Today I made

Today I made:

CHICKEN LIVER PATÉ
300g chicken livers (remove sinews) which cost 1.60 euros
150g butter, diced
finely sliced / roughly chopped red onions and garlic sauteed in olive oil 
dried thyme leaves
salt, black pepper,
5 juniper berries and a pinch of ginger powder but you could use allspice, nutmeg etc...
add cream if you wish... I don't but I do add brandy, sherry or port.

1. Sauté onions and garlic slowly ...
2. Sauté chicken slowly...
3. Put all into food processor with seasonings and an eggcupful of sherry or .....  with the 2/3 butter and process until smooth.
4. Pour into small ceramic containers. Add a thin layer of brandy.
4. Melt the extra butter gently... do not burn... pour onto the patê.   Leave to cool.
5. Seal top with clingfilm or other means.
6. Refrigerate.

and for the apero group this evening which I have not been to for YONKS:

MUSHROOM QUICHE

Ready made puff pastry (Although I love making pastry, I am a fan of quality French ready made)
Sauté sliced or chopped red onions and garlic and lay as a base onto the pastry.
Spread over a can of sliced mushrooms (apx price 1.10 euros) having sieved off the liquid.
Cover with a beaten mixture of eggs, milk or cream, seasoned.
Sprinkle dried thyme leaves overthe whole quiche.
Bake 175C...

A friend's belated birthday fest in July

Champagne at my friend's house was informal and relaxed.  A walk to the restaurant for lunch, then back to the garden for after lunch chat and an evening barbecue were all with good company, It was nice to eat out.  I like the local restaurant.  Some think it Michelin standard.  The food was exquisitely presented, full of protein but no vegetables!  Maybe I live in the dark ages... However, thank you to all those who invited me.
This was a starter but not mine: foie gras, onion chutney and ???

 This my starter :  a ball of salmon gravadlax with tomato and attention to presentation!

 I break into it!

 This my main course: I break into a sheet of pasta to reveal delicious fresh cod and more tomato!

This was a duck main entree: not mine!

There was local cheese goats cheese followed by birthday cake accompanied by fireworks which was whisked away and converted to desserts for everyone.  Coffee or tea if one wished.

 Here just one of the bottles of lovely Burgundian wines...

Un grand vin pour un grand pas.

About ten years ago or maybe more... we were given a MAGNUM (150cl)  in gratitude for us teaching English to two children and because it was a Christmas gift!  The bottle was laid horizontal in a variety of temperatures at the other French house where I lived.. it was either a hot or cold environment! ... and here where the temperature has been more stable!
Having no other wine in the house I thought it was time to TEST it, to TEST the new oven and to celebrate the new kitchen.  Also to thank my former partner for 3 months work laying the floor tiles, installing the kitchen furniture, reconnecting the drainage system, several other minor but important tasks, not to mention four months last year prepping walls and ceilings and installing laundry / larder room furniture.

We were both exhausted by the turn of July into August.
He has been frustrated with my slow decision making.
My own slowness has definitely frustrated me!
However, working as a team we got to where we are now - the end of six rooms being renovated in six years!
.. as well as a marvellous kitchen where I have to re-hone my cooking skills!

I invited a friend and so we were three.

We opened a bottle of Vouvray, saving half which I drank two days later and it still had fizz!
I needed bubbly!

Lamb rôti (40% price reduction bought mid June waiting in the freezer for a special occasion) was  slow roasted. I slashed the top with a knife. Then rubbed into the top and underside of meat 'a chopped, crushed, blended together mixture of rosemary leaves, garlic cloves, capers, anchovies, lots of lemon zest, lemon juice and olive oil'.  Then I placed the meat onto sliced onions and sliced potatoes from my garden. I put it into a large oval pyrex dish which has its own lid as deep as the container. I used to have a wonderful enamelled metal one with dimples on the top but that died a few years ago!
The lamb which was more braised than roasted was served with four vegetables.

It wasn't the most amazing meal I have ever cooked but the lamb shredded off the bone after I let it rest out of the oven.  I like that!
It was followed by local goats' cheese, batavia and walnut oil.
For dessert I made a blueberry / myrtille tart.. page 182...adapted to contain pears from THE FRENCH KITCHEN by Joanna Harris and Fran Warde.  DELICIOUS!

ohgoodoh! My cookbooks can be found!

This wine really deserved a better meal but at least it wasn't served with a fried egg. That is another story from the long time past! Not sure how much this would have cost if I bought it in 2016! I had to not care!  Delicious it was...

To be fair to this story.. we opened it the evening before this meal and drank one glass each!  The cheeky monkey said it was nowhere near as good as half a bottle of St Emilion I once took home from a priest's house (with his permission!) to share with my friend!!!!!   Talk about gratitude!!!!!!  Maybe  he does it to wind me up!  Anyway I almost wish I hadn't opened it, especially when the first glassful disappeared from his glass whilst mine was still full!
GRUMBLE is my middle name!
https://www.vivino.com/wineries/bouteilley/wines/cotes-de-bordeaux-merlot-cabernet-sauvignon-2002

 YUM!

Yummy fish dish

Despite the diagnosed and continuing diverticulitis which I have had for maybe 40 years or so...I needed to eat something like this!

In a large frying pan with lid heat 2 tablespoons olive oil. 
Add one or two crushed / chopped garlic cloves and a teaspoon of Aleppo pepper (chilli flakes). Cook, stirring often, until fragrant for about three minutes or less.
Add smashed canned whole peeled tomatoes or chopped fresh ones with tomato puree, a splosh of white wine, bay leaves, a pinch of saffron previously soaked in boiled water.
Bring to boil and reduce heat.
Simmer for about 5–7 minutes.
Stir to blend during this time to prevent stickiness.
Season with salt and pepper.
Add two or four skinned cod fillets or steaks on top ... depends how much sauce you have made.. Cover with lid and steam for another 5 -7 minutes... basting fish as you go! 
Use fish slice to serve sieved tomatoes onto centre of plate, then cod, then sauce, then sprinkle with rocket, served with one or two tiny new potatoes cooked in the microwave and a few broccoli trees.
DIVINE!  but I needed to have reduced my sauce more!

Chateauroux: 3 of 3

He got onto the 'ter' bus but the driver would not accept the smartphone payment/ ticket which was part of the onward journey of bus and train to Bourges, then Nevers, so had to pay again.
I am glad I waited because I declined to leave him to wait alone.  Fortunately, I was there to establish that the driver said he has to ask SNCF for a remboursement!
I wasn't quick enough yesterday with my thinking when about 6 people were waiting behind us to board the bus, that if he had to ask for a reimbursement,  then that clearly he meant he HAD paid!!!!!!
So why did the 'sncf / ter bus / coach ask him to buy another / a new ticket!

I know how long it took him to find the budget transport and indeed it was my decision to take him to Chateauroux  double the distnace and time of what I would have had to do if he'd gone to St Savin... but where was the bus stop?  ... 'twas NOT marked on Google maps because it is named after a hotel that doesn't exist anymore... DER!!!!  We had to ask the tourist office to find out where it was and it was still unclear! It seemed safer to go to Chateauroux!

I have since learned that the train would not accept the ticket and again a second ticket had to be bought.

Moral: don't book a ticket ahead of time!  YOU might not even get there in time! 

Why can't these companies see how hard it is for the budget traveller who does not have a vehicle and who is a traveller!
It must be so frustrating and is one of the things that puts me off traveling without a vehicle.
I can see the advantages of bus travel because it is cheap... and I have travelled National Express, but one needs TIME to do it and assurance of cheap or free accommodation at the end of the journey or a lift! 

On my way home I stopped at La Maison du Parc in La Brenne for a lime ice-cream and wandered to the pond where frogs were beginning to leave their hibernation mud to practise their croaking skills!

HOME to a banana sandwich with new bread I'd bought containing wheat (I think I should avoid it!)
but stuffed with sultanas, pistachios and hazelnuts... it was a meal in itself with a glass of red whilst my cousin phoned and I was told about the ill health of an ageing family! I fell into bed to read.

Almost 3e half a kg but worth it!

Yesterday's pain

Yesterday, we were forced to make a 40km apx / two hour return journey to Poitiers, to Leroy Merlin to be exact and return three sacks of tile adhesive marked with a fabrication date of 11/2015, bought at end of March 2016, kept in my kitchen room. Plus time spent in that green, orange and wh0te balloon-ed shop making the complaint,
More of that long and detailed tale later....


HOWEVER, en route through Monthoiron, a particularly interesting village, but where we usually never stop, I noticed a machine standing by the bus stop!!! How incongruous!
On the way home, deliberately taking the same route, we stopped, and YES, it was Distribupain or something like it!!!
No, I don't need any more pain, but BREAD would be good for lunch .. I fancy an egg sandwich!

WELL, by that time of the day, well after lunch hour, having had our floor laying plans scuppered, and not flawed or even floored by modernism, we pushed one euro in the shape of five 20cts pieces into the mouth of this monster and received a loaf of bread, baguette shaped, chewy and tasty, which we tore off chunks and ate on the way home leaving enough for an aforesaid egg, lettice and tomato sandwich!
You could buy one or two baguettes in a bag.
You could pay with espèces, billets ou avec une carte bancaire.......
He would have done the latter, but I like my hard currency ... lo, the day when I cannot use a euro or sterling currency, or any other coinage currency!

I reckon there were bread fairies in that there machine, making bread, bagging it up, taking the money... - one of them even said "Merci" in her very best french!!!!!!

Is this the way of the world .... !!!    ?????
Me thinks it's a jolly good idea in rural France, but please could we have croissants too? 



 

Cakes and ill health but now I am betterererer

The recent E-coli UT infection, which I believe I have had for six months, trying to cure naturally, prevented me from going to the CCC.  Damn it!

My first cake baked in my newly second hand oven was not the "Love is in the air" themed planned recipe. HOWEVER I will make it for the next guest!  That'll be a laugh!!!!!!!! (in-joke!)

My first cake baked in my splendid gifted but paid for oven was a Lemon Drizzle cake without icing to share with my friend who likes low sugar products and hardly eats cakes.  I wanted and needed to bake once that course of antibiotics had given me more energy by hopefully wiping out the infection. I am being monitored!

So... cake it was ... butter, sugar, 4 eggs, ground almonds and hazelnuts, maize flour, (the recipe said cornmeal and I got that wrong thankfully!!!) drenched in lemon zest and juice.. nice with  freshly sliced pear...improving with age whilst kept wrapped in the refrigerator!   I AM VERY HAPPY WITH MY OVEN!!!!!

Since then I have baked a baby chicken, roasted stuffed red peppers with fennel, roasted veg including a new one for me roasted broccoli and made jacket potatoes...I need English potatoes please!!!

a real oven

Imagine my fortune when three days ago I was offered the opportunity to purchase a freestanding cooking oven and hob!
How more-than-lucky am I!!!!!!!!!!

It arrived yesterday... such lovely, lovely people brought it over and installed all the meticulously clean pieces and made sure it was working!
This, just in time to practice cake baking skills for the next CCC.
I have to admit I am very nervous as I have not baked a cake since August.
Well, I did try to make one in the micro-combi oven but it did was more of a pud than a cake!

Shopping list: eggs!!!!!!!

ADDED NOTE: Have not had an OVEN since August 2015! A micro-combi inherited as a gift in September, a slow cooker and a steamer have been helpful but they are not the same!

The fourth of twelve

On the fourth day of Christmas my own LOVE said to me:

"What are you going to have for breakfast?"
"EGGS!"
"Ah YES! Eggs! those lovely pretty chickens will have some more for me today!
Let's have two boiled eggs for breakfast."

And so I did!
Then:
discipline took me under control! 
SELF-LOVE says I must balance the budget for the year and see what good cheer could be made in 2016. Not a lot! Rather scary!

Later, I collected three eggs from four chickens. Tonight it will be a kind of frittata with rocket, potatoes, smoked salmon and EGGS!! ... if I can scramble it together in the oven part of the micro-combi, having sautéed the rocket and boiled the last of the Charlotte potatoes. It wasn't too bad but 15 minutes was too long - 12 might have been better.  However, all this shows the wonder of having a real oven. Never, ever, be without a REAL OVEN. It's absolutely necessary if one loves food! 
Bon oeuf!

The first and second of twelve

I am beginning to think I shall end this blog...
but I won't,
until I have completed 'the kitchen' in a way that is fulfilling in my senior days!
I think that by then I will WILL be ready for a new life, and, hopefully, by then, in 2016, I will have developed a better sense of Thoughts, Needs, Hopes, Dreams, Regrets, AND moreover what I DO NEED to achieve before I can't.
This has been the red curtain hanging open upon my stage... it's still open and until the day I cannot BE, it isn't yet the final curtain.
I am trying hard to appreciate the difficulties that other persons experience.... and how it must be that HOPE is so hard to think about.
The glass is half or more full in my life despite whatever black dogs haunt me!
It is true that I've felt tired of blog posting, but not tired of being creative, if I can harness a positive stimulus. However, being human, I am proud that I can confront / express emotion without sweeping debris under the rug or into a box to put upon a shelf.  It is  better out than in.  I write for me and not for an audience! I write so that I can begin to understand LIFE as it is doled out ... or as I take whatever I take!

SO... an idea arose on my walk today: 45 minutes trailing The American Way leading to 'La Tranche Anglaise' with the final ascent then descent back to MY HOME. Oh yay, my home. Am I not fortunate to not yet be homeless!  Let's Step back one day to yesterday...

On the first day of Christmas LOVE brought to me:

• a cycle ride along a strait then walking long shallow ascents on the return (TOTAL time : an a hour and a half)
• a reindeer in a tree ( amusing )
• champagne and oysters...eaten in warm sunshine ... all we needed was the beach!  I provided a delicious Lanson Champagne... I am sold!!!
• delicious Christmas flavours, Anglais sur l'assiette.. which isn't what mine host envisaged. As I said to her later, we learn from Christmases we experience. Those who served were instructed to get the food portioned onto the plate before it lost heat! ... the plus side were the wines, the humour and that it was achieved in true French fashion ... eating over six hours with pleasant intervals when various people removed themselves from the table to return at the appropriate moment!  
• the fun and joy of children interacting with adults... 
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  How delightful to see a 4 year old eating more than one!!!!

  

  The beautiful hand made tablecloth from Emmaus for less than ten euros!!!!! 

  
  

  
  

  

  At least 20 plates / dishes of different sizes  portraying Hummingbirds ? Colibris from Emmaus for ten euros!

  

  I do like a boy chicken!

  

  Whilst a modern pudding much like a steamed sultana pudding with a caramel type sauce was interesting I much prefer a real Christmas pud of home made quality but it has been some years since I have had the desire to make one!

and let us step forward to today:
On the second day of Christmas LOVE brought to me:

• a glorious warm spring-like day temperature about 15C!!!!!
• laziness feeling being content...
• a 45 minute walk to my friends' house to find out my holiday duties ...

Trees lopped or felled to provide logs for the owners of the land and to provide a clear view of the mill house!

Le Tranche Anglais - allez -up!

 Indeed - Allez ... up!!!!!!

Canal du Garonne - Posting Two

It was fascinatingly sad to see a large moth attacked by a wasp and grounded repeatedly.  After each sting the wasp retreated about ten times its own length in distance and waited, then returned to do the same until the moth could not struggle any further.  After quite a long time ... well over an hour or maybe two,  the body had been eaten. I saw the wasp doing that very busily.  Wings were only left and even they disappeared eventually, for I could find no evidence of it on our return.  All this happened one metre from the entrance to my tent. I marked the spot with something to ensure that a human foot did not incur the wrath of the mothkiller!

We drove through Damazan...its heritage is based on grapes and tobacco.  The Château Comtal was once a military governor’s residence, then purchased by the Mothes in the 18th century when lattice windows, frescoes, painted ceilings were added. The chateau was used as a tobacco warehouse but in 1989 fire ravaged the building. It is ostensibly now being restored but looks to me as if it needs much more TLC. The refuse bins and litter around the wooden sculpture did little for my interest.

 Going back to camp a boulangerie was discovered just before the closed and this tart cost 5 euros, perfect for four servings and the candle helps it to represent my birthday cake on the day after.... as dessert before main meal served with a local wine from Marmande as a kind of aperitivo!

and the last part looked like -
a little mouse with a pretty smile -
Une petite souris avec un joli sourire.