Blueberries and Almond Bundt Cake made by our daugther for my husband's birthday

We celebrated my husband's belated birthday yesterday evening. Following our family tradition, he got to pick his "Menu" and he opted for Empanadas. De Carne. Obviously.
We had not made empanadas for a while and since our daughter does not eat meat these days, I improvised a vegetarian version replacing the meat in the original recipe with spinach and ricotta and omitting the olives. That way, everybody was really happy about the main dish. However, the best part was our daughter's Bundt Cake with blueberries and almonds. She got the recipe from one her friends' and adapted the icing because she had never made a cream cheese-based icing before and did not want to try it on this cake.

For a few weeks now, she has been taking baking classes as an afterschool activity offered at their school on Fridays. She has been enjoying learning new tricks and recipes but, much to my husband's dismay, there is never enough leftovers from him to taste when he gets home. As a present for his birthday, she therefore offered him 4 weekends of baking whereby she would bake at least once during the weekend for him for 4 weeks. Useless to say that he was really excited but made sure that the Bundt Cake was not Week 1!
We'll update the blog with her recipes - and, if I have time and make something really fun and special, I'll post the recipes as well. It's not that I have not been cooking from scratch most nights these days, it's just that I have not made anything really different. That said, as I am looking for new ideas for the daily cooking, I'll find new recipes in the different cookbooks we have around the apartment. Bon Appétit.

Link to the original recipe is here: 
https://beyondfrosting.com/2018/04/04/blueberry-almond-bundt-cake/

Our daughter's Lemon and Chocolate Chips Cake - Made in France

We are back! The year went by very fast... and yes, we did cook a lot, mostly vegerarian every night as our children decided to give up meat. But, as my husband would say, nothing really interesting, worth putting on this blog!! No comment!

Now that our children are in France for most of the Summer, our daugher is using her stay as an opportunity to bake, watch baking competition shows and eat pastries from top pastry chefs whenever she can! Below is her message and the recipe she used for her new lemon cake.

Hello eveyone! Today my mom is not making this cake, I juste arrived in France for the summer (yes, jetlaged), and have decided to put my hands in baking again. During the school year I don't really have the time, but as soon as go to France, I take my opportunities. Today, there was a soccer game, I am not a fan of soccer, but I do watch the World Cup and mostly when France plays. Today my grandfather asked me to bake, and I was up to do my first baking in France. I decided to make a lemon cake. This is one does not use butter and milk, because the oil replaces it. This is a very easy and simple cake to make everywhere with anyone. My mom had made a lemon poppyseed cake, very good too (but mine is better, still love you mom) but my grandmother didn't have  poppy seeds , so I decided just to make it with lemon. Juste before putting the dough in the pan, I thought that the cake needed something else. I thought why not put small chocolat pieces, just enough that that there are some in each piece of cake. I then after the cake was baked I added a lemon icing to give it even more taste!! Bon appetit


Ingredients (for 8 people)

• 94 g flour

• 170 g sugar

• 10 g baking powder 

• 1 pinch of salt

• 3 eggs

• 7.5 cl neutral oil (canola)

• 1 lemon (zest + juice)

• Shredded chocolate - to taste

• Preheat oven to 360 F (180C)

• Mix in the dry ingredients and add the beaten eggs and oil. Mix well.

• Add the lemon zest

• Add 1/2 of the lemon juice, including pulp and mix well until smooth. Add the chocolate shreds.

• Butter your mold and pour the batter

• Bake for about 25 minutes

• For the icing, please see the Lavender Cake recipe here.

Comments

From my grand-father: you need to add a tablespoon of rhum in the batter

My comment: you don't have to put too much chocolate

Our Daughter's Cake à la lavande - Lavender Pound Cake

Hello and happy summer! For once, this recipe is not my mom's!  Since I am really into baking these days,  I figured out that, since I am in France (yes vacation! for 2 1/2 months - too much right?),  I should use this time to bake. The weather in Normandy (one of the places I'm staying over the summer) has been sunny and really hot ;  and then rain, rain, rain!

With my grand-parents, my brother and some of my cousins,  we went to a Gospel concert organized in the village's church. After the concert, we had a "collation" for the artists. We helped out to make something for them, and it had to be a dessert. Good for me, I was up for it! My grandmother told me I should make a chocolate cake, but I thought it was too ordinary. I thought that maybe I could make a lavender cake. Since there is fresh lavender (and no chemicals on them!) in my grandmother's garden (yes lavender in Normandy!), I did not have to purchase any. 

It was a success - they all loved it! So I even made it again for a "goûter" (afternoon snack) and it got  eaten quickly! Hope you love it too! Bon Appétit!

For one pound cake

• 200g flour plus some of the mold
• 8g baking powder
• 2 ts organic lavender buds and some for decorating
• 100g butter + some of the mold
• 200g sugar
• 3 egs
• 125ml whole milk

For the lemon icing:

• 150 g powder sugar
• 10 g water (more or less depending on consistency). .
• 1 organic lemon

• Infuse lavender in milk (I generally do it while we eat or a few hours before baking the cake; the milk should really taste like lavender)
• Preheat oven to 360 F
• Soften butter in microwave oven - it has to be soft but not melted
• Mix sugar and butter together until white and double in volume.
• Add the eggs, one at a time
• Mix the flour and baking powder and add them to the sugar mixture
• Pour the milk (with lavender buds) and mix well with a spatula (my mom calls it the indispensable tool (outil indispensable) in a kitchens)
• Butter + flour the mold
• Pour the mixture in it and bake 40 -45 min
• Unmold the cake and let it cook on a rack 
• While it cools down, prepare the icing

• The icing has to be liquid enough to drip on the sides of the cake but solid enough to create an opaque layer.
• In a pot, mix water and powdered sugar
• Add a few drops of lemon and half of the lemon zest
• Pour on the cake when the cake is cool and decorate with lavender sprigs

Personal Comments

• You could use smaller individual molds - just adjust cooking time to 15 -20 min
• Make sure to use organic lavender as you don't want to eat pesticides!
• I use butter + flour even on a silicon mold
• The cake tastes better cold but you could eat it warm as well

Pissaladière

It's Summer again! Well, technically,  we are still a few weeks away from Summer but as I have come to realize "Summer time" is a very cultural theme.  For French people, l'été really means July and August - the time of year when everyone gets some time off. June is when everyone starts to think about their Summer vacations ; this is why I really like going to France in June. Days are really long, Parisians are starting to slow down, eating outside ,and easing into their Summer days....
In the U.S., Summer officially starts at the end of May with Memorial Day weekend and finishes early September with Labor Day. This is when plane tickets prices soar; this is when everyone starts barbecuing or, if in Philadelphia, talking about their weekend at the Jersey Shore....

So, it's Summer again in the U.S. and time to entertain outside. Since we only live in a two-bedroom apartment in Philadelphia, we can not entertain a lot during the cold months of Fall/Winter/early Spring.We are fortunate, though, to have a large roof top in our apartment building, which we use as an extra room everytime it's hot enough to sit outside.  This varies a lot -  we experienced a very hot Winter, which made it possible to eat outside in February! Most generally, we really start opening up the terrasse at the end of April. This spare open space with full view of the Benjamin Bridge enables us to host a few parties during the warm days of Summer in Philadelphia...

Since apéritif is one of my favorite meals, we tend to organize large "apéros" on our roof top. This makes it easy to organize and host: no back-and-forth with the kitchen downstairs : the food is already out. Everybody can help themselves with what they like (or want to try).... It's just a nice way to chill out and enjoy the company of friends.

Among all the things we make are the usual suspects : Guacamole, Hummus, white beans and fennel dip, salsa and chips, nuts, cake aux olives et au jambon, charcuterie and cheese, etc.  This year, I made a few variations of pissaladières. Pissaladières are from the South of France and traditionally involve caramelized onions, black olives, anchovies on bread dough. Since I know few people  who like anchovies, I tend not to make them with anchovies, especially when a lot of children are coming over. This year, I had extra feta cheese so I added feta instead of anchovies since we were having more than 12 kids over with their parents. I don't bother making my own dough anymore (my sourdough starter died a while ago) so I just purchase pizza dough at the local supermarket.
Really easy to make - and as usual, something you can improvise around to adapt to the palate of your guests. It's also very easy to bring Pissaladières to a Summer pique-nique or your next BBQ since it's officially in season!
Bon Appétit!

Ingrédients

• A ball of pizza dough
• Onions (more than you think you need - I use 3 large ones for one Pissaladière)
• Herbes de Provence
• Anchovies, black olives, feta cheese

• Pre-heat oven to 400F
• Lay out the dogue in a square pan
• Cook the onions in olive oil until translucide but not caramelized (although you could caramelize them)
• Add herbes de Provence, salt, pepper to taste
• Lay the onions on the dough
• Add Anchovies/black olives, etc.
• Bake in the oven for 25 minutes

Crottins de Chavignol Chauds en Salade - Hot Baked Goat Cheese with Greens

One of our daughter's favorite dishes is hot baked Crottins de Chavignol served on a piece of toast along a plain salade verte. Crottins are small round-shape goat hard cheese. The most famous ones come from Chavignol - a small village near Sancerre in the Loire Valley. 
France (and Europe) being very strict as to protecting regional products and savoir-faire,  the crottins can only be called Crottins de Chavignol is they are actually coming from the Chavignol area.  They are protected by what we call an Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) which is a French certification granted to certain French geographical indications for wines, cheeses, butters, and other agricultural products that come from certain terroirs. Other areas in France produce crottins  de chèvre - they are just not labeled "de  Chavignol". 
We grew up eating crottins de chèvre chauds either as an appetizer or a lunch/dinner entree  They are an easy-to-choose-easy-to-make affordable dish that pleases most cheese lovers. For those of you who have traveled to France, they are generally on many casual restaurants, served on a slice of toasted Pain Poilâne (or any other pain de campagne if pain Poilâne is not available.)
Unfortunately, this is one of the dishes I hardly make in the US. Much to my family's regret. Reason? Price of the crottins. In France, you could purchase crottins de chèvre for less than 1 euro each (2 euros if you want them organic or de Chavignol), while in the US, I find them at at least $5/piece for locally-made cheese. What is an affordable entree in France become luxury across the Atlantic! 
We therefore serve them on special occasions only (or when they go on sale, which is to say... rarely.) 
As a result, whenever we go to France, our daughter makes sure to eat a lot of them, always volunteering to help prepare them whenever she can! I think that if we were not living in an apartment building in the center of Philadelphia, she would try to get a goat to make her own crottins! If you have access to crottins where you live, please try to make this salad. You would not be disappointed! Bon Appétit!

Ingredients
- 1 (or half) a crottin per person
- 1 (or half) of wholewheat bread
- Olive oil
- Salt & pepper
- Thyme/Rosemary (optional)

• Put the crottin on a slice of bread with rosemary/thyme on top
• Pour some olive oil on the crottin and the bread
• Bake in the oven under the High Grill for 5 minutes (or more depending on the power of your oven; you want the crottins to start melting but the bread should not be burnt)

Tarte au thon de l'été

Don't ask me what I did these past few months.... I did cook a lot but never managed to bring it to this blog. My apologies! Fortunately, Summer being in full swing, we all have a little bit more time to cook and experiment.
My nephew from Marseille came to spend the month of July with us in Philadephia to attend a ballet camp. Since our children were in France for their Summer-long vacances and that my husband joined them, C. and I ended up spending most of July together. Apparently, he was worried that spending time with his gluten-free vegan aunt, he was going to eat "des graines" everyday! My worry was that because of him spending time in the US, he would fall victim to the double-frappuccinos, supersized French fries and other double-cheeseburgers!!! At the end, it was a balance of easy-to-eat French and US food. We had vegan and beef hamburgers, blue corn tortilla chips (a lot!) and haricots verts (beaucoup), salade verte and Sweet Potatoes Fries....
One evening, C. suggested to make this Tarte au thon that my sister-in-law and many of my friends cook in France this time of year. We used the Marmiton recipe (for those of you who want the French version) and C. found it very tasty. I will definitively make it again for our family when they are all back from France. Until then, I would encourage you to try it! Served with a salade verte, it makes the easiest Summer dinner.
Bon Appétit!

Ingredients:
 - 1 pie dough (in France, people tend to use the puff pastry one; since I don't always have some handy, I generally make a pâte brisée)
- 2 cans of tuna (in water, no salt added)
- 2 small tomatoes
- 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
- 2 eggs
- 20 cl light cream
- 3 tablespoons milk
- Add salt and pepper to taste
- Swiss cheese (optional)

• Pre-heat the oven to 400F
• Lay the dough in a deep pie dish.
• Spread the mustard
• Spread the tuna
• Slice the tomatoes and lay on top of the tuna
• In a bowl, beat the eggs and add the creme fraiche and milk
• Add salt and pepper to taste
• Pour the batter onto the tomatoes and tuna
• Add the cheese if using some
• Cook in the oven for 40 minutes

Tarte aux Mendiants & New Year Resolutions

Bonne Année! (I know, I know,  I am late.... but you see, in France, it is acceptable to wish people une Bonne Année!  until the end of January.... so I still within a reasonable timeframe!)

New Year is synonymous with resolutions... but there is nothing more difficult that trying to stick with them! Working for Wharton, I have come to reallly enjoy the research behind how people make  decisions (fascinating or depressing depending on how you want to look at it!). I particularly like Katherine Milkman's advice for making decision around new resolutions (published last year in the New York Times but still relevant) which she calls "bundling": i.e. allowing yourself to watch trash TV (if that's what you like to do but feel that you are wasting your time when you watch it) only if you are on the treadmill (which is what your resolution is all about.) (I know that January is the month when gym have the highest enrollment; I now wonder whether this is when Netflix has the hightest demand for "chick movies"...)

So no - I generally don't make resolutions... except that this year, I decided that I was going to get back to this blog more often than (argh!) once every six months! (I also have other things I would like to work on, but I'll write about them in other posts!)
What I decided is to cook a new dish every week-end.  Partly because I need to increase the pool of recipes I cook and partly because I like the challenge of learning new recipes...
Two weeks ago, I made Butter Chicken, which was a success among our family, which also means that I have to do it again to get a good picture to put on this blog... Last week, I made black-eye peas fritters - they were such a success that they disappeared before I could take a picture! While the Butter Chicken is a little time consuming and not that healthy (think cream and, well, yes, butter in no small quantity), the fritters are a piece-of-cake once you have soaked the peas....
As I try new dishes, I will try to engage our two children more as they have indicated that they wanted to cook with me more often. Perfect bundle: cook for our family while spending more time with them and learning new recipes! I might ask them to choose the recipe so that they end up cooking something they find (more) appealing!

As we were discussing this (and in a way, William was complaining noticing that menus don't change that much (read:I don't cook enough meat or dishes that simmer on the stove for hours)), our daugther asked him what he would cook if he had to cook everyday for a week (assuming that I had not prepared dishes in advance (as I always do when I travel); and he could not rely on frozen food nor take-out). His menu was something like: couscous, lasagnes, cassoulet, salade landaise, hachis Parmentier, choucroute, duck confit! Well, if it weren't for the lack of balance of this diet (our daughter did mention to him that the quantity of greens was really minimal!!), I would take him on the offer of cooking for a week or more just to be "off duty". That would be a great resolution on his part, n'est-ce-pas? I just don't know with what he could bundle it with because he is not the type of person who can do two things at the same time... Except that if he asks our children for help, he would end up spending time with them and that, as we all know, has no price!

Despite all this, I will have to credit him with making Spaghetti a la Carbonara last weekend (bacon, cream, grated cheese -  William's tastes, just there) but also with this impressing dessert he made for his cousins and uncle during our Christmas break in Canada. Note that this is one of the richest and sweetest desserts I have ever seen (William's tastes just there again!)  The type that makes most people sign up for a gym membership the very same night - and if they are bundling, would catch up with at least one full season of a TV serie on their first session!

As for my cooking resolution, a friend of mine just gave me a new cooking book with Asian recipes - so I now have plenty of recipes to try, hopefully with the children as sous-chefs! Be prepared!

The recipe for the Tarte aux Mendiants is from Cuisine et Vins de France and can be found here (in French).

Petites merveilles de la nature

Following on my first post of the year around food waste (should be easy to find since I have not been able to post much in the first part of this year - work and family kept me really busy), I wanted to write about a campaign that a French supermarket chain, Intermarché,  launched to convince French consumers that ugly fruits and vegetables are not necessary bad to eat. To the contrary! The campaign was called "Les fruits et légumes moches" - an English version can be found here. 

What first stroke me the first time I came to the US in 1994 was the fact that apples were so perfect and so shiny in US supermarkets. "Standardization" has been the key driver of the food industry over the last decades. It's easier to ship; it's easier to store and display... and consumers tend to associate "good-looking" with "good taste" - hereby contributing to increased waste either at the production site or at the distribution.

Thanks to the positive results of this campaign Intermarché started offering ugly veggies and fruits in all its supermarkets ;other chains have jumped on the bandwagon, including in the UK and Canada.
While I don't know any US supermarket chain implementing such a campaign these days, I know that for us who are lucky to have access to farmers' markets for a few weeks every year, this is a place where ugly fruits & veggies are king! At the Reading Terminal in Philadelphia, one of the local cooperative was selling not only not-so-great looking produces but also had a box for older, slighly bruised apples at 50% off. These apples were just as tasty and wonderful for apple sauce! With an open mind and little bit of imagination, we should be able to use all these ugly fruits and vegetables....

Above is an example of a potato I received in our CSA box a few weeks ago and a carrott my brother-in-law purchased near Paris this past Winter. Petites merveilles de la nature... Délicieuses petites merveilles de la nature!

Poulet a l'estragon - Tarragon Chicken

It's Summer again and with it come all the herbs to spice up dishes! We grow a few on our rooftop - we gave up on cilantro and parsley because we eat so much of them that it's not "space-efficient". To much of my regret, we don't grow chervil either because it's too fragile. We therefore tend to have thyme, oregano, sage, basil, rosemary, chives, tarragon as well as mint. This year our tarragon is really enjoying the warm and damp weather - trying to move in with the oregano in the next pot!

My paternal grand-parents had a huge (OK, maybe not HUGE but it did look very big to me at the time) tarragon bush in  their garden in Burgundy. There was more tarragon in this garden that we could all eat and somehow, despite long cold Winters, it always came back for us in the Summer.

We would use tarragon to flavor the sauce vinaigrette (made with Dijon mustard, évidemment!) in our salades but as well as with cooked dishes. 

At home these days, I use it in pretty much every salad I make or in some hummus or other dips that we eat for apéritif or just with the rest of the meal. I recently made this Poulet a l'estragon and would encourage you to make it if you don't know how to use the tarragon you bought the other day or that your neighbor gave you! 

There are different versions of this dish - you could omit the crème fraiche is you wanted to keep it on the lighter side or if you are serving it with green beans or other vegetables that do not call for a sauce (as opposed to rice or potatoes which is what most French people would eat it with.) Some people add tomato paste in the sauce - nothing that I remember from cooking it with my grand-mother but why not...  I will leave it it up to you do improvise... Bon Appétit!

Ingredients

- Chicken (here again, you can decide if you want to use a whole chicken cut in 1/8 or if you'd rather use only chicken breasts)

- White wine (1/2 cup or 125ml)

- Chicken stock or water (1 cup/250ml)

- Shallots (minced) - I like them a lot so I use at least 4 or 5 depending on size

- Tarragon (at least 3 sprigs and 2 Tbs chopped tarragon as well)

- Creme fraiche (optional)

- Olive oil, salt and pepper 

- Salt & Pepper

In a pan, warm olive oil and brown the chicken to your liking. Set aside and réserve

In the same pan, saute the shallots in olive oil until they are golden.

Add the white wine and deglace the pan. Simmer until white wine redues

Add chicken stock (or water)

Add tarragon sprigs

Add the chicken back and simmer until the chicken is fully cooked (you can use a lid to ensure the sauce does not all evaporate)

Take the chicken out and place it in the oven to keep it warm

Add the crème fraiche in the pan over high heat and fresh chopped taragon - stir and bring to a boil. Adjust salt and pepper to taste.

Pour over chicken and serve.

Cake Amandine aux Framboises - Almond and Rasberries Cake

For the first time today, Spring seems to be coming to Philadelphia! All the more surprising that we got about 5 inches of snow last  Thursday! Patches of snow still remain in the city... but hopefully not for too long...  I get tired of snow in the city! It's nice for about 2 hours after the snow storm and then it starts to get dirty, mushy and sometimes really icy! Worst for all of us who walk in the city, the snow is pushed to the corners of streets so you can not cross the street on foot without getting your shoes wet!!
My husband always makes fun of me because I put on my snow boots (or sneakers when it's dry enough) to get to work in the morning, something hardly anyone would do in Paris. I carry my dress shoes and  jacket in my backpack (another no-no in Paris) but I figured that if I am going to walk close to 10km (6 miles) every day, I'd rather be comfortable than stylish - at least for the communiting part of my day. It's also cheaper (my dress shoes last longer; I don't have to worry about orthopedic surgery!) and healthier (I used to log in close to 15,000 - 17,000 steps per day before I lost my Fitbit).
I have been trying to have him walk more with limited success  - he likes the bus better except when there is about 5 feet of snow in the city and then he enjoys the peacefulness that comes with it and then he walks home! He might be the only one wishing for another snow storm in Philly in the coming days!!

To celebrate Spring, I was thinking of making that Cake aux Framboises. I have made a few times in the past and it's always something our family enjoys.
I know, I know, raspeberries are not in season in Pennsylvania yet... but it's a nice treat to celebrate the start of what I hope is going to be a season of wonderful fruits & veggies!
Bon Appetit!

Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 150g of brown cane suggéra
- 150g corn flour
- 80 g corn starch
- 5g baking powder
- 80g almond meal
- 1 tbs vanilla extrait
- 2 tbs milk
- 150 g soft butter
- 200g frozen raspberries
- Fresh raspberries for decoration

• Preheat oven to 360F (180C)
• Butter a rectangular mold
• In a bowl, cream the sugar and the eggs 
• Add the corn meal, corn starch, baking powder and almond meal.
• Add the Vanilla extrait, milk and butter and mix until you get a smooth batter.
• Pour half of the batter in the mold. 
• Make one layer with the raspberries
• Pour the rest of the batter
• Bake in the oven for 50 mins
• Unmold - Eat cold with fresh raspberries.

Pledging to reduce food waste in 2015....

We just came back from a wonderful trip to Canada where we spent a week with my husband's uncle and cousins. We love going there for the company but also because we fully disconnect from our daily activities in the US (it's really the only time when William does not check his emails more than once a day, c'est pour dire!)

William's uncle owns what-used-to-be a Christmas Tree farm in the Western end of the Quebec Province - 3 hours from Montreal but only less than an hour from Ottawa where William's uncle and his cousins live.

We spend our days snow shoes hiking, toboggoning, skidooing, admiring beaver dams, or what nature has to offer (like this heart spotted by our son) but also just relaxing by the fire or in front of a good movie if the temperatures drop too low for us to go out (- 25C (or -13F ) being our it's-too-cold threshold; anything warmer is a "get-out!")

The farm is on a remote road, about 10km from the main road... so we bring a week full of food (or we have to rely on hunting to survive!)... William's cousins have it all figure out - planning meals ahead of time - but always bringing more food than necessary just in case a big snow storm makes it impossible to get back on the road. At the end of the week, it's up to creativity to assemble meals from the leftovers and what has yet to be cooked before it goes bad. On top of our list was une soupe de légumes that used mushrooms, celery, tomatoes, onions, garlic with leftovers sauteed root vegetables. Served with crème fraiche, cheese and garlic bread it made a perfect Winter meal!

Talking about food waste, we all pledged to make it our 2015 collective goal to reduce the amount of food that we waste in our households and talked about ways to go about this....
A report summary from the Economic Research Service issued by the USDA in February 2014 reported that in the United States, 31 percent—or 133 billion pounds—of the 430 billion pounds of the avail-able food supply at the retail and consumer levels in 2010 went uneaten. The top three food groups in terms of share of total value of food loss were meat, poultry, and fish, vegetables,  and dairy products.

Planning and creativity will be the top two skills to work on to reduce our food waste in the coming weeks and months. It will also save you money! So why not commit?!
Making a "soupe aux legumes" at the end of the week is one way to get started! Another one is to plan meals for the week ahead and shopping with a list! Facile, non?

Excellente Année à tous!

 

 

A Post by our daughter : Le Punch du Soleil!

Hello,
I am Gaelle's  daughter.
I know she talks a lot about me and my brother on her blog. I like most of her recipes but not all of them! This time I was the one to cook.I  made this drink called "Le Punch du Soleil". My mom liked it.I  added a little more fruits than the original recipe.(I like to improvise too!! )

I hope you will like it!!!!

For 4 persons you need:

1. Press 4 oranges 
2. Peel 1 pineapple and 5 kiwis
3. Cut them in little pieces
4. Then put them in a blender.
5. Next pour them in 4 glasses and have fun drinking it!!

La roulette russe: sauteed peppers

One of my favorite part of the late summer farmer's market are the small peppers that you saute in olive oil until they are fully cooked and eat with lemon juice and sea salt. My friends from California enjoy them pretty much all year long (sigh! heavy sigh since I just came back from a two-day business trip to the Bay Area....) but back East, it's just a seasonal treat....

Favorite peppers to serve that way are Padrón Peppers or the ones that we also find on the market (like the Bishop's Crown I got from Tom Culton Organics on the picture).   Unlike most peppers that are either sweet or really hot, you don't really know how hot a Padrón pepper is until you try them as only 10-25% of them are really hot...
Last year, we bought many Padrón peppers that were really not that hot... but this year, the farmer warned us that some of them were actually much spicier than usual. And sure they were!!

This is why we started calling it the "Roulette Russe" with our children when we eat these peppers... If you are lucky, the one you pick is not too hot; if you are unlucky, well, we have a nice slice of bread with butter ready for the unlucky eater! 

Despite a few really really hot ones, our children have been enjoying eating them. We serve them as an appetizer, or a side dish or even when we do our Friday evening aperitif....
Now if I could live in California... (re-sigh...)

Bon Appétit!

Filet mignon de Porc aux Raisins et au Cumin - Pork Tenderloin with Cumin and Grapes

I was doing some "Summer Cleaning" yesterday (LOOONG overdue!!!) and part of it included getting rid of some magazines that had been piling up next to our bed. I don't purchase many magazines except for the New Yorker; I otherwise rely on my appointments here and there to catch up with past news... or to the free subscriptions I somehow receive. My husband only subscribes to professional magazines, which titles are only relevant if you are into veterinary ophthalmology research (anyone?).

One exception are cooking magazines from France which my husband is really fond of.... He used to subscribe to one in particular when he was living in France (that was 14 years ago!) but kept an on-and-off subscription to that magazine since he moved to the US. While he has not had a subscription lately whoever comes from France knows to bring along the latest issue....
What I noticed over the years though, is that the amount of magazines piling up/the amount of recipes indeed made is really high...  "No time, not the right ingredients, difficulty finding a recipe in all the magazines... ", any excuse is good for me to hear.  We tried to find a solution to the "recipe access" issue, sorting out some of the recipes he would most likely make and putting them in dedicated binders....  Despite all this nice filing and despite dozens of magazines later, he has made only 4 recipes (the Charlotte aux Fruits Rouges, the Creme Renversee à l'orange, a Soupe aux Fruits Rouges et à la Mascarpone and this recipe.) 4.
My business hat tells me that 1) The magazine must be really excited about having such a loyal customer... 2) We should forget purchasing this magazine because it's a real waste of money, especially now that everything is a click-away... My supportive spouse heart actually loves having him dream in front of these recipes... but my practical head knows that I will most likely be cooking the next meals anyway (with or without a recipe from that magazine (because honestly, I am not a big fan of that cooking magazine myself)).

He would argue that this is the same with me and the Elle à Table that I ask visitors to bring (or that I purchase while in France)... and this would be true except that I never purchase the magazines to make something; I only get them to get ideas and then improvise around because yes, I don't have time to make elaborated dishes anymore and I do lack some of the ingredients (or if they are available, what should be an affordable meal becomes very expensive....)...  and despite that, my magazines/recipes made ratio is much higher!

One of the recipes he likes to make is this Pork Roast with Grapes and Cumin. I have come to making it myself as well (??!!) with generally great success -  it passes our children' "can-we-have-it-in-our-lunch-box-tomorrow? " test (i.e., a close to perfect score!))... and it's a relatively easy dish to make even the the night before...   so I would highly encourage you to try it out!

In the meantime, I'll see whether we'll come back with new cooking magazines from our vacation in France! Stay tune, you never know what could be cooking soon in our family! Bon Appétit!

Ingredients:
- 2 pork tenderloin
- 500 gr (1 pound) of white or red grapes
- 200 gr (about 1/2 pound) of small pearl onions
- 1 tbs honey
- 30 gr (1 oz) butter
- 1 tbs cumin seeds
- Olive oil, salt and pepper

• Peal the onions and reserve in a bowl
• Wash the grapes and cut them in half. Blend about 1/3 to make a heavy juice. Reserve.
• Salt and pepper the meat and roll it in cumin seeds (you can keep the tenderloin whole or cut them in chunks depending on the size of your cocotte)
• In a cocotte, heat the oil and brown the meat. Once all pieces are done, add the honey and the grape juice. Cook for another 15mns.
• In the same time, cook the onions in butter in a pan. Once they are cooked, take them out of the pan and drop the remaing grapes into it. Sautee the grapes for 5 minutes. 
• Once the meat is fully cooked, take them out of the cocotte, and deglacez the cooking juice (scrapping the bottom of the cocotte very well) and let it cook for another 5 minutes to thicken.
• Put the meat on a serving plate, laying the sauce over it and the onions & grapes around.

 My personal comments:

• I generally cook the onions wih the meat and add the grapes a few minutes before serving so that they are cooked but not mushy.
• I like to blend white & red grapes as well as white/yellow/red pearl onions.
• I serve it with mashed carrots and/or rice.
• You could make it with a pork roast - allow more time for cooking.

Aragula Soup - Soupe à la Roquette

Aragula ("roquette" in French) is a favorite green in our household. I don't know whether it was already common in the US in the late 80s  but I don't remember eating any in France growing up. Choices of greens for our salade verte were really limited to laitue, feuille de chêne, mâche et frisée (I promise to make frisée aux lardons one day - a favorite of my husband's but not something I ever ever enjoyed (even before I stopped eating meat)!)

Aragula is something I really discovered in the US and have come to love (unlike iceberg lettuce).

We could eat some everyday, especially when the other green options for our daily "salade verte"are iceberg lettuce or another unappealing romaine. 

We eat aragula just plain with a balsamic vinaigrette, or in my home-made improvised mix-greens salad or other salade composée, on a white pizza or in a sandwich! Although it sometimes touches warm food, I had never thought about making it into a soup until I realized a few months ago that, because I was traveling a lot (hence the absence of posts since Feb! Sorry....), we were not going to be able to eat the whole aragula before it would go bad (and yes, it does go bad relatively quickly, even when we purchase it in a clamshell container (I know, I know)), I would have to come up with a soup. It was freezing cold outside (we had a LLOOOOOONG winter this year) and I figured that I could pretty much cook it in a similar way as I do the Soupe au Cresson. 

Easy. Simple. Delicious. And a great success.

To be honest, between watercress and aragula soup, I prefer watercress (if and only if, this is wild watercress (or watercress that actually tastes like watercress! (I have been disappointed sooo many times here...))... but making this aragula soup is a good alternative. Whereas the taste of aragula that can be pungent when eaten raw, it becomes milder in the warm soup - making it an easy alternative for children for instance. 

I also think that this soup, or a slightly modified version of it, will be great served cold this Summer. Until then (I could eat hot soup every day), I know that I can go and purchase more aragula... we'll never run out of ideas (next on my list is aragula pesto (recipe anyone?)) to eat it all... Bon Appétit!

Ingredients (for 4 persons)
- aragula, washed and chopped
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 small onion, minced
- 2 potatoes, skin off and cubed
- salt and pepper to taste
- Olive oil

• In a pot (with lid), over medium-heat, saute the onion, garlic and potato in olive oil.
• Add about 3 cups of water
• Put the lid on and simmer for about 10 minutes or until the potatoes are soft.
• Immerse the aragula for two minutes
• Blend thoroughly
• Add salt and black pepper to taste .
• Serve with crème fraîche, grated cheese, toasted bread.

Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake

A few months ago, I was in San Francisco and a friend of mine introduced me to a great local artisan chocolatier and we got to talk "excellence in Chocolate in the US and France" while visiting his atelier...  It was really fascinating to hear him talk about his passion for chocolate and innovation in chocolate-making... I do believe in "innovation" in companies; some of our Executive Education clients are actually coming to Wharton to get their executives to be more innovative.....  Obviously, it was even more mouth-watering to talk about innovation in... chocolate making! The very interesting thing he told me is that when he wants to bounce ideas, he calls up a French artisan chocolatier (excellent as well, trust me!!) and the two of them talk shop! From a business standpoint, this is really exciting to see two competitors helping eachother come up with another great product. It's a win-win situation: they both have something to win in coming up with new products because it will help their profession against the industrially-made chocolates that are out there and stealing some of their market share....
I could not leave the atelier without purchasing some chocolate bars to take home to Philadelphia to share with my husband and our children. This started a discussion among us as we tend not to agree on what defines "un excellent chocolat"...  Like everything else in food, it does take time and experience to be able to distinguish and appreciate differences in chocolates... I am no expert... but do know that I'd rather not eat chocolate than a mediocre one... A real treat? A really nice piece of dark chocolate with an espresso after lunch (once all the dishes is done so that I can really enjoy my coffee!)...

Despite all that I just wrote,  when it comes to baking with chocolate, I generally use the  IKEA dark chocolate bars.  IKEA chocolate??? Yes, I know that it is definitively not the best chocolate out there but it is good enough to bake a cake for a Sunday afternoon tea-break! This is my price/quality hat taking over....

Here is a recipe I got a few years ago. This recipe is a great recipe, and not just for people who avoid gluten.... The best thing? It's even the next day.. so very practical when I don't have time to bake something on Sunday morning...  Verdict of the Chocolate-cake eaters in our family? They all love it! Would it taste better with a more-upscale chocolate? I am not sure. Will have to try! Bon Appétit!

Ingredients:

• 275 gr (9.7 oz) dark chocolate
• 5 medium eggs separated
• 175g (6.1 oz) sugar
• 140g (4.9 oz) almond flour (ground almonds)
• 1 TBs of rhum or orange liqueur (optional)

• Preheat ovent to 170C (340F)
• Roughly chop about 50g of the chocolate and reserve
• Melt the remaining chocolate in the microwave or in a double-boiler
• Whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Gradually whisk in half of the sugar, a tablespoon at a time until incorporated - you have a soft meringue.
• Beat the egg yolks together with the remaining sugar until pale and doubled in volume.
• Carefully fold in the meringue mixture into the egg yolk mixture. 
• Gently fold in the chocolate
• Fold in the rest of the meringue
• Fold in the almond flour and the chopped chocolate.
• Add the rhum/liqueur.
• Fold into a round mold and bake in the oven for 30mns. After 30mns, turn the oven off and leave the cake for another 15mns. 

Cranberry - Orange - Ginger Relish

French people don't celebrate Thanksgiving and very few actually know that Americans get together with their family on that special Thursday in November to eat a Thanksgiving feast made of Turkey, squash and cranberries. This is not to say that French people don't eat turkey. I grew up eating roasted turkey (in a wood-oven mind you!) for Christmas lunch or New Year's lunch at my grand-mother's house when we would all get together with my relatives (about 20 of us). She would wake up really early to start her wooden stove and have the turkey ready by lunch time around 1pm. She would stuff the very local (I remember picking it up at the farm!!) bird with with shallots, oinions and chestnuts (no bread!)... and to this day, this is the best stuffing I have ever eaten (just maybe so because I love chestnuts in savory recipes...)
Although there were about 20 of us, the turkeys were much much smaller than the ones I have seen in local supermarkets around Philadelphia. No way she could have cooked such a big bird in her wood oven and have it ready by 1pm! When my parents come to visit and see the size of turkeys we all wonder how my grand-mother could have cooked such birds in her oven...

Turkey was served with additional chestnuts, cooked apples and maybe green beans... but definitively no cranberry sauce. French people don't know cranberries. Well, let me be more precise, the only French people I know who know what cranberries are (canneberges in French) are the ones who use it to prevent/fight UTI or the ones who traveled to the US/UK and got exposed to fresh/canned cranberries.....
I personally like cranberries but hardly ever cook them except in a pound cake/muffins where I mix them with apples and other Fall spices.  The other recipe I discovered last year through a friend of mine and have been enjoying (alone - no one else except my mom would eat it at home)... is this orange-cranberry relish.  I like it because I cut the sugar amount in half and let it "cook" overnight in its juice. I eat it as dessert or with some roasted winter squash and .... chestnuts.  I have seen this (or very similar) recipe in cooking magazines this year so maybe some of you just had it with your turkey a few days ago! If not, make it with leftovers/discounted fresh cranberries you can find around you these days. It's really worth it... and a most welcome change from the canned cranberry sauce I have tasted in the past! Bon Appetit!

Ingredients
Makes 8-10 servings

• 1 orange, unpeeled and preferably organic, scrubbed
• 2 bags ( 12 oz each) fresh cranberries
• 1-1/2 cups sugar  (300 gr) ( I use anywhere between 1/3 to 2/3 of that depending on how sweet I want it)
• 1/3 cup (2 oz) peeled and finely chopped fresh ginger

• Cut the orange ( with the peel on) into 16 chunks and discard any seeds.  Working in batches, combine the orange chunks, cranberries, sugar and ginger in a food processor.  Pulse to chop finely and evenly, stopping once or twice with each batch to scrape down the sides of the bowl.
• Transfer to a storage container, cover and refrigerate for at least 24 hours to develop the flavors. 
• Bring to room temperature and stir well before serving.
• Can prepare up to 3 days in advance.

Coconut Chia Pudding

Don't ask me where September and most of October went... We have all been busy : first a professional trip to California (my first in 9 years! San Francisco looks even better than the last time I went there/when I lived there (but more on that trip in another post) ),my parents' visit (always a treat), a trip to France for work (VERY hard to say "no" when it was offered for me to to Paris!!), then friends' visit... and of course, the Rentrée des Classes (back to school) with homework, new activities, new friends, etc....

One of the things people who have come to our house discover is that, since I turned vegan a few months ago, we have a lot of seeds & nuts (in addition to other grains French people don't eat often like  Kasha, Quinoa or Millet)  in the house as I use them as a great source of proteins.
Among the cashews nuts (raw or roasted (always unsalted)), almonds, walnuts, soy nuts, hemp seeds, sunflower seeds, peanuts, pistachios, pine nuts, Brazilian nuts, Macadamia nuts and other pecans, the seeds that trigger the most interest are Chia seeds. Most people have never heard of them; or when they have, they don't really know how to use them. They just know it's supposedly good for you because of their Omega 3-6 content...
I get the same question at work where some of my colleagues have started eating them...  No later than this morning, a colleague told me that she was putting a few in her tea; since Chia seeds become gelatinous, it reminded her of tapioca pearls...  I had never thought about this way of using them and will try it out...

I personally put them in yogurt or on apple sauce, never on anything salted for some reasons...
I have also used them to bind dough in cakes.... but most recently, I have been making Chia pudding. This is the easiest dessert to make and the options are endless when it comes to taste, texture and flavor.  I first saw this Chia pudding in a local restaurant and realized that it was really easy to make. I now saw some "Chia Pods" in the dairy section at Whole Foods (I have never tried them and will wait for them to go on major sale to purchase one : for the same price you can make about 10 of them, if not more)...
Our children do eat Chia seeds in their yogurt... and have been enjoying some versions of this Chia pudding.... so voila another easy healthy homemade dessert! Bon Appétit!

Ingredients:

• Chia seeds
• Coconut Milk (whole, not light)
• Agave syrup or honey for sweetness
• Vanilla extract

• In a large bowl, measure 1/4 cup of Chia Seeds. 
• Slowly add 1 cup of milk, stirring a lot. Stirr more so that all the seeds get wet.
• Add syrup/honey and sweeten taste.
• Put in the fridge, stirring it frequently so that no chia seeds cluster together.
• Serve cold with cut fruits (mango, cantaloupe, kiwi, strawberries, etc.)

My Personal Comments

• I have tried it with Soy, Almond and Coconut milk. I prefer it with whole coconut milk.
• You can play with the ratio chia seeds: liquid. I like it at 1:4 but some people like it at 1:3.

Cold Celery-Cucumber Soup

I just came back from two (too short) weeks of vacation in France where we spent time with relatives and friends in rural Normandie, Lozère (that's in the middle of nowhere France) and the French Alps (near Annecy - a city worth visiting both in the Summer and Winter!) Needless to say that we had a great time....

It was really hot (unusually hot for the season), which made us eat a lot of salades composées, generally made up with fresh vegetables from the potager. Spending time with friends who are lucky motivated enough grow their own vegetables in their potager (think fresh lettuce, peas,  tomatoes, fresh French beans, fava beans, zucchinis, eggplants, etc....) reminded me of my grand-mother's silly cucumbers & zucchinis!What I loved about gardening with my grand-mother in the Summer was to watch the vegetables grow and trick us into growing too fast for us to harvest and eat (hence a lot of canning!) My grand-mother got really upset when one zucchini/cucumber would escape her thorough gardening and hide from her to become so big that we could only puree them into a soup...

If you are feeling overwhelmed with cucumbers this summer, here is a quick recipe. I make this soupe froide a lot either with celery or with fennel. The recipe below is vegan (and my husband did say "hmm c'est super bon!!) but you could definitively use cream or yogurt instead of silk tofu and raw cashew nuts. Bon appétit!

Ingredients
- 2 small or 1 large cucumber (skin off but with seeds unless too bitter)
- 1 small celery stalks & leaves
- 1 small red hot pepper (optional)
- 1/4 cup of raw cashew nuts
- About 1/2 lb of silk tofu (250g)
- 2 Tbs of olive oil
- salt, pepper

• In a blender, put the silk tofu
• Add cucumber and celery (cut into small pieces)
• Add cashew nuts, hot pepper, salt and olive oil
• Blend until really smooth
• Add salt and pepper to taste
• Serve cold

My Personal Comments

• In total I have about 7 cups (1750 ml) of ingredients in the blender (loosely packed)
• The trick is to blend the soup longer than you would want at high speed so that it becomes really smooth.
• I would add about a cup (250gr) of plain yogurt instead of the silk tofu.
• If using fennel, two small bulbs would do the work.

La salade composée verte....

May already went by, pff... And June also (re  pfff). I just can't really remember why it went by so fast.. but May brought our first CSA produces: fresh rhubarb, fresh asparagus, fresh French beans, fresh garlic, fresh lettuces etc.  Petit plaisir du dimanche... Nothing better than fresh local produces... Even though I have to be more creative when it comes to serving the same vegetables weeks after weeks... I feel fortunate to be able to have access to and be able to afford such produces. That said, I don't purchase ALL the fruits & vegetables we eat from the local Farmers' market. For once, it would require me to spend even more time in the kitchen to find good recipes to cook with the vegetables -I-could-only-find-at-the-market-that-Sunday. Then, I am not sure that my family would approve of eating within the limitation of this supply (Kale is definively not their favorite food.... yet!)... but more importantly, our already-high-food budget would explode...  So we compromise or, rather, mix-and-match.  When mix-and-matching, I use Farmers' market produces for dishes where they are served with minimum transformation and supermarket produces for the rest. For instance, if I am only serving a zucchinis compotée, I will use the Farmer's market zucchinis. If I am making a ratatouille, I will use the local supermarket ones. I am sure there is a difference. Maybe I would be able to tell it. Would it really matter? No. Will we enjoy the dish as much? Yes.

The only time when I don't compromise is when fruits or veggies (generally from the supermarket, including high-end ones like Wholefoods) have no flavor. I'd rather not buy these produces and fall back on something else, even if it means serving it twice the same week, than purchasing des fruits et légumes sans goût. Fruits AND veggies are meant to be flavorful. The flavor might be subtle (zucchinis for instance) or fragrant (raspberries)... but they have to taste flavorful! Unfortunately, for the sake of supply chain, supermarkets have been pushing for growers to forgo flavorful varieties (heirloom varieties, anyone?) to the benefits of varieties that can travel miles (some of which have been genetically modified to do so...). And unfortunately, some of these travel-resistent varieties do not taste as good (Canadian tomatoes exported to Philadelphia in February? Really??) It's a shame but not matter how many fresh produces I want to include in our family diet, I will try to avoid purchasing those as much as I can.  I want my children to know to appreciate fresh good produces and develop a taste for them.  I don't believe that they are too young to do so; they are already there when it comes to certain fruits (pears and strawberries especially)... so even if Kale is definitively not their favorite vegetable (yet!), I'll keep serving different varieties to them so that maybe, just maybe, one tastes better to them than another. I know what I will get at the Farmer's market this week-end....

One of the salade composées I have been making with our CSA produces is what I call my "salade composée verte" (as opposed to a salade verte, which in French, means plain lettuce). My sister-in-law made one for us last year when we were in Singapore to visit. Since then I have been serving it many times, and as usual, playing with the ingredients that are available to me when I make it. The key is to have a good balance between bitter-sweet and crunchy....It will work with whatever you get at the Farmer's market this week-end or at your local supermarket. No worries! Bon Appétit!

Ingredients

• 1 cup of cooked Quinoa (couscous or orzo would be fine too)
• Aragula or mixed greens thinly sliced
• Green veggies such as asparagus, snap peas, snow peas, cucumber, raw fresh zucchinis, avocados, edamame, celery etc.
• Toasted Pumpkin seeds (for added crunch)
• Green herbs (basil, parsley, tarragon, chive, green onions) - I generally pick one only.
• Feta cheese (if you have to have cheese in your salad)

My Personal Comments:

• There are no set-proportions but you want the veggies to dominate (ie, you don't put as much quinoa/couscous); the balance depends on what you like and have available to you. If you have fresh zucchinis, then I would not use cucumbers or celery.
• If I have vegan or lactore-intolerant guests, I serve the feta cheese on the side
• I serve it with a regular sauce vinaigrette for dressing