Weekly Menu - Week 12

This Sunday is Mothers' Day in France. Don't ask me why Mothers' Day does not fall on the same Sunday around the world... but I suspect that every country tries to make it as convenient profitable as possible for retailers. This week-end is Memorial Day week-end in the US (a long week-end for my non-US readers): it would not have been smart to double it as Mothers' Day since most retailers are running large sales for Memorial Day. It was more profitable to have Mothers' Day fall early May when nothing else was happening. At least, that's my opinion.
As in the US, la Fête des Mères has become a very commercial event in France. And like in the US, it drives me nuts. I don't care about Mothers' Day. There. I said it. It feels artificial to me. Besides, I personally think that all mothers would be better off to have their spouse and children help out a little bit on a daily basis than just once in May! And it's not because my daughter prepared a gift for me in school that it will make me like Mothers' Day better. Of course, I am very proud of the pink bracelet my daughter made from scratch in school (they made the beads and painted them). The bracelet is actually something I can wear even though she warned me that "c'est très fragile". This year, she even managed to keep the secret until the actual US Mothers' Day! Last year, she had told me "it's a secret but it's a bookmark!' Just to see her so excited about making the gift, keeping the secret and bringing it home is what makes me happy!
With her English teacher, they had made a booklet where they had to complete sentences and draw something accordingly: My mom and I read....; my mom and I watch....etc.  The page I like best? "My mom and I eat.... EVERYTHING!". That's true! Of course, there are things my children like more than others... but overall, both of them are really good eaters. And that's a daily invaluable gift! Bonne Cuisine!

Weekly Menu - Week 12

	Day	Suggested Menu
	Monday	Moussaka with green salad Homemade Plain Yogurt with Chestnut Spread Fresh Fruits
	Tuesday	Cucumber Salad with Fresh Mint, Mustard and yogurt dressing Vegetable Casserole with Cranberry Beans Panna Cotta with Raspberry Coulis
	Wednesday	Brussels Sprouts with Gougères Homemade Plain Yogurt with honey Fresh Fruits
	Thursday	Shrimp with Saffron Rice Apple Mango Speculos Crumble
	Friday	Spaghetti Squashotto with green Salad Homemade Plain Yogurt with dark brown sugar Fresh Fruits

Game Plan:

Sunday Evening:

• Make the Moussaka on Sunday evening. If you don't want to make it with lamb, you could well use buffalo or beef instead.
• If you are making your own yogurt, make your weekly batch on Sunday evening. 

Monday Evening:

• You only have to re-heat the Moussaka.
• Make the Panna Cotta on Monday evening. They taste better if they have been cooled for a long time.

Tuesday Evening:

• You have to make the cucumber salad and the vegetable casserole.
• Start with the casserole as you have to shell the cranberry beans and the other vegetables. While they cook, make the cucumber salad.
• If you have not made the Panna Cotta, you won't have enough time to make them for Tuesday evening. You could switch desserts and make them for Wednesday!

Wednesday Evening:

• You have to make the Brussels Sprouts and the Gougeres.
• Start by making the gougeres. You could pre-cook the Brussels sprouts in a pan on the stove and transfer them in the oven after the Gougeres are done. Alternatively, you could bake both the gougeres and the Brussels Sprouts at the same time: put the gougeres on the top rack and the Brussels Sprouts on the lower rack. When the Gougeres are done, place the Brussels Sprouts on the upper rack for extra browning.

Thursday Evening:

• You have to make both the Shrimp and Saffron Rice and the Crumble.
• Start by making the crumble dough. While it refrigerates, prepare the filling. 
• While the Crumble is baking in the oven, make the shrimp and Saffron rice, starting with cooking the rice.

Friday Evening:

• It's Friday! Enjoy! 
• You only have to make the Spaghetti Squashotto which takes less than 30 minutes to prepare. Pre-cook your Spaghetti Squash in the microwave. It will save you time.

Apple Mango Speculos Crumble

Earlier this week, I went to Belgium to visit a friend of mine who moved back "home" with her family after spending about 18 years in the US. I took the Thalys high-speed train from Paris to Bruxelles and then transfered to a smaller commuter train to Gent.  My children were thrilled to take the high-speed train with which Bruxelles is only 1h20mn away from Paris (vs. about 3 hours by car). They were just disappointed not to have their own TV in the train (they are used to trans-Atlantic flights where they get to watch their own small TV!!) Gent, like most Belgium cities (and unlike the countryside) is a beautiful city with old buildings, canals and a very peaceful pace. People ride their bike (or the tram) almost anywhere because nothing is really far in what is the third largest city in Belgium (after Bruxelles and Anvers). My friend had asked me what I wanted to do while in Gent. Since I had been to Gent last year to attend a wedding and since we had three young children to shuttle around, I had nothing specific in mind. Except to go to a local supermarket! You see, despite the fact that Belgium is less than 2 hours away from Paris by train, despite the fact that part of the country speaks French (the other part speaks Flemish and some German), despite the fact that we now have a common currency, Belgium is a foreign country to French people!

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Leeks, Ricotta and Bacon Tarte Salée

I was visiting a friend the other day whose oldest daughter's class organizes quaterly "dîner de classe". The organizing family is in the house for supervision but, as my friend was explaining, it's basically the first step towards a boum (a.k.a soirée among older kids). Not the kind of dîner de classe she attended together with her teachers, let alone parents, while she was in junior high (I never attended a dîner de classe while in junior high!)This class party dinner is just a nice pot-luck buffet organized in one of their classmate's house that can accomodate about 30 children (yes, there are such private homes in Paris, although I have never been in one myself!!!)  Since it's a potluck buffet that feeds hungry-sweaty dancers, each family is supposed to contribute one type of dish/drink. As indicated on the invitation (that also mentioned to wear a "colorful outfit"), my friend's family had to bring une Tarte Salée!  

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Shrimp with Saffron Rice

Saffron is one of these spices that I don't use a lot. For once, real saffron is expensive. Then, French people don't use it that often in their daily cuisine! The only French two dishes I can think of that always require Saffron are Bouillabaisse, a fish soup that often served in the South of France (it originated in Marseille),and Sauce Rouille, which, as it turns out, is mostly served with a Bouillabaisse... I have personally never made my own Bouillabaisse and since I don't like raw garlic, I tend to avoid Sauce Rouille!  My mother did have a few tiny-tiny boxes of Saffron among all the other spices. They were tiny yellow boxes, the size of a watch battery, sold together in a glass spice jar. Since my siblings and I were always reorganizing the spices (that was one of our favorite game in the kitchen!), we could not resist playing with the little Saffron boxes. Of course, our mother would not let us, which only increased our interest in Saffron. While I remember playing with the yellow boxes, I don't remember what my mother was using it Saffron in (I'll have to ask her).

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Weekly Menu - Week 11

I have not done much cooking lately... but I have eaten a lot!  Being in Paris and having grand-parents willing to take care of their grand-children (merci!!!), I have been able to see a few friends and relatives. My social schedule looks like a professional one, except better because I am on vacation! I go from one breakfast to a lunch to a dinner with a drink in-between when possible! And yet, I never manage to see all the people I'd love to. It's the frustrating part of any too-rare trip "home", malheureusement! However, it's wonderful to be able to spend time with friends and relatives and always a treat to share a meal with them. Not necessarily a traditional three-or-four-courses meal in a restaurant; after a week, it would not be sustainable! Besides, just a nice homemade salad makes me happy, especially in good company! But yes, I have a hard time saying never say no to  macarons or good cheese!
One evening, though, I offered to cook for my parents and asked them what they would love to have. Here are the few items we had: homemade hummus and socca.  I also made a gluten-free crumble for dessert on another occasion as well as a batch of Granola. My parents enjoyed all of it very much and it was fun to share new ingredients (chickpea flour, rice flour, tahini,) with them. I'll cook more for all of us when I leave Paris in a few days but true enough, I am more interested in cooking/eating all the traditional French food we don't easily (read: at all or at outrageous prices) find in Philadelphia! Stay tune, you might be in for really interesting dishes. Bonne Cuisine!

Weekly Menu - Week 11

	Day	Suggested Menu
	Monday	Shredded carrots Veal, Cilantro and Ricotta Meatballs with baked potatoes Homemade Plain Yogurt with Chestnut Spread Fresh Fruits
	Tuesday	Tabbouleh with Green salad Petites Crèmes Express au Café
	Wednesday	Mustard-breaded Turkey Breast with green beans Homemade Plain Yogurt with honey Fresh Fruits
	Thursday	Seafood salad with Avocado, Tomatoes and Grapefruit Homemade Plain Yogurt with homemade Granola
	Friday	Guacamole Swiss Cheese Soufflé with green salad Homemade Plain Yogurt with dark brown sugar Fresh Fruits

Game Plan:

Sunday Evening:

• Make the Granola on Sunday evening. It requires very limited prep time but has to bake in the oven for about 45 minutes. Just make sure that you don't eat all of it before Thursday evening! It's so good. It's also a perfect foodie gift if you need one this week!
• If you are making your own yogurt, make your weekly batch on Sunday evening. 

Monday Evening:

• You have to prepare the meatballs, the potatoes and the shredded carrots tonight. Start by pealing the potatoes and put them to boil/cook.
• While they are cooking, prepare the meatballs.
• Last but not least, while the meatballs are cooking in the oven, prepare the shredded carrots. Children generally love to help shredding carrots if they are old enough to help with the food processor.

Tuesday Evening:

• You have to make the whole dinner. No need to panic.
• Start by making the Petites Crèmes Express au Café. They are ridiculously easy to make but need to chill a little bit before serving them. If you had time to make them during the day, even better.
• Cook the cousous/bulgur/cracked wheat you are going to use for the Tabbouleh as early as possible as well so that it has time to chill.
• While everything is chilling in the fridge, finish making the Tabbouleh

Wednesday Evening:

• You only have to make the Breaded-Turkey breast.
• While they are cooking in the oven, prepare the green beans.
• If you have not made the Granola on Sunday, make it on Wednesday evening. You oven will be already hot. You can have dinner while the granola is in the oven.

Thursday Evening:

• You only have to make the seafood salad. How easy is that?
• If you have not-so-great-but-still-eatable avocados, don't discard them, you'll use them for the Guacamole on Friday.

Friday Evening:

• Relax, the week is over!
• You have to make the Swiss Cheese Soufflé and the Guacamole. If you are having a drink before dinner, make the guacamole first so that you can have some while the Soufflé is in the oven.
• If you are just going to start the Guacamole as an appetizer, start with the Swiss Cheese Soufflé and while the Souffle is in the oven, make the Guacamole and serve it either as an appetizer.

Petites Crèmes Express au Café

For some ungrounded reasons, I always thought that using cornstarch in a dish was synonymous with cheating! You know, because you are lazy in a hurry you use cornstarch in a sauce Béchamel to make it thicken faster....  Since I started this blog 148 posts ago, I have read more recipes than I thought I could and realized that some professional chefs use cornstarch in their own recipes. That changed my bias towards cornstarch and I started using it as well. Sparingly. And as the last-resort ingredient if I fail to come up with a good substitute. Let's say that I moved from a No-No to a Why-not but not to a Yes-of-course relationship with cornstarch! However, when it comes to making a quick-and-dirty-easy (pardon my French!) dessert from scratch, I don't hesitate.

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Tabbouleh

This past week-end, I attended my Business School 10-year reunion in Fontainebleau (France). 10 ans déjà! Pff, we could not believe we left school 10 years ago! It was a wonderful week-end spent with friends I had not seen for the last 5 (I went briefly to the 5-year reunion but could not stay because I was pregnant and needed to rest a lot) or 10 years. As you can imagine, we spent the whole week-end catching up. It was such a treat to see so many friends who had flown from all over the world (Australia, Brazil, Singapore, Austria, England, Lebanon, Israel, etc..) and spend time together. Even though it had been 10 years, it felt like we left each other yesterday. Of course, some of us changed jobs a few times, some of us moved to different countries, some of us got more gray hair, some of us got married/divorced, had children... We talked a lot about our children and since I write this blog, we talk about food! Well, we talked a lot about food this week-end because most of the socialization was done around a meal. Not a pizza-beer type of meal but a traditional four-course French meal. And since we had not seen each other for such a long time, we spent hours at the table! A lot of things had changed on campus but one thing that had not changed was the buffet menu!

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Guacamole

Until I came to California, I think that I had Tex-Mex food only twice in my life. For cultural, geographical and geopolitical reasons, Mexican food (and it's US-adapted Tex-Mex food) did not make it to France the way it made it to the US: pico de gallo salsa does not mean anything to my friends; we don't have fancy-burrito chain and definitively no Taco or Chili chains! The only two things French tend to associate with Mexican food are margaritas and corn chips. But that again is  more the result of the influence of large agro-business companies that have pushed their products on the French market rather than culinary tradition!
Living in the US, I have adapted and adopted Tex-Mex ( I would be ashamed of calling it Mexican) food in my daily cuisine.  I find that corn tortillas are a great variation of my buckwheat galettes; I find that a large bowl of chili (con or sin carne) is a great alternative to lentils; but more frequently, we have corn chips with guacamole.

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Smoked Salmon and Leeks Savory Pound Cake

A few years ago, the mother of one of my dear friends got into a tragic horse riding accident while vacationing in South Africa. She survived her fall but now suffers from quadriplegia. H. is a fantastic woman and she and her husband (and their children) have shown incredible strength and family unity to help H. live as normal a life as possible. H. is still undergoing major surgeries with endless delays because her condition makes it harder for her body to heal and recover.  However, with time, commitment, drive and love, we all hope that she would steadily recover partial use of her arms which would make her regain some independence. Today, H. is able to go onto the internet and I know that she has been reading this blog frequently as a way to "brush up" her English... and to keep herself busy. H. was a wonderful cook, the daughter of French charcutiers-traiteurs in Normandy. For those of you who don't know what a Charcutier-Traiteur is, think WholeFoods Deli with whatever French refinement there could be: homemade terrines, homemade pâtés, unique smoked hams and cooking sausages, wonderful salads, etc. It's basically where you go for just your weekly tranche de jambon (slice of ham) or for your wedding catering!  H. and her husband loved to have people over and still do. Meals at their place are always a partie de plaisir : because the food is delicious, because the company is wonderful, because the topics of discussion are interesting, and just because we all love to be around them.

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Weekly Menu, Week 10

As I am preparing for my trip to France, I was telling my good friend C. that I might skip publishing the Weekly Menu until I come back at the end of the Summer. "I am not sure people use them", I told her. She then replied "oh, I do use them: I don't make them entirely but I steal some of your ideas in a way to add more diversity to my weekly cooking". This is the way I am hoping that these Weekly Menus are used: picking up one idea here or there and including it in your weekly cooking. If you were doing that, that would be a great start towards healthier nutrition habits! And when it comes to healthier habits, we all have improvements to make! Oui, oui... One of my mom's cousins was visiting over the last 10 days... It was her first trip to the US so she came with a very fresh eye to this country. I asked her what immediately caught her eyes: "people eat all the time", " people are more overweight/obese", "there is more packaging to the food you purchase" and "people dress in very different ways." were her fist comments... The "people eat all the time" is what we should all focus on! N'est-ce-pas? Having a Weekly Menu plan will help you towards this!  Bonne Cuisine!

Weekly Menu - Week 10

	Day	Suggested Menu
	Monday	Stuffed Tomatoes with Quinoa Homemade Plain Yogurt with Chestnut Spread Fresh Fruits
	Tuesday	Coleslaw with Socca Cherry Clafoutis
	Wednesday	Scallops with Leeks and Orzo Homemade Plain Yogurt with Honey Fresh Fruits
	Thursday	Lentils with Vegetables with green Salad Orange Salad
	Friday	Kale Chips Buckwheat Galettes Homemade Plain Yogurt with Brown Sugar Fresh Fruits

Game Plan:

Sunday Evening:

• You want to make the Stuffed Tomatoes. They are very good re-heated.
• If you are making your own yogurt, make your weekly batch on Sunday evening.

Monday Evening:

• If you have not made the Stuffed Tomatoes, you have to make them tonight. They have to be in the oven for about 45 minutes. 20 minutes before serving, make the quinoa. 
• Stuffed tomatoes make great leftovers so don't hesitate to make more. Same with quinoa.

Tuesday Evening:

• You have to make the whole dinner. No need to panic.
• Start by making the Socca batter. It will rest while you prepare the other dishes.
• After the socca batter, make the Clafoutis. You don't have to make them in individual servings. You can make a large dish.
• While the Clafoutis is in the oven, make the Coleslaw. As soon as the Clafoutis are done, put your skillet/dish in the oven and increase the temperature to make the socca.

Wednesday Evening:

• You only have to make the scallops with leeks and Orzo. This is one of my emergency dinner so it won't take much time to make. Start with cleaning the leeks if you don't have frozen ones.

Thursday Evening:

• You have to make the Lentils and the Orange salad. Start by making the lentils.
• While they cook, make the orange salad. For the sake of time efficiency, don't make a start anise syrup but use honey instead.
• If you are feeling zealous, you could make the buckwheat batter tonight for the galettes.

Friday Evening:

• You have to make the buckwheat batter as early as possible in the day if you have not made it on Thursday evening.
• While the batter rests, start prepping the fillings for the crepes (mushrooms, onions, etc.)
• While the fillings are cooking, you can make the Kale chips.
• Relax, it's Friday!