Normal-ish service will resume soon!

Back from our outrageously long holiday, having had a lovely time catching up with friends and family in Europe. The grass was knee high apparently (THANK YOU to the lovely neighbour that mowed our acre (!!) of grass down to walkable height before we returned) and I almost couldn't find the veg patch under the overgrowth. Time for a radical redesign I think!!

In the meantime, here are some highlights from my week in Paris.

All good breakfasts should involve chocolate.

Goat cheese and bacon "bruscetta" - french style at a cafe just near the Theatre de La Gaite, and fabulous pea patties with a fennel and grapefruit and a beetroot and quinoa salad at Merci (fabulous place with a heart).

After lunches out this is the ideal dinner - baguette, cheese, cheese, more cheese, and some salad for balance (oh, and wine, of course).

Technically not Paris - a fabulous duck salad (breast and gizzard) followed by strawberry tiramisu (delish) on a day trip to Lille. Added bonus for this lunch was the excellent cello player busking about 2m away on the footpath. The other dessert is pain perdu (forgotten bread / french toast) with salt caramel ice cream.

Duck pate and goose pate with champagne jelly, strawberry chutney (must try and make some) and balsamic reduction. Followed by the most expensive chocolate eclair EVER (with gold dust). It was amazing, and I never need to eat another eclair again because it will never be that good. My waistline will be grateful!

 Coffee and macaroons at the Grand daaaahlings...and some of the best frozen yoghurt and blackcurrant icecream ever

 

Last tomato harvest

In June, and after a number of frosts. Clearly shade cloth provides good frost protection. They won't ripen, but will be useful for some more chutney - waste not, want not!

Variation on lizzie's carrot and beetroot salad

Today Lizzie posted a beetroot and carrot salad recipe. Spookily today in the organic veg mix there were beetroot and carrots. That's dinner sorted, along with local salad greens and local feta.

I didn't have mint so used parsley, and also added a dash of lime olive oil and some chermoula spice mix. Lovely!

 

 

I'm in love with an angel

Angel food cake, that is. As a fat free cake it would almost be healthy if it wasn't for the rather large amount of sugar. Its what I imagine pavlova would be, if it were a cake.

I made my first ever angel food cake today using the recipe from the David Lebovitz's fab blog...although I almost got distracted by his marshmallow recipe. I must confess to some trepidation when turning the cake upside down to cool, but all's well that ends well. It is very light and fluffy. Perhaps slightly moist, but it was my first go so I'm going to be forgiving as it seems to have the right texture.

Now that I have tasted it, I can see why he paired the cake with some plum and raspberry compote as it's almost (not quite, but almost) too sweet for me, and the plums would be a lovely counterpoint. Needless to say Jerry has never met a cake (or anything else for that matter) that is too sweet for him!

The other advantage if you have hens that are laying a lot is that this cake uses a LOT of eggs (well the whites) - 12 to be precise. Now, what to do with all the egg yolks? Ice cream seems to be a sensible option :-)