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        Life in rural France - Food - Friends - Wine - Cheese - Comments

   Welcome to French Food Focus. The name describes the intent of this blog. I'll focus on food and because I live in rural   
   France the stress will be upon French food.  There are numerous posts concerning life in France and, certainly, opinions
   about anything that strikes my fancy.
   If you have some good recipes  or if you want to rave about any great French restaurants this  is the place to do it.

 I hope you enjoy my ramblings about rural France! 

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This is our village. Our house is the white one at the top right.                      

     Tomato Season               

I had a whole post just about finished yesterday when the power went off & I lost the whole thing. Pity. It was about yet another concert and dinner afterwards. The dinner grew from 5 people to 12 in the matter of an hour, Linda just can't help being generous.

Fortunately, I'd anticipated her to some degree and had put 9 very large potatoes into the over to bake before the concert. Thus I could serve !/2's to some of the delicate Lady diners. The green salad was easily expanded with extra lattice and tomatoes. Luckily I had plenty of sausages, four different types. Linda had decreed no desert, but I improvised. Vanilla ice cream covered by my home made marmalade. (this was good because that batch of marmalade hadn't set properly. Thus the consistency was about right as an ice cream topping. In any case everyone seemed to go home full & happy.

I'm coming to the tomatoes believe me.

 My original started course was to have been roasted tomatoes. I'd done 6 really large ones so was able to divide them in two to make the requisite number of portions. I'd roaster them in two halves anyway so no problem. As this is an absolute favorite of ours I'll share the recipe. ( Don't know quite where the original recipe came from, but Delia Smith's version is very similar)

Roasted Tomatoes

1. Get one really large ripe tomato per person. Big beefsteak type or the large heirloom types work best.
    
2. Cut the tomatoes across about 2/3 of the way up towards the stem end.
    
3. Arrange them on a baking tray. Put a light sprinkle of sea salt on each followed by about a teaspoon (or slightly more) of olive oil. Now sprinkle on a a nice bunch of finely chopped garlic. (amount is to taste. In my case its lots.) Grind on a goodly amount of black pepper and top the whole thing with a fresh basil leaf.
    
4. Place in a hot (190-200 degree C.) oven and bake until the tomatoes are soft and their edges are just starting to brown. This normally takes about an hour or slightly less.
   Remove the tomatoes from the oven to cool.
    
5. Make a mixture of equal parts olive oil & balsamic vinegar and mix it well. Drizzle about a teaspoon's worth over the top of each tomato. Now add a nice fresh basil leaf to top everything off.
    
6. Place on individual plates. Serve with the best crusty French bread you can find. Note that this dish is actually better served at room temperature or even slightly cold. Thus the timing is not important, I normally make it several hours in advance.

NOTE: I like to serve 2/3 of a large tomato, but in a pinch !/2 will do & takes only half as many tomatoes.

You will find that these are the most delicious tomatoes you've ever eaten. Try them, then you'll believe me.

Monday Michael & I went to Caussade market. I was lucky enough to find more of the right size cucumbers to make some more dill pickles; I bought about 3 lbs. (We've eaten all of the last batch).

I also found a stall selling local tomatoes at the equivalent of 30 cents a pound. I didn't buy immediately as they are at one end of the market & I didn't want to lug a big lot of tomatoes all over the place with me so I did the rest of my shopping then came back. To my dismay a lady was just buying the last tomatoes in the big box. Shucks! I asked, however, if they had any more. Fortunately the answer was yes & they brought out a whole new crate from their van. This was wonderful because I could pick the best from the crate. So, I bought about 10 pounds of tomatoes for $3.00. I was very pleased.

Of course now I had to do something with the tomatoes so I made a basic tomato sauce to freeze for later use.  I will be able to use this as a base for various pasta sauces or for a chili or for stews. Here's what I did:

• I fried up a miripoix (carrots, onion & celery) in a bit of olive oil.
   
• I then peeled, seeded and deveined the tomatoes. Quite a chore this with that many tomatoes.
   
• I added the tomatoes to the miripoix. Then I added Pepper; oregano, dry basil, and finely chopped garlic. Gave all this a good stir and let it simmer for several hours.
   
• I then added some fresh basil and a couple of cups of red wine. I pureed the mix using an immersion  blender  and let it simmer for another couple of hours.
   
• I might have let it simmer even longer, but Linda thought that it was thick enough so I turned it off and let it sit in the pot overnight. Next morning I ladled equal portions into a number of plastic containers, labeled them and put them into the freezer. We now have 8 nice large lots of tomato sauce for meals later this year.

Another concert tonight. This one at a beautiful chateau overlooking the River Lot. The Count likes to greet his guests as they come in. He was proudly telling me when he realized that I was American about how a number of men from this area fought with Lafayette on our side in the revolutionary war. Great fun!