Courgettes à la Marseillaise - Rice pudding with zucchinis

Hop, une recette facile, qui se prépare en grosse quantité et se réchauffe bien. Il faut juste rester pas torop loin de la poêle pendant la cuisson, mais sinon, l'effort est minimum. Un super plat complet végétarien pour le soir !

Here's a family staple, an easy recipe that can be prepared in a big batch and easily rehated. The trickiest part is not straying too far away from the pan while it cooks. This is just the perfect vegan evening meal !

Petit note sur le riz : je n'utilise que du riz acheté en épicerie asiatique. Je suppose que la recette peut fonctionner aussi avec du riz incollable ou autres classiques de supermarché, ça donnera un résultat sans doute plus esthétique, mais chez nous on aime bien quand ça devient un pudding qui grille au fond de la poêle.
Pour le bouillon j'utilise de la volaille, parfois du bœuf, en cube que je mets directement dans la poêle avec le reste.

A note about rice : we only use rice from the asian grovery store, I suppos the recipe could work with non-stick rice, but here we love the gooey texture and how it gets slightly crispy at the bottom of the pan.
As forstock, I use mostly chicken stock, but soetimes beef as well, I just throw the little cubes right into the pan with the rest.

Courgettes à la Marseillaise

Marseilles zucchini i.e. puddingy rice with zucchinis

3 poignées de riz - 3 handfuls rice

4 courgettes de taille moyenne - 4 medium-sized zucchinis
2 oignons - 2 onions
bouillon de volaille - chicken stock
huile d'olive - olive oil

Emincer les oignons et les mettre à revenir dans une poêle anti-adhésive avec une bonne bonne dose huile d'olive. Quand les oignons commencent à être transparent, rajouter le riz et touiller vivement.
Laver et émincer les courgettes. Les ajouter dans la poêle.

Verser de l'eau à niveau et y ajouter le bouillon. Couvrir. Ne pas re-saler, le bouillon suffit !

Laisser cuire doucement, en touillant régulièrement, et en rajoutant de l'eau quand on ne voit plus de jus au fond de la poêle. Quand les courgettes sont cuites, c'est prêt !

Mince the onion and sauté them in a non-stick pan with a very generous amount of oilve oil. When the onions are soft add the rice and stir vigorously for a few minutes.

Wash and thinly slice the zucchinis, add them to the pan.
Cover with water, add the chicken stock cube, cover with a lid.
Let simmer for a while, stirring regularly and adding water when all has been absorbed. When the zucchinis are cooked it is ready !

Pour réchauffer, je remets à chauffer dans la poêle en rajoutant un peu d'eau, en surveillant  et en touillant bien - ça peut griller légèrement au fond, c'est bon ! Le riz passe de collant à une sorte de pudding, mais c'est très très bon à défaut d'être très présentable ! En général, la dose donnée nous fait deux bons repas (à quatre), parfois un peu plus - et moi, j'aime ne faire qu'une seule fois la cuisine pour deux repas, vivent les restes !

Encore mieux ? Vous pouvez remplacer les courgettes par d'autres légumes (je le fais parfois en hiver avec des carottes), ajouter des tomates... et ça marche aussi !

I usually prepare this batch and it lasts the four of us for a little more than two meals. I love having leftovers and not cooking from scratch every meal ! I just put it all back on th estove, add more water and stir regularly, keeping an eye on the pan so that it can get a little crispy at the bottom but not stick. It gets more gooey but I really love the taste !
Even better ? Just replace zucchinis with other veggies - I live to use carrotts in winter or add tomatoes... - and it still works !

Je me suis faite rare sur ce blog en 2014, promis j'essaie de me rattraper, et de songer à rattraper aussi le Historical Food Fortnightly !

J'ai vaincu le pâtisson !

Si vous êtes un lecteur assidu de ce blog, vous avez pu remarquer une vague tendance à user et abuser des cucurbitacées. Et encore, je vous ai épargné la purée de patidoux (pour cette fois).

Mais la pâtisson et moi, notre histoire n'a pas commencé sous les meilleurs auspices. Pourtant, je l'adore, le pâtisson, sa blancheur impeccable, sa forme de brioche, il a une tête de truc bon. Mais la pâtisson, c'est une tannée à peler - contrairement à ses copains le patidoux et la potimarron, il a la peau dure ! Et puis, après des essais plus ou moins foireux, j'avais trouvée une recette sympa... au roquefort et au vin blanc. Pas enfant-proof. Pas maman-proof. Retour à la case départ pour Monsieur Pâtisson.

Ensuite j'ai tenté une poêllée, avec plein de choses dedans pour rajouter du goût. Peu apprécié des enfants, encore moins de la maman - le pâtisson, en morceaux, ça passe pas, ne me demandez pas pourquoi. Et puis comme j'en avais fait une GROSSE poêllée et que j’aime pas gâcher, j'ai tenter de le mixer... et là ! Miracle ! La pâtisson, c'est BON !

So yay ! I defeated the pattypan squash ! If you have been following this blog, you might have noticed how much I love all types of squashes and pumpkins. This one... as much as I loved it visually, it took me some time to find a recipe I liked. There was one keeper for some time, but it involved blue cheese (now bad for me) and white wine (bad for the wee ones). Next I tried to sauté it, and I hated it. But I had cooked a rather large batch and didn't want to waste, so I  grabbed the immersion blender, and lo and behold, a wonderful soup was born !

Velouté de pâtisson au jambon - Pattypan squash and ham soup
3 pâtissons - 3 pattypan squashes
4 tranches de jambon cuit - 4 slices ham
1 cc 1/2 de pâte miso - 1 teasp miso paste
1cc de paprika - 1 teasp paprika
1 brick de crème d'amande - 1 cup almond cream

Passez une heure à épépiner et peler le pâtisson. Courage, cela en vaut le coup.
Faites chauffer un peu d'huile dans une sauteuse et ajoutez le pâtisson et le jambon coupés en dés. Laissez mijoter à couvert à feu très doux pendant une heure en touillant de temps en temps pour éviter que cela n'attache, jusqu'à ce que le pâtisson soit fondant et translucide. Ajoutez la crème, le miso et le paprika. Transférez dans une soupière ou apparenté et mixez avec votre fidèle mixeur plongeant.

First and foremost, spend one solid hour prepping the pattypan squash. But it's all worth it in the end. Peel it, take the seeds out and cut it into small dices.

In a pan, heat one glob of oil, add the squash and the ham (cut into small squares). Cover and let it simmer on low heat for a good hour, stirring regularly. When the squash is tender and translucent, add the spices and almond cream. Stir, transfer into a more adequate container and mix until creamy. There, finally a pattypan squash recipe I LOVE !

Purée de citrouille mutante - appl...-pumpkin purée

Allez, pour changer, une recette SANS amandes !
Il y a quelques jours, j'avais du boudin noir à la crème, mais... malheur ! pas assez de pommes pour une compote. Bon, par contre, j'avais de la citrouille, et une idée sournoise a germé dans ma cocotte-minute. Comment obtenir une purée qui se rapproche d'une compote de pommes acidulée (mais pas tout à fait), sans pommes !

A NUT-FREE rcipe for a change !

A few days ago, I had some blood sausage, but lacked the apples to make the compote to go with it. But... I had a slice of pumpkin, and a wicked idea. How to obtain a purée that has  little of the tanguiness of an appel compote, without apples !

Compote de citrouille-coings - Pumkin and quince compote

1 tranche de citrouille - 1 slice pumkin (enough to make a side dish for three, I honestly didn't weigh mine)

1 coing - 1 quince

3 patates - 3 potatoes

un reste de gras de canard (avec un peu de jus c'est meilleur) - some grease, butter is fine, but I had some leftover duck fat with a little meat juice, it was heavenly

Pelez et coupez en dés les pommes de terre et la citrouille. Frottez le coings jusqu'à ce qu'ils soient brillant, enlevez les pépins et coupez-le en dé. Faites cuire à la cocotte-minute une grosse vingtaine de minutes. Mixez avec un peu de matière grasse, gras de canard ou autre

Peel and dice the potatoes and pumpkin. Rub the quince until it is shiny, cut the core and seeds out, dice the flesh and cook it with the other vegetables in a pressure cooker - it takes about 20 minute suntil everything is cooked and soft. Add a little bit of grease and mix with your immersion blender.

Gratin de butternut-noisette

Parce que bon, on ne va pas faire des glaces en continu. Voilà arriver sur le marché les citrouilles, courges et autres coucourdes. Et dans notre jardin, les noisettes. Plein de noisettes. Oui, parce qu'en plus du prunier, nous avons aussi deux noisetiers. Et l'autre jour, j'ai eu envie de mélanger ces saveurs automnales.

So I hear autumn is finally here and ice cream season might be over soon. Pumpkins of all kinds have appeared at the market, ans we have hazelnuts in the garden. LOTS of hazelnuts. I decided I wanted to play with autumn's flavors, and I'm quite proud with how the experiment turned out !

Gratin courge-noisette - Hazelnut butternut squash gratin

1 courge butternut - 1 butternut squash
5 grosses patates - 6 large potatoes

2 petits bricks de crème d'amande - 1 1/2 cup almond cream

1 cc de cannelle - 1 teasp cinnamon

1 cc de baies roses - 1teasp pink peppercorn

1 petite poignée de noisettes décortiquées - 1 small handful hazelnuts (without the husk)

1 pincée de gingembre - 1 pinch ground ginger

2 pincées de cumin - 1 pinch ground cumin

1 cup d'emmental râpé - 1 cup grated cheese

Préchauffer le four à 180°C.
Peler et couper en dés la courge et les pommes de terre. Les faire cuire à la cocotte minute. Beurrer un plat à gratin et y disposer les dés de légumes cuits.
Mettre les noisettes et les baies roses dans le blender, réduire en poudre, ajouter les autres épices et blender encore un peu pour bien mélanger. Ajouter la crème d'amande et donner encore une ou deux pulsations. Verser sur la courge et la pomme de terre, mélanger un peu à la fourchette (pas trop, sinon on obtient une purée).
Couvrir de fromage râpé et enfourner une vingtaine de minutes.

Preheat the oven at 360°F.
Peel and dice the squahs and potatoes. Cook them in the pressure cooker and place them in a greased gratin dish.
Place the hazelnuts and pink peppercorn berries in the blender and blend into a coarse powder. Add the other spices, blend a little more, then the almond cream and give it a few more pulses to make sure everything is well blended together. Pour the cream over the sqaush and potatoes, turn the mix a little (be carful not to overmix it, you don't want a purée).
Cover with grated cheese and bake in the oven for 20-ish minutes.

Voilà, les baies roses, c'est un peu mon dernier dada, grâce à une amie qui m'en a apporté des importées direct de Madagascar. Jusqu'ici, je ne trouvais pas que ça aie vraiment un grand intérêt, mais là... c'est juste la bonne saveur un peu fumée, épicée mais pas trop, je commence à en mettre un peu partout...

Pink peppercorn is my latest obsession. I didn't really think much of it until a friend gave me some that came straight from Madagascar, and now, I put it into almost everything !

Guaca-truc - Guaca-thing

Bon, je savais que c'était risqué, des avocats sur notre marché, en ce moment... c'est pas l'idéal on va dire. J'ai fait le pari de les prendre pas mûrs et d'utiliser le voisinage de pommes pour pallier à cet inconvénient. Ben laissez-moi vous dire que ça marche vraiment mieux avec les bananes. Une semaine après, les avocats étaient toujours aussi verts et aussi durs, mais avec un goût qui lui commençait à tourner vers le un peu trop mûr. Bref, pas fameux.

Consulté en urgence, mon blender a accepté de s'en charger, mais quand même, ce n'était pas assez bon pour des avocats, même à guacamole. D'un autre côté, j'avais des tomates qui criaient. Et puis quelques épices et aromates, il faut bien.

I knew it was a bit risky, buying avocados at our local (cheap) market this time of the year... let's say it isn't ideal. I took a gamble and hoped the unripe  avocados would ripen next to the apples. Turns out bananas are better at this job. One week after I brought them home, the poor sad avocados were as green and hard as ever, but starting to develop a slight overripe taste.

Not daring to turn them into a regular guacamole, I took out the blender, some also overripe roma tomatoes that were lingering in the pantry, and my spice rack - because honestly, what would I do without it ?

Guaca-truc - Guaca-thing

3 avocats - 3 avocados

3 tomates roma bien mûres - 3 Roma tomatoes

1 gousse d'ail - 1 garlic clove

1 cac de tamari - 1 teasp tamari

1 cac de vinaigre de cidre - 1teasp cider vinegar

2 pincées de sel - 2 pinches of salt

1/2 cac de baies roses - 1 teasp pink peppercorn

Lavez les tomates, pelez l'ail, coupez le tout en gros dés et passez au blender... et voilà ! Une petite entrée, à consommer en dip ou sur un peu de pain frais. Et mes avocats ont été sauvés !

Wash the tomatoes, peal the garlic glove, roughly dice everything and blend with the spices and liquids...  And... that's it ! It's probably one of the easiest and fastest recipes Iever made, and my avocados did turn out great !

Knob celery and Chinese cabbage soup

Winter is for soups. It's cheap, it's easy to make, it reheats well and it works fabulously with most winter vegetables. And the kids love it. Yes, they even loved this one, although getting them to eat cabbage or knob celery in another preparation can be... tricky.

As I previously mentioned, I tend to add some potatoes to any soup, just for the texture, and a little stock (beef or chicken) instead of salt. I don't make my stock from scratch, I'm mostly using stock powder, about 1 tablespoon at a time.

And yes, this is one of my pressure cooker recipes. Because pressure cookers make everything sooo much quicker. Prep time was 15 minutes, with 20 minutes cooking after that.

Knob celery and Chinese cabbage soup

1 medium knob celery

1 Chinese cabbage
2 onions

6 medium sized potatoes

chicken or beek stock powder

In your pressure cooker, preheat one small splash of your oil of choice. Peel and thinly slice the onions and sauté them with the oil. Rinse and chop the cabbage, leaving out the hard core, and add it into the cooker. Peel and dice the celery and the potatoes and add them too. Almost cover with water, add the stock powder. Cook for (about) 20 minutes. Blend into a creamy mixture with your immersion blender.

You will get a fairly thick soup, just add water (or milk, see below) to make it more liquid... and cool it down some.

Now "someone" (looks at her parents) has taught my kids that all soups need an addition of milk and cheese to be edible. Milk is a big no-no for me, so we used oat milk instead as usual. As for the cheese... sometimes, I do eat a little bit of it. This was Maasdam, and it was delicious with the soup.

Lastly, I just discovered this food blog, and oooh ! yummy ! I'm not at all into paleo eating, or losing weight, but the recipes look really, really yummy. I need to try the cacao and roasted hazelnut butter...

More pumpkin !

Yup, more pumpkin. There aren't that many veggies that I really like in winter. To be honest, I only enjoy endive in small quantities, and I'm not entirely a fan of cabbage either. The kids think more or less the same so...
I had some pumpkin left over from my last soup batch (because I had bought a LOT of pumpkin, and my pressure cooker is big but not THAT big), so I made some gnocchi for a change.

Pumkin gnocchi
1 slice pumkin
5 large potatoes
1 tsp ground cumin
4 eggs
3-4 cups flour
chicken or beef stock

Peel and dice the pumpkin and potatoes and cook them until tender in your pressure cooker. Once cooked, drain all water out and squash the potatoes and pumpkin together. Add the eggs and cumin,  and enough flour to get a dough that holds its shape (if you stick a teaspoon into it, it should stay vertical - I know, highly scientific method).
Take a large pot and bring your stock to boil in it. Using two teaspoons, drop little bits of dough into the boiling stock. When the gnocchi come up again and start floating on the surface, wait for about 40 seconds before taking them out. Repeat until all dough has been cooked into gnocchi. You can either serve them just as they're done or put them in a large, oven proof dish to reheat them, adding ground cheese, tomato sauce, etc... if you feel so inclined.

It does take a little time to make all the gnocchi - to give you an idea I started at 6PM and was done by 6:40. As it was a relaxed evening at home I was able to just serve the kids and make them eat between two rounds of gnocchi. And we have enough leftovers for tonight.

Not dead YET !

I know, I know, it's been stupidly long since I last updated. I don't even have a valid excuse for letting you all miss on the Christmas baking. Seriously, I'm that bad a blogger, sometimes.

To amend myself, I'm going to go with really simple today. No fancy Valentine thingie, just a simple soup that works wonders for the kids each and every time. Plus, it's in season.

Basic pumpkin soup

1 pumkin slice

3-4 large potatoes, the kind that don't hold well when cooked

chicken or beef stock

1 pinch ground cumin

Peel and dice the pumpkin and potatoes. Put them in your pressure cooker with just enough water to not quite cover the vegetables. Cook for about 20 minutes, until the veggies are soft and squish-able.

Add the cumin and stock. With an immersion blender, mix everything until you have a smooth texture.

This usually gives you a rather hearty soup, I like to add a little bit of oat milk to make it more liquid - and to cool it down, too. My kids love a little bit of ground cheese with theirs. And then they lick their plates clean.

You don't need to be very precise with your proportions for this to work. The pumpkin is here for taste and color, and you need to add a little bit of potato to get a really smooth texture, that's all. I sometimes add some carrots as well.

Spread the beet

I adore red beet. Cooked in stews, mashed, or diced into fresh salads all year round. My husband usually does not care for it, but we did find one recipe that he loved. It was a spread, and it involved mixing the beat with fresh goat cheese. That wouldn't do in our house. I thought about it for a bit, decided to try something out and... bingo ! It worked AND the home geek loved it.

The best part is that it is super quick and easy to make, as long as you have an immersion blender and can buy the red beet already cooked (if not, peel it, dice it and use your pressure cooker, red beets takes a rather long time to cook).

Vegan red beet spread

1 cooked red beet

2 teaspoons tahini (sesame paste)

3 teaspoons almond paste

1 or 2 garlic clove(s)

Peel and dice the red beet, peel the garlic. Put all ingredients in your mixing bowl and mix until they have blended into a soft, purple paste. Serve cold over fresh bread, or as a dip.

I don't claim originality

... but at least a reasonable dose of personal adaptation.

This recipe wasn't totally mine to begin with. My best friend made me something similar a few months ago, and I played with what I had in the fridge and a few spices.

Spinach-hazelnut tart

1 pastry dough

3 cups frozen spinach or one big salad bowl raw spinach

3 eggs

1/2 cup oat milk

1/4 cup canned tuna or smoked salmon

1/2 cup ground hazelnuts

1 pinch ginger

pepper

Cook your spinach (a few minutes in the pressure cooker after the pressure is on will do it just fine), then drain it and cut it into small, small bits.

Roll out your dough onto a lightly floured surface, then transfer it into a greased mold. Pre-heat the oven at 360°F.

In a large-ish bowl, beat the eggs with the milk, add the spinach, the fish (in smaller pieces), the hazelnut and the spices. Pour the filling over the dough, fold the edges of the dough over the filling.

Bake in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes, until the dough is dry and slightly golden. Serve warm or cold.

The only thing to be mindful of, if you watn to play with proportions, is that the fish will add quit ea lot of salt, so don't add too much of it.

Don't tell me I can't do that - or a slight case of masochism

I swear, I'm not forgetting the main focus of this blog - easy, everyday recipes. But every once in a while, I do get ambitious. It's not really my fault, you see, I can't help it. When someone tells m "oh, this is just so complicated, I'd never do that !", I have to try it out for myself. Happily, this is something I share with my wonderful husband, who has become a master in puff pastry, cream puffs and a lot of other things I deem too complicated to make myself.

This time, it was my mother telling me about a fried eggplant dish a friend of hers does. I love eggplant. I had eggplant in the fridge that was a tad overdue. I also had zucchini, canned tomatoes, and motivation. This is what came out of it.

Fried eggplant and zucchini

5 eggplants

8 zucchinis

2 cups canned tomatoes or tomato paste

a lot of oil

kitchen paper

Wash the eggplant and zucchini, cut them into really thin slices (1/8 inch if you can). Pat them dry.

In one (or better : two or three) large flat cooking pan, pre-heat enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan. When the oil is hot (but not smoking), place zucchini and eggplant slices flat on the bottom of the pan. Cook them until the underside is lightly golden, Flip the slices onto the other side, cook until golden. Place the slice onto kitchen paper to absorb the excess oil. Repeat until all slices have been cooked - you might need to add more oil to the pan(s) between batches.

In a large oven-proof dish, alternate one layer of fried vegetables and one layer of tomato. Place in the oven (around 360°F) for 10 minutes, just enough for the tastes to infuse... and for the first slices you fried to be reheated.

Now, that took about two hours to make. After I was done, half of the kitchen was greasy and needed a good clean-up. And I can't say it's a light dish. But I must admit, it was quite tasty. Would I make it again ? Probably not, as my body sent me a very clear message "hey ! You know that lactose thing ? We think fat is just the same as lactose !"

On eating a female gardener

What ? Cannibalism ?

Not really. Just a simple jardinière, a tasty plate of spring vegetables.

Jardinière de légumes

2 broccoli

8 carrots

1 cup frozen green peas (I admit it, they take too long to prepare fresh, so I mostly buy them frozen)

3 potatoes

Wash the broccoli and cut it into small bits. Peel and dice the carrots. Put the broccoli, carrots, potatoes and peas into your trusted pressure cooker and cook for 20 minutes.

Peel and slice the onion. In a large cooking pan, preheat a good dash of oil and cook the onion until soft and lightly golden. Add the other vegetables, stir well and sauté everything for a few minutes.

I have been neglecting my blogs a little of late, I'm really sorry about that and I'll try to be more regular in my posts. I have some posts I want to make, but the crème brûlée is not playing nicely. I'm on my third try and still not 100% happy, drat !

First taste of summer

It's technically a summer dish, but the first round zucchinis appeared at our local market last week, and I couldn't pass them up. No big round tomatoes yet, though, so we just bought some small ones and added them to the stuffing. Usually, we'd carve those out as well and the juice and flesh would go into the stuffing.

It takes a while to cook, two solid hours. But it's worth it. It gets better with reheating, so my advice is to cook it in advance and reheat it. It freezes well - just reheat it in the oven for dinner !

Légumes farcis - stuffed vegetables

2 bell peppers

2 eggplants

5 round zucchinis (you can make do with long zucchinis, but they aren't as easy to stuff)

8 tomatoes

10oz ground beef

10oz ground pork

2 cups hacked stale bread

herbes de Provence (savory, thyme, sage, basil, rosemary)

oat milk

ground black pepper

Place the stale bread in a bowl and pour some oat milk over it. Stir from time to time until all the bread is soft.

Wash the vegetables. Cut off the top off the zucchinis and carve out their insides with a teaspoon (keep the flesh, don't discard it). Cut the peppers and eggplants in half, cut off and discard the stem. Carve out the insides of the eggplants as well. Place the hollowed out vegetables in a large pan with relatively high edges, with a dash of olive oil at the bottom of the pan.

Now take the flesh of the zucchinis and eggplants, dice it and add it to the bread mixture. Add the diced tomatoes, herbs, a good dose of black pepper. Add the meat little by little, kneading small bits of meat into the stuffing - the meat tends to stick to itself and not mix well with the remaining ingredients, so take your time to separate it into smaller bits and mix well. I haven't found a better instrument to do that than my two bare hands :)

Stuff the vegetables, replacing the "lid" on the zucchinis (and tomatoes, if you've found tomatoes big enough to use that way) after wards. If you have too much stuffing, either make little domes over the vegetables, or, if you really have too much, stuff the spaces between the vegetables.

Add a little water to the pan, just enough to barely cover the bottom of the pan. Bake in the oven, 390°F, for two solid hours, or even a little more. Serve hot with rice.

I don't have a set quantity of vegetables I put into the dish, I wash and prepare just enough so that the pan is full. You can pretty much adapt the recipe to other vegetables - onions, potatoes, small pumpkins in winter.

[insert movie title here]

I *adored* the movie. But I've loved the dish even longer. I know it's not perfectly right for the season, but Ihad those poor, sad eggplants in my fridge, the zucchinis were cheap and.. well, I just love ratatouille. As with all good stuff, the proportions are just a suggestion, make with what you love and what you have at hand !

Ratatouille

3 eggplants

4 zucchinis

10 small tomatoes

3 bell peppers (1 red, 1 yellow, 1 green, I love to get a little bit of each taste)

2 onions

Peel the onions, wash the other vegetables. In a large pan, preheat a small blob of olive oil. Don't be shy, it's not going to be much compared to the amount of vegetables anyway, and it tastes good ! Slice the onion and start cooking them, stirring regularly. Dice the eggplants, tomatoes, zucchinis, peppers and dd them to the pot as you go. Stir, stir, stir. Once everything is on the stove, cover the pot  and let simmer for 15 minutes. Then come back and check how much liquid has formed in the pan.  If there's too much juice, leave the lid off while the ratatouille cooks. If the quantity of liquid is right for you, then keep it covered. Cook until the vegetables are soft, then cook ad little more, checking the juice level now and then. It's not a soup, but it should stay pretty juicy.

It reheats well, either on the stove or in the microwave.

So where did the beets go ?

I haven't forgotten about this blog, I've just been... busy. As it frequently happens with two young children, friends coming over, and way too many projects on my hands.

A while ago, I posted about finding raw red beets. They've been cooked and eaten ! Here's how...

Potée aux betteraves (red beet stew)

2 red beets

about the same volume pumpkin

2 sweet potatoes

2 onions

1 saucisse de Morteau (a very large smoked sausage)

Proportions don't need to be precise, and don't hesitate to mix things up a bit !

Peel and slice the onions. In a large cooking pot or a dutch oven, preheat a dash of oil, add the onions. When the onions are translucent, add the diced Morteau (you can pretty much substitute any nicely salty, smoked or not sausage(s) )

Peel and dice the beets, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin and add them as you cut them to the pot. Stir some more. Add water until it almost covers the ingredients. Cover and let the stew simmer over low heat for.. a long time. One hour is a minimum. Beets take a long, long time to cook, and the more cooked it is, the better the stew will taste.

It is done when the vegetables turn to mush under the fork. And yes, it's very purple. Very, very purple. :)

Mama's note : mix it all together for a baby-proof meal. See background of the picture for proof.

Now, you can perfectly use pre-cooked red beets for this, the tastes won't mix exactly the same but it will be very good, too. I tend to prefer using my cooked beets in salads like say...

Winter salad, take 142358

1 red beet

1 endive

1 apple

1 handful corn salad

1 hard boiled egg

1 handful walnut

Dice or slice the vegetables, hack the walnuts and generally cut everything into small bits that can be easily mixed together. Yes, even the salad. If you're using something with bigger leaves like lettuce, pre-cut the leaves with your kitchen scissors - it makes for easier eating. Serve with a salad dressing made with a dash of walnut oil.

Chards - it all goes in !

Today I learned that some people only eat the leaves of chard and discard the rest. This is a new concept to me, as my mother was from the opposite "religion" - cook the ribs, discard the leaves.

As for myself, well, I love chard. It's one of my favorite vegetables - always has been. My kids tend to think the same. So here's my current staple chard recipe, both for very little ones and grown ups, and you can pretty much use the whole plant for it.

Purée de blettes - chard purée

Chard

A few potatoes

Oat milk

Vegetal butter substitute (or real butter if you will eat it)

A pinch of curry

Wash the chard, cut off the very base of the ribs (the really hard part that holds them together) if it's still there, discard the bits that are damaged or dry, cut all the rest into small-ish bits.

Peel and dice the potatoes.

Cook the vegetables in your pressure cooker for a good 20 minutes. Pour the water out.

Add a little butter, one glass of milk, curry to taste. Using a hand mixer, mix thoroughly.

It has a little taste of comfort food while still being full of good greens. I'm afraid to say we all licked our plates clean (figuratively speaking... ) and the hubby had none of it.

Baking week-end

There was a bit of a baking orgy this week-end. We spent Saturday and Sunday with my parents and ended up with three cakes for four persons. My Mom baked a candied fruit cake, my husband turned the way-too-early strawberries into a yummy strawberry tart, and I made a gâteau d'Aunis - because I was out of bread and hungry. Then after we went home on Sunday evening, dinner consisted of an onion tart (and some leftover rice).

The onion tart is one of those recipe that I have stored in the back of my head and don't need to look at my recipe files to make. No precise measuring, not too many ingredients - that's good in my book ! The only real difficulty is surviving the onions without weeping yourself to death. I do have a secret weapon : safety goggles. The kind you find at the hardware store for dealing with plaster or other stuff you don't want to get into your eyes. A friend of mine uses diving goggles.

Onion tart

1 pastry dough

10 onions

2 tablespoons mustard

7 oz (one small package) almond cream

1 egg

2 tablespoons flour

oil

1 big glass of dry white wine (optional)

Roll out your dough over a floured surface, grease a tart mold (I used a large, not very high one, but you can also use one that is smaller but higher, it doesn't really matter), place the dough in it.

Peel and thinly slice the onions (with the goggles on ;) ). Heat a good glob of oil in a large pan, once it's hot add the onions and cook them, stirring regularly, until they're very tender. This time I had some white whine leftover in the fridge, so I added it to the pan at the end and let it evaporate.

Pour the onions into a large bowl,  add the cream, the flour, the mustard, the egg and mix well. Pour this filling over your dough. Fold the dough's edges over the filling.

Bake in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes at 360°F. The filling should be golden brown and the dough dry and firm to the touch, just a little golden. Serve hot.

Below is my usual recipe for the cake. I changed it a little this time - I had egg whites remaining from the strawberry tart my husband had made, so I used only one full egg and replaced the other with 4 egg whites I had beaten until stiff. It worked just as well.

Gâteau d'Aunis (Aunis cake)
6 oz vegetal butter substitute
7 oz sugar
2 eggs
8 oz flour
2 oz candied angelica
1/2 cup cognac or rum

Cut the angelica into small pieces and put it in a bowl with the alcohol.
Beat the sugar with the butter until it gets white-ish. Still beating, add the eggs one by one, then the angelica and alcohol. Lastly, add the flour.
Grease a mold (mine is about 10 inches wide and 2 1/2 inches deep), pour the batter in it. Bake in the oven, 40 minutes at 390°F.

Caviar...

Not real caviar, no, I'm not that full of cash to cook anything with it. I must even admit I've never tried it. But I do make eggplant caviar on a regular basis. You can eat it as a dip, or as a spread. We generally eat a few mouthfuls over a little bit of fresh white bread.

I have to give credit where it's due, though, and say that I didn't personally make this one. It was made by my dear friend Eysméralda - but it still fits the title of this blog, and I wouldn't have made it much differently.

I know it's not the traditional way to cook it - usually, one would roast the eggplants in the oven. I tried. I burnt my fingers removing the meat from the skin. And there was one casualty. The first time I cooked this, I killed my oven. I had forgotten to cut off the ends of the eggplants before roasting them. They exploded, taking the door of the oven with them.

Okay, the door still hung to the oven. But it never agreed to close again.
For the love of quick cooking, preserving my fingers (the skin stays tender enough to be blended with the rest), and functioning ovens, I turned to the pressure cooker.

The caviar (on top)
with bread and cucumber-paprika salad

Caviar d'aubergines

4 or 5 eggplants

2 cloves of garlic

1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

a few leaves fresh coriander

olive oil

salt

Wash and dice the eggplants, put them in your beloved pressure cooker and cook until they're tender. By the sight of my nose, that should be something like 20 minutes.

Cut, peal and hack the garlic and herbs.

Put the eggplants and oil into a bowl and use a hand mixer to turn them into a somewhat smooth paste - don't worry if its not perfectly smooth, it doesn't have to be perfect to taste good ! Add the garlic and herbs. Serve cold. Or hot if you're very hungry and don't have the time to wait until it's completely cooled.

Now, there are dozens of way to prepare this. You can mix up spices and herbs, add lemon... Try a few things out and find what you like best ! You can cook a lot of the caviar, and keep it in the fridge for a few days.

What's cooking tonight ?

I may or may not post complete menus on a regular basis. I was quite happy with yesterday's productivity, so here it is. Fast,  mple and tasty.

Entrée : small red radishes, with salt and butter.
Meat : boudin blanc, grilled in the pan
Vegetables : sautéed zucchinis
Cheese, fruit, yoghurt for those so inclined.
The baby had some zucchinis mixed with left-over fish, and some (purposely) over-cooked rice and peas.

Total prep time : 30 minutes (+ about 10 minutes where everything was simmering on the stove and I was putting the plates on the table), for 4 persons including a toddler and a baby. The only real recipe for this is the zucchinis.

Sautéed zucchinis
7 big zucchinis
2 garlic cloves
1 shallot
1 fresh green onion
oil
1 cup beef stock

Wash the zucchinis - if you're reasonably confident they haven't been dipped in fertilizers and pesticides, you don't need to peel them. Cut them in two or four lenghtwise.
Put a big pan on the fire, with a dash of oil in it. Peel, slice thinly and hack the garlic, schallot and onion, put them in the pan over strong heat and stir regularly so that they don't get brown.
Slice the cut zucchinis and add them to the pan little by little. Stir each time you add something to the pan. After adding the last zucchini to the pan, pour the cup of stock over it - most of the time I used the ready-to-use dices of stock, I just crumble them over the pan and add a cup of water. Cover, let simmer for 10 minutes, then leave uncovered so that the liquid evaporates a little.
The zucchinis should be soft, somewhat mushy once cooked.