bottle of sparkling wine Linda had bought at a local Gaillac winery during visit. It was very nice, lots of favor, dry, but not too dry. Every bit as good as a champagne. With that we just had some peanuts, corn nuts and olives. The weather was good so we were able to sit outside comfortably.

I started us off with a simple salad; lambs lettuce, rocket, mesulin & chives with a creamy vinaigrette (1 part vinegar, 4 parts olive oil, then an equal amount of full cream, Herbs de Province, garlic, salt & pepper.). Mixed in was fresh chevre chunks & roughly cut up sun dried tomatoes. This is a very simple great tasting salad which also is light enough not to fill one up before the main course.

As a main course we had roasted belly pork, creamed celery root & broccoli. The celery root is boiled in milk with a potato (about 1 part spud to 4 parts celery root) and a n onion. After 30 minutes of simmering you pour off the milk & let the vegetables dry, then puree them in a food processor. Add a few ounces of butter as you puree. Serve with chopped chives  sprinkled over the top. For the broccoli I steamed the broccoli until almost done while frying up some lardon & garlic. About 5 minutes before serving you put the broccoli in the pan with the lardons & garlic & sauté for a few minutes to finish off. Both of these are very nice vegetable dishes.

We were disappointed with the belly pork. Instead of doing it my normal way I tried a recipe I'd seen on TV from Raymond Blanc. He's one of my favorite chef's and normally I like his recipes. This one involved making an oriental inspired paste (5 spice, lemon grass, ginger, red pepper, garlic, ect.) and spreading this over the meaty side of the pork. You then let it marinate in the fridge for a few hours. Next you cook it, skin side up, at a low temperature for 21/2 hours in a water bath. Then you take it out, cool it & put weights on it to press it down & put it back in the fridge for another couple of hours. Finally out it comes and you fry it skin side down in some oil to crisp up the skin then put it into the oven to heat through. It not as much work as it sounds, its just time consuming.
Unfortunately, the flavor of the spices didn't really come through & the skin wasn't as crisp as it should have been. Thus it ended up being somewhat bland. Still you never know until you try. It wasn't bad just bland. I'll go back to my old way of cooking belly pork.

Of all things Linda did an old English school favorite; prunes with custard. I've never understood the English passion for custard, but they love it. She & Michael loved it. Ruve & I weren't so keen, but were happy enough.

We finished up with having a look at the pictures from New Zealand. Their were some great shots and its an amazing place.

WE had a great evening. Its so nice to have out friends back.

Madame President's Lunch

Linda was recently elected to be President of a ladies only group. They meet for coffee, lunch occasionally and have lots of Activity Groups ranging from Photography through Wine Tasting to Gardening and so on. They have a lot of fun. They call themselves Friends in France International, FIFI for short. They don't take themselves too seriously as you will see when their website is finished. At any rate we gave lunch to the officers and the leaders of the Activity Groups last Sunday. We men are only allowed on social occasions such as this or, I say, whenever there's money to be spent.

Being only March I was very dubious about having lunch outside. Linda was adamant that the weather would cooperate. The problem was that inside we can't seat 15 all at one table. We'd have to split it into two tables. Linda was quite rightly against this, but I didn't want to freeze our guests. We bickered back & forth on this all week and watched the weather forecasts like hawks. As you will see from the pictures below Linda was right (& lucky) the weather was beautiful. It didn't start getting a bit chilly until late in the afternoon & by then we'd all had plenty of wine to keep us warm.

Here's Linda preparing the fruit salad. My apples for the two Tart Tatin's I made are in the foreground.

I tried a new recipe for making the Tarte Tatin this time. Raymond Blanc is doing a series on TV and showed this recipe. (By the way he is a wonderful chef. Watch him if you get the chance. If you're ever in England go to his restaurant near Oxford for a superb meal.) They turned our well and were actually easier to make than my 'old' way.

At the right are the two large dishes of moussaka that Linda made. Hers is one of the world's great moussaka's. Rich in roast lamb, beef, a strong tomato sauce, eggplant (aubergine to the Brits) and a cheesy white sauce. It really is delicious and all the better for being made in advance. Yummy!

Here are the moussaka's, the bread and the serving platters for the green beans and the roast potatoes that we also served.

The bread from our local bakery is called a courenne and was so beautiful that I just had to take a separate picture of it.

Here are the bowls of salad we had as a starter. The salad was simple: Mixed lettuces, chevre, sun dried tomatoes with a creamy vinaigrette.

You may notice a bit of red wine in the background as well as some Normandy butter for the bread.

Here's the table all ready to go. As you can see the weather is cooperating, not a cloud in the sky.

                Some of the guys who were allowed to come.

                                                                                Some of the ladies. This was smokers corner!

Everybody enjoying drinks and the sun on the patio.

Pretty much everyone. This was after dessert and quite a bit of wine. Thus the relaxed happy faces. I think everyone had a good time.

That includes Rupert who had been given a large

rawhide bone. He kept trying to find a good place to

hide his treasure.

Finally, a happy Madame President at the end of the table.

It was a great lunch and a nice introduction to Spring.

The food & wine weren't bad either!

Hairy Bikers Cauliflower

Anybody who lives in the Uk and watches TV food programs will know exactly who the Hairy Bikers are. They're a pair of scruffy looking characters who tool around Great Britain cooking.  Sometimes they visit good restaurants and have a friendly cooking challenge with the chef using local ingredients, sometimes they cook at markets and sometimes they cook at their or somebody else's home. The point is that despite the scruffy looks & sometimes silly dialog these guys really can cook, and cook very well.

So, this week the BBC started a new series of cooking programs where they are trying to get people to make or buy better food. The program started with Michele Roux Jr. (who runs a 3 Michelin star restaurant) trying to convince people to buy & eat proper bread instead of the mass produced pap that passes for bread. He toured a few 'artisanal' bakeries and made some simple home made bread then did a couple of recipes using good bread. It was very interesting and I'll be trying at least two of the recipes which looked really good.

The Hairy Bikers followed with a piece on cauliflower. Apparently sales of cauliflower are declining in the UK and the farmers are suffering as a result. Thus this attempt to extol the virtues of the flower (yes, cauliflower is really a flower). In this case the Hairy Bikers managed to produce a recipe that both looked & sounded delicious. So I tried it and it was even better than I thought it might be. So here it is. I strongly encourage you to give it a try. It delicious, filling, healthy and not all that difficult.

INGREDIENTS:

1 head of cauliflower, trimmed
250g/9oz bacon cut into 1/2inch strips crossways
250g/9oz mushrooms finely sliced (brown or field mushrooms would be best, but plain white ones work well.)
25g/1oz butter
200g/2oz flour
250ml/9floz whole milk
a pinch of dry mustard powder
200g/7oz grated cheese (Gruyere or cheddar or any other cheese with a fairly strong flavor)
55ml/2floz full cream
a pinch of ground nutmeg
50g/2oz bread crumbs
50g/2oz grated parmesan cheese.

METHOD:

1. Break the cauliflower into florets. Cut the mushrooms into small pieces.
    
2. Place the cauliflower into boiling water & boil for about 10 minutes. Fry the bacon strips while this is going on.
    
3. When crisp remove the bacon strips saving the fat. Drain the bacon & fry the mushrooms in the bacon fat.
    
4. Drain the cauliflower well & let dry. Crumble the bacon strips. Remove the mushrooms from the heat & let cool in the pan.
    
5. Now make a white sauce by: melting the butter in a saucepan. Adding the flour stirring constantly. Then start adding the milk, still stirring (a whisk is handy here) until you have a smooth fairly thick sauce. Stir in the dry mustard. Stir in the grated Gruyere & the cream. Keep stirring until the cheese has melted. Season with salt & pepper.
   Fold in the mushrooms & bacon.
    
6. Heat an oven to 180c/350F.
    
7. Spread the cauliflower florets in an ovenproof dish; one layer thick if possible. Pour the sauce over them as evenly as possible.
    
8. Mix the bread crumbs & parmesan together then sprinkle them over the dish. Sprinkle over a final layer of freshly grated nutmeg.
    
9. Bake for 15 minutes or until everything is bubbling nicely & the top is golden brown. 
    
10. Serve immediately. (NOTE: I found that the dish reheats beautifully the next day. It also freezes well and Linda claims that its excellent when cold.)

Believe me this is delicious and very filling and very healthy and not expensive. Leave out the bacon and you have an excellent vegetarian dish.

Morning Walk

It was beautiful this morning. Just like Spring, except that I've been fooled before. No, its too early for real Spring; we've still got some bad weather to come. Still its nice to have what's forecast to be a few days of good weather. John & I are going to try playing golf on Tuesday.

Anyway being as it was nice I took the camera this morning & thought I'd show you what our normal morning walk looks like. Nothing dramatic, just some nice scenery & some nice fields Rupert can run in and hunt for deer, rabbits or hares. So, here we go:

Here we go out the gate onto the road. We turn right, up the hill.

We're going to go up the hill for nearly a mile before we reach the top. We only pass about 3-4 houses all on the right.
The good news is that we have views to our left all the way up.

Here's our first view with the village of Verfeil-sur-Seye below us. As you can see the village sits on a promontory above the river Seye at the bottom of the valley. The Seye isn't much of a river, more of a stream, but it pretty and it feeds into the Aveyron which is a proper river about 5 miles to the South (left in the picture)

Verfeil is not a very large village, but it has a lot of history. Typical for this area. My favorite story is one about during the beginning of the Albegenian crusades. It seems that the Pope had sent a number of his most persuasive theologians to engage in debates with the 'Perfects' of the Cathar religion. While they were debating in the church at Verfeil it was surrounded by the local knights who beat on their shields so loudly whenever the Pope's priests tried to speak that nobody could hear their arguments. Its a good story true or not and a lot gentler than what happened later.

Still heading up. We're just past the poubells here. The hameau of Poulhac is above us on our right.

  Here's the view from further up. Unfortunately its too hazy to see much.

We've reached the top now and have just parked the car. Again, its too hazy to see much.

Roop & I will head the other way now so we can see the view over to the next valley to the East.

Our direction is going to be towards Fauvel. Don't be confused these aren't town names; they're the names of farms.

Here we're just starting our walk. As you can see Roop is on his toes and looking for game straightaway.

Further down the lane. I would guess that this lane might see about one car per day plus the odd tractor. Certainly its a quiet and safe place to walk.

Two pictures of the view. Again my apologies for the haze. Here we're looking out over the next valley. This one is the valley of the Blaye, a small river just like the Seye running down to the Aveyron.

Here's a large farm complex across the fields. In fact some friends own the house where the crane is.

A bit further along and we can see both the farm and a small hameau. Every so often we walk down that way to make a large circuit. Not today, however.

The farm & hameau are to our left. To our right are these large fields. Happy hunting grounds for Rupert. He often chases deer or rabbits across these fields.

I think he's be even more surprised than I if he actually caught one.

Here's where we turn right & go up another small hill.

At the top. I must do this again on a clearer day as the views really are interesting.

In any case at this point Roop and I head back for the car. We've walked maybe a bit over a mile. Well. I have Roop has done at least three times that.

At the end of the walk we came across this nice old stump. It sort of looks the way I feel some mornings.

Anyway, back in the car as Roop was anxious to have his breakfast and I was ready for a cup of tea.

After that its work in the garden. Then writing this blog post.

Some pretty little lamb chops for dinner. Yummy!

A couple of recipe for friends

These recipes are for our very good friends who are spending a few months in New Zealand. She's actually a Kiwi & he's a Brit, but we forgive them that; at least most of the time. In an email recently they were bemoaning the fact that it was hard to cook good things on a little two burner gas camp stove. Well. although I largely agree there are a few thing you can easily cook in those limited circumstances.

They're not back packing so within reason space in their big 4WD isn't an issue, but in any case I'll limit these recipes to something you could cook if you were back packing. You could even cook these over an open fire if needs be. All you really need in terms of equipment is a pot, a frying pan, a knife & a large spoon.

Here's recipe #1 (these are for 2 hungry people)

Pasta carbonara

Ingredients:  1/2 lb pasta (I like to use Fuseli, but any easy to cook shape will do), 1/4 lb of lardons (or just cut up regular bacon rashers), a few cloves of garlic, 1/4 lb grated parmesan, 8 oz long life full cream, some herbs de Province plus salt & pepper.

Cooking:  Bring a bunch of water to a boil in the pot. When boiling add the pasta. Fry the lardons in the frying pan. When starting to brown add a few cloves of garlic (chopped). After a minute add the cream & bring it to the boil. When boiling add half of the cheese. Stir well to melt the cheese. Add the herbs. Drain the pasta which should al dente by now. If not turn the heat down under the lardon/cream/cheese pan. When the pasta is al dente turn the heat back up then dump the pasta into the pan & stir gently until the pasta is coated with sauce. Add the second half of the cheese at this point. A generous dab of pepper & you're there.
Eat it straight from the pan or if being civilized serve it on plates.

Recipe #2

Moules marinara

The ingredients are very simple. White wine (easy in NZ, right.) a large onion, one stalk of celery, some thyme a dab of butter and some mussels.

So, first you find your mussels. I'm assuming that this will be easy in the coastal areas of New Zealand. The green lipped mussels there are absolutely the best. Anyway, having found & picked you mussels all you need to do is clean & de-beard them. Chop the onion & celery and put it in your pot with the butter & let it sauté until the onions are soft. Add what's left of the wine (you're well into the bottle by now, I hope) and dump in all of your mussels. Let steam until all of the mussels have opened.
Open the second bottle of wine & gorge yourselves on the mussels.

Recipe #3

Fried Apples or pineapple

This is even easier. If you're doing apples peel & core them then cut them into 1/8ths. If you're doing pineapple cut off the outside & then slice it into 1/2 inch thick horizontal slices (I won't tell if you use canned pineapple) in either case melt a generous amount of butter in your frying pan then add about 1/4 cup sugar. When the sugar has blended in add the apples/pineapple slices & sprinkle on a nice coating of quatre spice (or a premix of ginger, nutmeg & cinnamon) . Sauté for a couple of minutes then turn over & do the same again. The fruit should be slightly singed at the edges.
Serve hot.

There you are my friends three easy recipes for camping out. Easy to find ingredients and very few utensils needed.

I hope you read this next time you are back in civilization & give them a try on your next wilderness foray. I'll look forward to hearing the results.

Yens & Cravings

Do you ever get a yen for something? Or should I say do you ever get a craving for something? I'm really not sure there's a difference or even if it matters if there is. At any rate every so often I get a craving for something, usually food related. For example, last time we lived in the states I used to get a yen for some comfit or a proper English pork pie. I'd go to a lot of trouble to get the item even if I had to make it from scratch myself. Even earlier, living in Europe I would get a craving for things like Fritos or a proper American hamburger. ( I remember a place in London that was quite a hit making good hamburgers; it was called 'The Great American Disaster'!!)

Recently my yen/craving has been for corned beef hash. Don't ask why because I don't know. The craving came into my head and for a few days I couldn't help thing about a nice portion of corned beef hash topped wit a poached egg or two. I started looking up corned beef hash recipes on the net, there were thousands of them, but they were mostly all the same. OK, I wasn't going to find corned beef hash in any French restaurant that's for sure so I had to make it myself.

Our favorite supermarket unusually sells corned beef in tins from Argentina. Sure enough, however, just because I really wanted some they'd discontinued it. Not enough turnover I guess. Fortunately, I was able to buy some at Netto which is a cheap & cheerful cut rate supermarket. Now with some potatoes, onion & eggs I was all set.

I'll give you my recipe, but its not going into the Recipe Index. Its too simple & too generic. If my yen inspires you to make corned beef hash then make up your own recipe.

Here's what I did: I chopped an onion up pretty finely, then cut 3 medium sized potatoes up into a dice (didn't bother to peel them), opened the tin of corned beef. I put the potatoes into boiling water & the onions in a hot frying pan with a bit of oil. I drained the potatoes after about 4-5 minutes of boiling & made sure they were dry. By now the onions were starting to brown a bit -good. I put the potatoes into the frying pan with the onions & stirred until the potatoes started to brown. Meanwhile I'd cropped up the corned beef into small chunks. When the potatoes were browned I put in the corned beef added salt & pepper & stirred. I turned the heat down a bit & poached the eggs.

I took the hash out of the pan onto a plate & put two softly poached eggs on top. Yummy!!

My craving satisfied. I liked it so much that I made another batch the next day to share with Jacques for lunch. He's never had corned beef hash before, but he liked it.

The next day, yesterday, I made fairly decent hamburgers. Think I m

Dorie Dinner

I mentioned the Dorie Greenspan cook book, "around my French Kitchen", a couple of posts ago. Since then I've had more time to go through it and I continue to like what I'm reading. Her recipes are well thought out & well presented. As I mentioned before I like her little asides about France & French customs. They ring true and are enlightening for anybody interested in France & its culture.

Today I decide to cook an all Dorie dinner for Linda & I. After some study I ended up trying four of her recipes. Curried chicken, peppers and pea in papilotte (page 211); garlicky crumb coated broccoli  (page 334); go-with-everything celery root puree (page 354) and piperade stir fry (page 341. I though this might be an interesting combination and it turned out that I was right.

The vegetables nicely complimented the chicken which was very nice, not to mention very easy to do. The celery root is a definite keeper and makes a nice change from mashed potatoes. I've always liked piperade & Dories' version  is very nice indeed. The broccoli is an old favorite & Linda loves it. The various flavors blended well and the food looked nice on the plate; not spectacular, but nice & substantial. Just the meal for a blustery late winter day.

I'll definitely try more of her dishes. I can't say that I'll work my way through the book because many of the dishes are ones I already know and as with any cook book there are recipes that I'm just not interested in.

In any case here are a few notes & observations on the dishes I cooked tonight.

The Chicken. - A great recipe just the way it is. For my taste she got the amount of curry powder just right. I certainly wouldn't use more, or less for that matter. You do need to make the foil packets as large as possible to give the chicken room. Ours ended up sort of lumped together in the packets. This didn't hurt anything, they were fully & nicely cooked, but it didn't make for a great presentation.

The Broccoli. As I say an old favorite. To be honest I don't think that the bread crumbs add much to the dish. Its hard to get them to actually coat the floret's. Next time I'll leave them out.

The celery root. Definitely a keeper. Very smooth & delicious. The celery root flavor comes through very nicely. My only question is over the use of half whole milk & half water. Why not low fat milk Or all whole milk? Or even a light cream? I'm going to mess around with this a bit to see what happens. Still, as is, an excellent recipe.

The Piperade. I like Dories' version even better than my own! That's saying something for me as I like my own version a lot. Linda suggested that maybe the onion & garlic cold be added just at the end of cooking the peppers. This is a good idea & one I'll try. Also, I'll play around a bit with the ratio of onion to pepper.

Since all of these recipes are for four people & I made whole recipes we have another whole meal to play with tomorrow (except the broccoli). I can't wait for the piperade after a day in the fridge; I suspect it will be even better.

So far I can highly recommend this book. I don't buy many cook books these day, but I'm glad I bought this one.

Valentine/ Birthday Lunch

Linda has her birthday on Valentines day which is a good thing now that my memory is getting more & more fallible. Monday is a bad day for restaurants in our part of France so we decided to go out for a Sunday lunch. Sunday lunch is a big deal in France & all the restaurants do something special.

Our favorite Le Vieux Pont is closed from their annual vacation which was unfortunate as we love the place. Instead we went to Lou Cantoun in Casserole. Now Casserole is more of a hamlet than a village. A very pretty little hamlet, but just not very big and not where you would expect to find a high class restaurant. In fact we've only recently discovered it even though we've lived in this area for nearly ten years.

Outside the restaurant is nothing special to look at. Clean, neat, welcoming, but nothing special. Inside in addition to a long bar there are two dining rooms. Both simply, but stylishly done. Stone walls, very old beams, well spaced tables nicely set. A nice ambience, one feels comfortable. Service is friendly & professional. Just a nice place & a nice feeling overall.

There was a special Valentines menu which although it looked nice didn't appeal to us quite as much as one of the regular set menu's. We chose the 'air' menu. (there were also 'sky', 'earth' and 'sea' menus.) Once we'd chosen a little 'amuse' of a small cup of pumpkin soup with a foam topping arrived.

 Linda started with quenelles of sea bass with a basil sauce. She liked it a lot. I chose the pig's trotters; the meat had been slowly cooked, taken off the bone & formed into a small log. The sauce was light vinegar & shallots. Delicious.

Linda went with more fish as her main course. Her fish was morou which is a white delicate fish. (I'm not sure what we call it in English.) Se declared it - Yummy! I had the Magret. Cooked very rare as requested and served with reduction of shallots, red wine & thyme. Again, very very nice.

The cheese course was three slivers of local cheeses. Two were sheep's cheese; one very young & light & the other older & more robust. The third was a Tome which is a cows milk cheese. Just enough to prepare us for dessert.

Dessert was the highlight of the meal. We had both chosen profiteroles. These turned out to be probably the best profiteroles either of us have ever had. I don't say this lightly as I fancy myself as a pretty good maker of profiteroles myself and I've eaten a lot of them in restaurants. The were three on the plate. The choux pastry was perfect; light & crispy. The homemade vanilla ice cream was very rich & delicious. The chocolate sauce was excellent (the French have way with chocolate.) and was topped with freshly toasted almonds. Sheer heaven!

A really really nice meal. Our wine was local. A Gaillac called 'Galien' from a Domaine that I know & respect. IN deference to Linda's birthday & her fishy meal it was an oaked white. Very nice & very interesting. I'm not sure of what grape varieties it was made from. I'll have go & ask them & probably buy some for home.

All in all a nice way to celebrate Valentines & my wife's birthday.

Off now to run a wine tasting with a group of locals. We're tasting Quercy wine this evening.

Just a few thoughts

No single topic for this post, just a few semi-random thoughts.

Like much of the world I've been watching the events in Egypt and the rest of the middle East unfold. So far, so good. I just hope that all of those people will end up with better governments and start to prosper. Certainly it will take time, but hopefully the youth of these countries will have a better life. Fingers crossed for them.

Its Linda's birthday tomorrow so we're going out to lunch today since Monday's not a good restaurant day in our area even if it is Valentine's day. Our very favorite restaurant, Le Vieux Pont, is closed for their annual vacation so we're going to Lou Cantoun in Cestayrois.  We've never been there for a Sunday lunch before, but judging by their normal meals it should be excellent.  All the local restaurants tend to do something special for Sunday lunch. I'll let you know what it was like.

I just brought myself a copy of a new cook book; its 'Around my French Table' by Dorie Greenspan. I'd read a lot about it on eGullet where many members seem to be cooking their way through it. So far I've only cooked one dish from it, more on that in a bit.

What I really like is that in addition to the recipes Dorie has a lot of small asides about life & customs in France. These are interesting and ring very true. All the ones I've read echo my own experiences or my knowledge of the French & their customs. The book is worth buying just for these.

The recipes are good through. I've read a lot of them & seem many that I've either done (many are 'classic' French) or very much like the sound of. The one I've tried is her version of the classic Daub de Bœuf. She does it slightly differently than I normally do; more carrots & more garlic, a mixture of onions & shallots, but not all that different. The problem was in the beef. I used beef that I'd purchased to make Boeuf Bourguignon, Dorie recommends  chuck steak. They should be just about the same cut. The problem was that even after her recommended cooking times my beef was still somewhat tough. I put this down to the normal problems I have with French beef. Next time I'll cook it even longer & probably let it age overnight. Despite the beef it was very tasty.

I can easily recommend this book. Especially to my American readers. There are for me two problems with the book. First the measurements are all American. (I've had to dig out my old measuring stuff.) and, secondly, its heavy. The book is beautifully printed on heavy stock with excellent photos, but it weighs a ton. Hard to hold & read.

That's it for now. I've got to make myself pretty for my wife.
 

Mushroom Soup - Again

Yes I know I posted a mushroom soup recipe some time ago, but I must say that its one of my favorites. Simple, nourishing, cheap and delicious. It bears repeating I think. This is pretty much the same version, but this time I've done the recipe with pictures so anyone can easily follow along.

Here we go:

The 'mise en place' so to speak.

-Mushrooms

-Dried mushrooms ( Cčpes in this case) that have been soaked in warm water for 10 minutes

-Butter

-An onion

-Whole cream

-Thyme

As to quantities, its up to you. Here I have a pound of mushrooms, probably 3 oz of dried mushrooms, one onion. Not shown is about a liter of stock, either chicken or vegetable.  The amount of cream (I used 3/4 liter) to stock is up to you. The more cream the richer the soup (& the more calories) The butter is just enough to sauté the onions then sweat the mushrooms.

1) Chop up the onions & place them in your soup pot with the butter. Sauté gently until the onions are soft, but not browned.

2) While the onions are cooking chop up the mushrooms. Cut off the root end & cut them int quarters. (Having brushed them to clean beforehand)

3) When they are all cut up & the onions are soft add the mushrooms to the pot.

4) Let the mushrooms cook, stirring frequently, until they soften. DO NOT let them cook so much that they start to give off their water.

5) Add the dried mushrooms & cook some more with lots of stirring.

6) After no more than 5 minutes add the stock & the water from the soaked mushrooms.

7) Stir well & bring to a simmer. Simmer for 5 minutes then turn the heat down.

8) When the mixture has gone off the boil add the cream & the thyme. (I like to use a generous hand with the thyme)

9) Bring the soup back up to a simmer & let cook for a few minutes. Turn the heat down.

10) Puree the soup with an immersion blender or in a food processor.

That's it! I've broken the steps down, but really they're pretty easy & fast.

The mushroom soup is delicious & just the thing for a cold day. Given the recent weather in the states its an ideal dish. Enjoy!

Duck Season

Now that all of the holidays are over its duck season in the French super markets. They're not only selling off lots of Foie gras, but every other bit of the duck you can imagine. There was a big section with two large cold displays filled with pieces of duck at my favorite supermarket when I went shopping today. I bought two duck breasts (maigret) at a very nice price & a stuffed duck neck.

You know the old expression that they eat everything but the squeal when it comes to pigs? Well they not only do that in France, but they eat everything, but the Quack as well!

I've scanned in some ads from a supermarket flyer to give you an idea of what's available & at what price. My apologies for the image quality, but they are from a poorly printed flyer.

Best quality Foie Gras at about $16.00 a pound. Don't know what the prices are like in the states if you can even get it. Note the 20% discount for regular customers.

            At the left some 'cheap' Foie Gras at roughly $ 11.50 a pound. Now, I'm not enough of an expert to tell the difference so I'd probably buy the cheaper type.

To be honest, Foie Gras is so tricky to cook that I usually buy pre-cooked. It fun to try doing it yourself, but expensive.

So much for the expensive stuff. Here's a look at my favorite. Magret!

As you can see at the left duck breasts are going for only about $5.00 per pound. Delicious & very hard to beat. Serve with some 'Ailliade de Toulouse' and you're in heaven.

Note that on the right they're selling the duck carcass for only $ 0.90 per pound. They call this when roasted 'friton'. The idea is to pick all of the delicious bits of meat off the bone.

        Here we have duck gizzards (Geseirs)  for $ 3.50 per pound. They're mainly used in a local salad dish which is very tasty. They're just fried up & sliced. Yummy!

Also, you see some duck hearts (Coeur) advertised at $1.85 a pound. They're mainly used in pates & terrines or as flavoring in a stew.

And, there's duck fat (Graisse de canard) for $1.45 a pound. I rarely buy any as I get enough from cooking other bits of duck; but I do always have big sealed jar of it in my fridge.

A prize to anyone who knows what "pelure" is. Its cheap enough at under a dollar a pound.

Last, but not least are the 'cuisses' , the leg/ thigh pieces at $ 1.80 a pound or thereabouts. These of course are the most popular cut for making comfit de canard. 'Manchons' by the way are just the lower leg part of the duck at about a dollar per pound. They're cheap because that part of a duck's leg isn't very meaty.

Again, although I used to make my own comfit I don't bother anymore since I can but it cheaply & of high quality without any of the work. There are, however, some really nice recipes for cuisse that is fresh & not preserved. These I do cook from time to time.

Because they weren't advertised I haven't got a picture of the whole duck carcass less the Foie Gras that they also sell. Unfortunately, I can't remember the price per pound that they were selling at.

So, that that's the duck with no part left out. You can see why its popular; inexpensive & delicious.

Yet another reason why I love living in France.

Bits & Bots

At last the weather has warmed up a bit. It was up to 0° C this morning. A welcome change. The forecast is promising as well.

For those who read yesterday's post I can tell you the the pear tarte tatin was delicious. We'll have the rest for lunch today. Try it, you'll like it.

I've had a couple of nice inputs from readers which I'd like to share with everyone. ( by the way I love getting feedback, comments & suggestions. The more the merrier!)

The first tip is from Charles in New Orleans. He raves about a dish he had at this restaurant: http://www.coquette-nola.com/. The dish was lamb neck with merguez sausage over barley. Sounds good to me. Looking at the restaurant's website I see quite a few other dishes that look very good. Don't know when, if ever, I'll get back to New Orleans (I'm more likely to visit the original Orleans here in France), but I think its a good tip for those of you who live in the states & may well visit New Orleans. Thanks for the tip Charles!

The second tip comes from Gordon in Atlanta. He cooked the chili recipe that I recently posted. He accompanied it with a warm salad of port & mushrooms. Which sound delicious to me & which Gordon says complemented the chili very well. Here's the address. Although the recipe calls for Sherry Gordon used Post instead and says it worked very well. I'm certainly going to give it a try soon. Gordon claims to be a novice cook, but I'm not so sure that that isn't a typical bit of British understatement.

I was sad to read today that Mark Bittman the long time food writer at the New York Times is retiring. His columns have been an inspiration to me for many years. I love his straightforward approach to food & cooking. He manages to make things simple yet delicious. His modestly titled book "How to Cook Everything" is great. If you don't have it I urge you to go out & buy it. Here's a huge long link to today's article where Mark chooses his top 25 recipes. This will also lead you to his blog & other links.

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/the-minimalist-chooses-25-of-his-favorites/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha210.

On a personal note I'm happy to say that our new summer kitchen/laundry room & TV/office are getting there. Patrick, the electrician, is moving forward rapidly and now has the air conditioning/ heating unit up & running. Really necessary in this cold weather. At the same time Jacques has the new windows & door in so that the rooms are weather tight. I'll be ecstatic when I have two ovens again.

I'll stop now as I need to get lunch ready. We're having curried pumpkin soup, wilted spinach salad, cheese & Pear tarte tatin. Plus a bit of wine of course.

Pear Tart Tatin

Our weather is still cold. Unusual for us that it should last so long. Anyway, being indoors & hungry I started thinking about food. How surprising you say? Well not really. In any case I had to go shopping & while I was in the fruit & vegetable department

 (A side note: They have one of these fancy weighing machines which shows you a pictorial list of everything; you just poke that picture & out come the stick on price slip. Neat, huh? All except that I wanted to buy some parsnips, panais in French. No such picture or written description. Its only recently that you are able to find parsnips in France at all & to see them start to be available in the big Supermarkets is really new. Anyway I took my parsnips to the checkout & told the girl that I couldn't find a price for them. She asks "what are they?". Panais I say. Oh she says & phones the vegetable Department. A guy comes. He grabs my parsnips & goes rushing off. He comes back in a few minutes & now they have a price slip. It says Jerusalem artichokes-parsnips! Go figure.)

Anyway they had some very nice looking pears on offer. This reminded me that I've been wanting to try making a pear tatin for quite a while. So I bought some plus some ready made flaky pastry & away I went. Here's the pictorial recipe:

Here are the ingredients:

- Pears

-Butter

-Sugar

-Flaky pastry

-Cinnamon

-1/2 a lemon

Heat oven to 375 degreed F.

Melt some butter in the frying pan you're using to make the tart (NOTE: the pan must be oven proof)

Melt the butter

Add sugar. 

Cook, stirring, until the sugar melts & turns brown.

Take the syrup off the heat & let cool a bit.

Peel & halve the pears. Cut our the core by making two V shaped cuts.

As you cut the pears place them into a bowl with a bit of sugar, the juice of the half lemon and some cinnamon.

Arrange the pears carefully in the still hot syrup. Its best for appearances to place them with the center side up. You also may want to cut some of the halves into smaller pieces once the bottom of the pan is covered. This will make for a more even crust and pears that aren't too deep when cooked.

Place the pan back on a high heat. The syrup will start to bubble. When it does use a spoon or bulb baster to baste the tops of the pears.

Cook for roughly 15 minutes or until the pears start to soften.

When the pears start to soften place the pastry over them, cut the edges & tuck into the pan & make a few air holes in the top.

The best way to get the pastry on evenly is to fold it in half before trying to place it over the pears.

Place the pan in the top half of a 370 degree F oven. Cook for about 20 minutes or until the crust is nicely browned.
If the syrup is still too runny cook the tart on the stovetop for few more minutes.

There we are. I can't show you the tricky bit which is turning the hot tart over.

The only advice I can give is to hold the plate close to the pan & be brave. A quick flip works best.

Its pretty though and I can't wait to taste it when we have it after dinner this evening.

The rest of tonight's menu is Curried pumpkin soup & wilted spinach salad with chevre & lardons. Can't wait!

A Fantastic Fish Dish

This is a truly delicious dish. I've called it a dish because I'm not sure whether its a soup or a stew. Not that that matters because whatever one calls it, its delicious. We got the recipe from our friend Sheila who is no mean cook and who served it to us one Sunday lunch. We liked it so much that we begged her for the recipe. She being a kind soul obliged and gave us the recipe. She'd gotten it from somewhere she couldn't remember. Whoever came up with it first deserves lots of praise as it certainly is the best fish stew/soup recipe ever.

One of the great things about this recipe is that its simple to make, can mostly be done in advance & easily finished off just before serving and requires no really hard to get ingredients. Any cook of any skill level can make it. At the same time it is a dish that will impress guests; an ideal dinner party main course.

Here's what you need & do:

Ingredients:

• 1 yellow onion
   
• 1 fennel bulb
   
• 1 green bell pepper
   
• 1 red bell pepper
   
• 2 carrots
   
• a large tin of whole tomatoes or 6 large fresh tomatoes
   
• A bay leaf or two
   
• a small bunch of parsley
   
• 2 lbs of white fish. Any kind you like, cod is excellent.
   
• 1 lbs of RAW prawns. ( as an extra you can add mussels &/or clams if you like)
   
• 1/4 pound calamari  (just the rings are fine. if large cut the calamari into rings.
   
• A lemon
   
• Salt, pepper & cayenne pepper.

Method:

1. Chop the onion finely then gently sweat it in olive oil until soft, but not browned.
    
2. Meanwhile chop up the red & green peppers, the carrot & the fennel.
    
3. When the onion is soft add all of the other chopped vegetables and the tomatoes. Add water to cover them well & simmer, covered, for about an hour.
    
4. Next peel the prawns and remove the meat of any clams or mussels you are using. Set the fish aside.
    
5. Put all of the shells into a pot & cover with white wine. Add the bay leaf & some chopped parsley. Simmer slowly for a couple of hours.
    
6. When both stocks are ready, liquidize the vegetable stock then strain it. Strain the fish stock & discard the bone & shells.
    
7. Once you have made these two stocks you can proceed immediately or wait until 15-20 minutes before serving or you can store the stocks in the fridge for a few days.
    
8. When ready to serve mix the two stocks together and season to taste with the Salt, pepper & cayenne.
    
9. Heat the soup to the simmering point. Do not boil. When heated add all of the fish & simmer for 3 minutes or just until the fish is cooked.
    
10. Just before serving add the juice of 1/2 the lemon.

That's it! The soup/stew can be served as is with some nice crusty bread.

For a more elaborate version & to give the dish the full French treatment do as follows:

• Cut some French bread into 1/4 inch rounds & toast them.
   
• Make an Aļoli. Lots'!
   
• Shred some cheese. Gruyere is ideal, but a mild cheddar works well. Again, lots as your guests will use it once they've started.

Put each of these into separate bowls and put them on the table for your guests to serve themselves.
 

The tradition thing is now to place a toasted bread round on top of your bowl soup; add a dollop of Aļoli onto the toast then cover that with some cheese. The amounts to add are up to each individual.  Delicious! Also very impressive as a dinner party dish.

If you've never had this kind of fish stew give it a try. Its delicious, just as good as bouillabaisse if not better and a damn sight easier to make. Believe me!

Sunday Market

It was a beautiful morning today so Linda & I decided to go to market. Normally only one of us goes, but today we decided that Linda would do the shopping so I could concentrate on taking pictures. We're still playing with our new camera. I can certainly say one thing for it; its a lot lighter than our digital SLR.

We have a choice of Sunday markets. We can go to either Limogne or St Antonin. Where we used to live they were equidistant. Now St Antonin is about 10 minutes closer. We'll probably still go to Limogne in the summer because St Antonin becomes a zoo, completely over run by tourists. Its a shame for we 'locals', but who can blame the tourists as St Antonin is a beautiful place. Its very old & sits on the Aveyron river with towering cliffs behind it. The bad news is that in winter its cold & often covered in freezing fog, but not today.

Parking for once was easy & the Limoges seconds china guy was there.

He sells seconds from the famous potteries. And, interestingly, he sell by weight. Each piece has a red or blue or green dot & the dot color determines the price per kilo.

We bought a large platter since one of ours got lost in the move.

        There's Linda heading down the 'main' street into the main market area. Normally the street would be lined solidly on both sides with stalls, but in winter a lot of stall holders stay home or go on vacation.

Here's a sausage stall. You can't quite make out the sign, but it says you can choose any 3 sausage types for 10 Euros, 5 for 15 Euros or 7 for 20.

You can also sort of see that the stall holder is hamming it up because I'm taking a picture.

    The house of dreams! The local Real Estate Agent. We bought then sold our first house through them. Its run by an English couple plus staff who've been here for a good number of years.

Their astute marketing of the area have had a materiel effect on local house prices.

In any case almost everybody stops to have a look. In summer the tourists all stop & wonder at the low prices. This area is still relatively inexpensive.

Linda perusing the vegetables. She's particularly looking for sweet potatoes.

This stall didn't have any so didn't get her business.

The coffee & tea stand on the Left and the bread shop window on the right.

There are several cheese stands at the market. All good.

I chose this one even though its not very large because they ONLY sell Chevre of a bewildering variety.

The factory is run as a commune & is just down the river from St Antonin.

Their cheeses are excellent.

                                                            Some excellent looking shallots.

More sausages!

Salted cod & sardines for making Brandade or Estafinado.

These were right next door to these great jams & jellies.

All of this is great fun. Sometimes I think going around taking the pictures is almost as much fun as buying things. This time of year you get a lot of interaction as you take pictures. Most of the stall holders have something to say & the time to say it. It helps that I'm known by many of them after coming to this market for ten years.

Here's the old original covered market. It still has stalls in it, but these days there just isn't enough room  for everybody. On the right is the butcher's van. He's right next to the fish van which you can't really see. My picture didn't turn out so you'll have to use your imagination.

I'll leave you with this picture of one of the wine seller's signs.

Yes, that really is about a $ 1.30 for a liter of wine. I can't say I've ever tasted this particular wine, but I'd imagine that its palatable as a 'vin ordinaire'.

Cahuzac is a nice village about 20 miles away in the Gaillac region.

We had a good day at market. Linda got all of the vegetables we wanted, we got a new platter, we chatted to friends and we had a coffee & a little fruit tart.

A typical way to spend Sunday morning in France.  C'est La Vie!! 

Cold Day Chili

It was pretty cold here yesterday, clear, but cold. I was on my way to the Sunday market in St Antonin when I started things about something warming to eat. I was going to buy vegetables so that Linda could make her wonderful soup, but I wanted something even heartier.

Inspiration struck in the form of "What if I make some chili con carne?" Yes, it would a doddle. All I had to do was buy a couple of extra things at the market. Thus in addition to the vegetables I was going to buy anyway I bought a pound of high quality ground beef, a large tube of tomato puree, a large can of whole tomatoes and two large cans of  red kidney beans. I was all set.

I drove home, unpacked everything and started chili making. It didn't take long. Here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

1. a large tube of tomato puree or a can
    
2. A large can of whole tomatoes
    
3. 2 large cans of red kidney beans
    
4. 1 pound of good quality minced beef
    
5. 1 large carrot
    
6. 1 large yellow onion
    
7. 2 stalks of celery
    
8. Spices as below plus salt & pepper
    
9. a couple of cups of cheap red wine
    

METHOD:

• Chop the carrots, onion & celery into a dice.
   
• Sweat them in a large saucepan with oil or butter until soft, but not browned.
   
• Remove the vegetable mix from the pan & set aside.
   
• Add the minced beef to the pan, turn up the heat and brown the beef.
   
• Turn the heat down. Put the vegetables back in the pan & add the beans (drained), tomatoes (drained) & tomato puree.
   
• Add the red wine & bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer.
   
• Here's the fun part. Start adding the spices. The mixture is up to you, but you want for sure to add the following:  

  - a packet of 'Old El Paso' chili mix if available.

  - a good dose of ground cumin
  
  - Paprika

  - red chili flakes

  - dried cilantro (coriander)

  - salt & pepper

   

• Stir all of this in & keep tasting & adjusting until you get the flavor & degree of hotness you want. Now just let the chili simmer for as long as you like, up to 4-5 hours, stirring every so often.
   
• The chili will actually be good to eat after an hour, but more time won't hurt. If it seems to be setting too dry just add more wine.
   

Linda likes her chili served over white rice, I don't. Strictly a matter of taste. Grating some strong cheddar cheese to put over the chili is nice as is a good dollop of sour cream. If I've made the chili fairly mild to please other I like to make & serve it with a strong salsa for those who like more oomph.

Whatever suits you is best. One thing for sure its a great dish for a cold day.
 

1st Dinner party in new house

We tried our first 'proper' dinner party since we moved into our new house a couple of nights ago. Because of the down sizing we only have room for 8 at most in our dining area. (Well. I guess we could fit in 10 at a pinch.) For this dinner we were only 7 as one of the guests is single & didn't bring a partner.

This number worked well in terms of seating. Everyone was comfortable and conversation was easy either with the person next to you or as a group. I've always thought that 6 or 8 is the ideal number for a dinner. Since I'm not used to cooking in an 'open kitchen where the hob is just beyond one end of the dining table I was a bit leery as to what to cook. I didn't want 4 pots on the hob that near our guests so I choose a menu that didn't need too much last minute cooking on the hob. Things seemed to work pretty well despite my misgivings.

The menu consisted of a started salad of chevre with sun dried tomatoes plus rocket & lambs lettuce with a creamy vinaigrette followed by a main course of chicken with ham & a creamy mushroom tarragon sauce accompanied by roast roots & green beans with toasted almonds. We finished up with a wonderful pear tart that Linda made. Two of the recipes are new so I'll write them up below and post them in Index of Recipes. The Roasted Roots recipe is already there.

Chevre & Sun Dried tomato salad.

Ingredients:

• 6-8 ounces of young fresh chevre cheese. It needs to be soft enough to mash up.
   
• 10-12 sun dried tomatoes PLUS one half more for each serving. (I used my home made ones. Any will do so long as they're soft.)
   
• Fresh or dried Thyme.
   
• A mixture of salad greens. I used a combination of Rocquette & Masche since they're available & good, but whatever's good in your area will work.
   
• A light creamy vinaigrette. By light I mean one that uses a mild vinegar & not too much of it.

Method:

1. Chop up the 10-12 sun dried tomatoes into a fine dice.
    
2. Add the tomatoes & the thyme to the chevre & mash together until well mixed.
    
3. Mix the greens & dress with the vinaigrette. Salt & pepper.
    
4. Place a scoop of the chevre mixture one each plate & surround with the dressed greens.
    
5. Add a whole sun dried tomato half to each serving.
    
6. Serve immediately. If kept cool this salad can be prepared about an hour before serving. The key is not to mix the greens & dressing too soon.

Stuffed chicken thighs with a mushroom/ tarragon dressing

Ingredients:

• 3 small or 2 large chicken thighs per person
   
• 6-8 ounces of mild ham
   
• 6-8 ounces of mushrooms. (plain white ones or you can mix in some reconstituted dried wild ones as well.)
   
• 6-8 ounces of full cream
   
• A bunch of fresh tarragon.
   
• 1 cup dry white wine
   
• Salt, pepper & herbs de Province.

Method:

1. Bone the chicken thighs. Fill each one with a small roll of the ham cut to size. I secured them with sprig of rosemary, but anything that works will do.
    
2. Chop the mushrooms into a coarse dice. Chop the tarragon into a fine dice.
    
3. Roast the chicken thighs, skin side up, in a  375 F oven until done & the skin is crispy.
    
4. Remove the chicken from the oven  remove the skewers. Place them on warmed dinner plates.
    
5. Quickly pour of most of any chicken fat then deglaze the roasting pan with white wine. Add the mushrooms & sauté until just soft.
    
6. Add the cream to the pan & boil rapidly to reduce. Then add the chopped tarragon. Stir well.
    
7. Pour the mushroom/cream/ tarragon over the chicken thighs and serve immediately. Serve any extra sauce separately.
    
8. I served this with the Roast roots & green beans with toasted almonds. Both were in serving bowls so guests could serve themselves.
   
   
   Linda's pear tart was superb. Its a very complicated recipe so I'll have to get her to write it out so I can post it.
   
   All in all a nice evening and the new house works well for that number of guests. For larger dinner parties we'll have to wait for summer so we can do them out on the patio.
   
   Do try the recipes. They work & they're good.
   
    

French Guacamole

French Guacamole, that may sound like a contradiction in terms, but its not. What I'm talking about is making guacamole here in France. You'd be hard pushed to find a Mexican restaurant in France (in Paris, perhaps) and trying to make Mexican cuisine here is a challenge. With, however, luck & persistence it can be done.

The saving grace is that for reasons best known to the French Supermarkets many of them stock a range of Mexican style products under the 'Old El Paso' brand name. They even stock tortillas, pretty awful, but at least they try. The useful thing that they stock is packets of spice mix for guacamole.  These as it turns out are good and are a great aid to making French Guacamole.

One can from the Market spice & herb stall buy all of the herbs & spices one needs for guacamole, but the packets are far easier. To make your own mix you need to buy: Ground cumin, Turmeric, chili powder, ground coriander (cilantro to you Yanks), salt & black pepper. You need to mix these until you get a balance of flavor that you like. Not difficult, but fiddly to do. The Old El Paso mix is about right for my taste.

The other thing you need are very good avocados. Fortunately these are easy to find. Both the Markets and the Supermarkets' have them. This time of year they're even very cheap. One can buy little filets with four or five in them very cheaply, but you're better off buying them separately so that you can feel each avocado for ripeness. You want avocados that are slightly soft when you squeeze them. Not mushy soft, but roughly as soft as a ripe orange. If you can't find the right degree of ripeness then buy the best you can and take them home & keep them in a paper bag somewhere reasonably warm, but not hot. They should ripen up in a few days. Once you avocados are ready you're good to go.

Here's the recipe:

1. 3-4 ripe avocados
    
2. 1 packet of Old El Paso guacamole mix; or your own mix of herbs & spices as above.
    
3. 1 medium sized yellow onion
    
4. 1 large tomato
    
5. 5-8 canned red peppers (these are sold in glass jars at most ant French Supermarket, they're usually found near the cornichons.)
    
6. 2-3 fresh limes or a container of lime juice (again sold at most Supermarkets) By the ways limes are citron vert in French.
    
7. A bunch of fresh parsley. Better yet is fresh coriander (cilantro)
    
8. Dried leaf coriander (can be found in French Supermarkets)
    
9. Salt to taste

Method:

• Cut the avocados in half, discard the large seed, then scoop out the contents using a spoon into a large bowl.
   
• Chop up the onion finely and add it to the bowl
   
• Deseed the tomato then chop it finely and add to the bowl.
   
• Cut the little red peppers in half, then run a sharp knife along the halves to remove the seeds. Chop the deseed halves finely and add to the bowl. NOTE: The number of pepper you use will largely determine how hot your guacamole will be. Its better to start with a few & add more if necessary)
   
• Add the packet of guacamole mix. Now mash everything together using a fork. You want a rough consistency, not too smooth.
   
• Add the lime juice. Continue mashing. The final consistency should be one that is fine enough to allow for dipping corn chips into it.
   
• Chop up a good amount of the parsley or coriander into a fine dice & add it to the mix. If using parsley add a good quantity of the dried coriander at this time.
   
• Add some salt. Now taste the guacamole. It should have a bit of bite, if not add more red peppers. Adjust the salt and parsley.
   
• That's it! You can cover & keep the guacamole for several hours, but its best eaten the same day its made.

Serve the guacamole with tortilla chips (corn chips). Again, these can be found in French Supermarkets. If not you can use crinkle cut potato chips instead.

We've found that our French friends adore guacamole. Most have never had it before or have had some awful version. A properly made version is a revelation to them. For that matter many of our English friends have never had a proper guacamole either. They to adore it.

Of course you don't have to be in France to use this recipe. I suspect you can get the ingredients in most European countries if you look hard enough. Anybody in the states shouldn't have any difficulty at all. Have a go.

December

First Olives

We inherited two tiny olive trees with our new house. Well. they are more like olive bushes as you can see below.

In any case as we were bringing them in I decided to pick the tiny olives as there was a good crop & they looked edible. As the trees are so small we only got about a pint of olives from them both.

Now I had to decide what to do with them now that I had them. I've never cured olives in my life; in fact I never thought much about it. I love to eat olives, but it just never occurred to me to think of preparing them myself. In this case there certainly weren't enough to even think about pressing them for oil.

Internet to the rescue. Some Google searches quickly resulted in more information than I would ever need.

Turns out that you can brine olives or salt them. I found a nice pictorial write up on how to salt olives so I followed that (unfortunately I've lost the link to it.)

All I had to do was to wash my olives thoroughly then cover them in coarse sea salt. I then put them into a colander and suspend the colander over a bowl. Then I covered the whole thing with a tea towel and put the bowl in a cool place.

After about a week I turned the olives to make sure they were still all coated and I added a bit more salt. After two weeks plus a few days I rinsed off an olive & tasted it. No bitterness.

Now I rinsed all of the olives very carefully of remove all of the salt. I dried them carefully before proceeding to the next stage. Seasoning!

I decided to keep mine simple for this first effort; olive oil, bay leaves, garlic and pepper flakes. Thus all of the olives went into a sealable container & were covered with olive oil. I then added the garlic, bay & pepper and gave the mixture a good stir. Here's what they looked like after 10 days in the olive oil.

They were starting to taste pretty good. I gave them a good shake & waited for Christmas.

Yesterday I took them to our friends where we were sharing Christmas lunch. We had them with our pre-luncheon drinks.

In all due modesty I must say they were delicious. Everyone enjoyed them. A had a hit on my hands.

The moral of this story is that doing some things is much easier then you anticipate and the results exceed your expectations. I can't wait for next year's crop!!

Easy Holiday Dishes

Cooking's a great pleasure, but there are times when it can all get to be too much. Holiday cooking can certainly be one of those times; a houseful of kids plus a houseful of relations is enough to drive any cook to distraction.

Thus, I decided to give you two recipes to ease the burden. Both are delicious, both fit right in with a festive meal and both are so easy to do that you can get the kids or relations to do the work! They'll appreciate the meal (s) all the more for having participated. Best yet they're both healthy & inexpensive with easy to find ingredients that can bought & prepared in advance.

What are these paragons of virtue? Believe it or not coming from the ultimate carnivore they're both vegetable didhes! For this post I'll do them both, but I'll separate them in the Index of Recipes. They are; "Roast Ratatouille" and what I call "Roasted Roots"

Roast Ratatouille

Ingredients:

• 2 nice big eggplants (aborigine)
   

• about a pound (500g) of cherry tomatoes. (if not available just chop regular tomatoes into bite size pieces.)
   

• 2 good sized yellow onions
   

• 2 each of both red & green sweet peppers
   

• 2-3 good sized zucchini (courgettes)
   

• Fresh basil (dry if you can't easily find fresh)
   

• Salt & Pepper.
   

• A dab of olive oil

Method:

1. Cut the eggplant into about 1/2 inch cubes then lightly salt it & let it sit in a colander while you prepare all of the other ingredients.
    

2. Cut up the onion, peppers and zucchini into bite sized pieces.
    

3. Rinse the salt off of the eggplant then pat dry.
    

4. Place ALL of the ingredients into a large mixing bowl, add Salt & Pepper & the dab of olive oil. Mix gently, but well.
    

5. When ready to cook (this can be an hour or many later or the next day) heat an oven to about 190 degrees C. Spread the Ratatouille mixture evenly over a baking tray (or two) & place in the hot oven.
    

6. Bake for roughly 45 minutes. Until. that is, all the veggies are nicely cooked.

As you can see the prep work for this dish consists of cutting things up. The cutting up doesn't even have to be particularly even. Thus the task can be sub contracted to guests or even to older children.

The results are great. The Ratatouille looks good and tastes even better. It goes well with most meats, but is particularly good with lamb, posk or chicken.

Roasted Roots

Ingredients:

• 2-3 large potatoes
   

• several turnips
   

• several carrots
   

• several parsnips
   

• a nice rutabaga
   

• a couple of red sweet peppers
   

• a few cloves of garlic
   

• Salt, pepper & olive oil
   

Method:

1. Peel all of the vegetables.
    

2. Slice the turnips & rutabagas cross ways into about 1/8th inch thick slices.
    

3. Slice the carrots, parsnips & peppers lengthways into thick matchstick size.
    

4. Slice the potatoes lengthwise into 1/4 inch thick slices, then slice these into 2 or 3 lengthways slices.
    

5. Peel the garlic cloves. (a not of caution! Don't use too many cloves of garlic as their flavour can overwhelm the other ingredients.)
    

6. Mix all together into a large bowl with the Salt, pepper & olive oil. Just enough oil to lightly coat. You can add rosemary, thyme, Herbs de Province or whatever herb you like.
    

7. When ready to bake (NOTE: the veggies can rest for hours or even overnight. Put them in the fridge if over a few hours.) heat the oven to 190 degrees C. Spread the veggies over a baking tray or two.
    

8. Bake for about 45 minutes or until the potatoes are done as they're slowest to cook/

Like the ratatouille recipe friends, family or older children can do all of the work on this one. They go with most meat dishes, the red peppers give a festive air.

Its not too late for this Christmas Present 

 Only the French would come up with this idea Christmas gift for all of you wine lovers.

Click & enjoy!

     http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3jwe0_usb-wine-telechargez-vos-vins-en-di_fun

Merry Christmas

Yank