Fausse tarte aux mûres

Le week-end du 15 aout m'a ramené dans la régionnantaise pour quelques jours de détente... L'appel de la cueillette était irrésistible, et après moulte péripéties, luttes contre les orties et les ronces, nous avons repris le chemin de la maison avec quelques kilos de prunes et des mûres!

Les prunes étant trop acides pour être dégustées telles quelles, elle "finirent" en clafouti et en confiture.

La cuillette de mûres n'étant pas aussi généreuse, la confiture n'était pas envisageable. Cependant j'avais lu il y a quelques semaines le blog "Tartelette" (en anglais) qui donnait la recette d'une tarte "fromage de chèvre et fruits rouges" qui m'avait beaucoup intriguée.

De retour à Paris avec mes mûres, j'ai repensé à cette recette, et comme je n'ai toujours pas de four, j'ai adapté la recette pour en faire un dessert extrêmement simple -mais bon!- : une fausse tarte aux mûres et au chèvre...




Fausse tarte aux mûres

Pour 4-5 "fausses tartes"
- des sablés bretons (type palets de la trinitaine ou roudor)
- 1/2 cuillère à soupe de chèvre frais (type chavrou)
- 1 cuillère à soupe de crème fraiche
- sucre ou miel (selon votre gout- j'ai mis 1/2 cuillère à café de miel)
- fruits de la cueillette

Réalisation :
-Battre la crème en chantilly.
-Battre le chèvre avec le miel pour avoir une texture crémeuse.
-Mélanger la "crème de chèvre" avec la chantilly délicatement pour garder la texture mousseuse. Le plus dur est fait!

Recouvrir les palets de crème et disposer les mûres au dessus.

Déguster frais!

Le gateau Nantais

J'ai passé le week-end du 14 juillet à Nantes ce qui signifie accès illimité à un four à toute heure du jour ou de la nuit! J'en ai donc profité pour tester diverses recettes nécessitant un four que je vais décrire dans les prochains jours.

Le gateau nantais est extrêmement facile à réaliser, nécessite peu de matériel (et donc de vaisselle!) et est délicieux. Comme beacoup de gateaux, il est meilleur si on le prépare la veille. Si ce n'est pas possible d'attendre aussi longtemps, faites quand-même attention à prévoir assez de temps pour que le gateau ait totalement refroidit au moment de réaliser le glaçage.


Gateau Nantais

100g de poudre d'amandes
100g de sucre
100g de beurre (à température ambiante)
2 oeufs
1 cuillère à soupe de farine (bien bombée, ou 2 cullières rases)
1 cuillère à café de levure
2 cuillères à soupe de rhum blanc

Glaçage
rhum blanc
sucre glace

Ustensiles:
1 saladier (pour réaliser le mélange)
1 cuillère en bois
1 moule à manquer de 20cm



Préchauffer le four à 180°C

Mélanger le beurre et le sucre pour en faire une pommade.
Ajouter ensuite les amandes puis les oeufs et le rhum.
Enfin ajouter la farine et la levure.
Ne pas trop travailler le mélange!

Enfourner pour 25min.

Attention : le gateau, magré la farine n'épaissit presque pas, il faut donc éviter de prendre un moule trop grand!

Au sortir du four, laiser le gateau refroidir dans le moule pendant 10-15min puis démouler sur une grille. Une fois refroidit, le conserver au froid jusqu'au lendemain.


Pour le glaçage:
mélanger 3 cuillères à soupe de sucre glace avec 2 cuillères à soupe de rhum. Ajouter plus de sucre ou de rhum selon la consistance et la quantit de glaçage désiré.
Recouvrir le gateau.

C'est prêt!



Remarques
- j'ajoute le rhum avan la cuisson pour que le gateau n'est pas trop le gout du rhum, le parfum venant surtou du glaçage dans ce cas. On peut aussi ne pas mettre de rhum dans la pate mais imbiber le gateau encore chaud avec la même quantité de rhum.
- si on n'aime pas le gout prononcé du rhum, on peut faire le glaçage à l'eau.

De retour.../ Back...

J'avais de grands projets pour ce blog, je voulais revoir son organisation, y mettre plus d'images, bref qu'il soit plus beau, plus agréable à lire etc... Malheureusement, je manque de temps! Je reprend donc le blog sous la même forme... et en alternant français et anglais. Si vous voulez une recette particulière en français, demandez-le !

------------

I'm back at blogging. If I stopped it was not that I was bored with blogging... I had great expectations for this blog, I wanted it to be more pretty, nicer to read and with more pictures... Unfortunately I have not enough time to do it... So I'm back with the same old version. I will now try to post recipe both in french and english or alternante them... If you want a special recipe in english while it's written in french, please ask and I will translate it for you.

Christmas cooking

I love living in Paris, the only problem there is that apartment are small and mine don't even have a proper kitchen. And the small place that's supposed to be a kitchen is so small that no oven can fit there.
Going back home for hols means means seeing all the family, and also having an unlimited access to a real kitchen !!! with more than 1 functional stove and an oven !

Needless to tell that I spent most of my holidays time in that wonderful room.

First thing I've done was testing a recipe of macarons. Wandering around the internet, I found a delicious website which is offering a lot of macaron recipes (in french). Marina, the author of this website also gave a lot of tricks that will help you cooking the perfect macaron.

I tested the "confiture de lait" (dulce de lece/ milk jam) and the raspberry recipes.
My attempt was almost a success but I think I need to practice more...

December again

If you haven't noticed yet, chrismast is approaching... Paris is more than ever the city of lights and everyone starts wondering about christmas presents.
December also means going back to Nantes for christmas and having an access to a real kitchen!! My mother is not fond of cooking and so I'm in charge of preparing the lunch on the 25th. So I put my nose again in my cooking books and magasines and went for some wandering on my favorites cooking site and blogs. I still haven't decide yet what I will prepare. But one of my favorite recipe is marinated salmon (gravlax kind). So if you're looking for something to prepare as a starter, maybe it can help you.

Marinated salmon (serves 6)

PREPARE A DAY BEFORE SERVING !

2 salmon filets with their skin (500g in total)
2 tablespoons sugar (brown is better)
4 tablespoons of salt (i take "gros sel" from Guerande)
1/2 tablespoon black pepper
some dill (I don't like to have a too strong taste of dill so I don't use much)

Mix sugar, salt and black pepper.
Wash the salmon and dry the remaining water.
Put the 1st fillet, skin down, in a dish. Spread the salt & sugar mix all over salmon and add the dill.
Cover with the second filet (skin up).
Cover with plastic film, and find something to press the salmon (eg. other dish, plate+died beans).
Put for 6h in fridge. After 6h, remove the water from the dish, turn the salmon upside down (upper filet is now down), and put it back in the fridge for 2 more hours. Do this 2 more times -> that will be 24h to marinate.

Take out of fridge 1h before serving.
Remove the salt & sugar mix using absorbing paper.
Cut in thin slices, normally the skin will go by itself, but if not, remove it!

Serve with toasts.

You might want to serve a sauce with it. My favorite one is made of 1 tablespoon of cream and 1 tablespoon of yogourt, with a pinch of salt, dill and chive.

Salon du chocolat (Chocolate show)

Last sunday was my first experience at Salon du Chocolat.

I had heard good and bad things about it and it was time to try by myself. Actually I didn't get there by myself since Chloe and Lilian convinced me to join them in their chocolate adventures. Needless to say it was not too difficult to persuades me to come. At 10am on sunday we were a group of 9person ready to taste any kind of chocolate.
At 10:05 there was already a group split : it was too difficult to stay together to wander around. The crowd was reasonable until 11-11:30 but later it became too difficult to navigate from 1 place to the other.
The smell was amazing, and so were some of the samples I managed to taste. I just regret some sample were ridiculously small... how can you really taste a chocolate cake with something that is less than 1cm²?
I could attend the cooking lessons since it was too crowded but the smell was amazing... I might take a day off and go there during a week day next year...

The O&A experiment

or "Using leftover orange juice to make amazing dessert"

On a boring evening I decided to entertain myself experimenting with agar-agar again. The tricky point was I was coming back from almost a week out of town and the fridge was empty because I hadn't had time and energy to fill it.
The only things left to prepare a dessert were orange juice and dried apricots...

So I came up with the idea of a "cocktail cream" made of apricot, orange and rhum.

When I tried to eat it as a cream (remember? last time I tried it has a texture similar to a "crême aux oeufs"), I found the texture was more like jelly with small pieces of apricot inside and I dislike it.

The O&A experiment remained in a fridge... Until I had a new idea: process it! I put the "jelly" in the food processor for 2min and it came out with a fluffy texture between a cream and a mousse.
And it makes the difference: it was good! To make it more appealing I used some melted chocolate to built a multilayer dessert.

Chocolate leaf (for 5)
25g chocolate
1 tablespoon chocolate
1/4 teaspoon oil or butter

Melt all ingredients together. When melted form a leaf and refrigerate 20min (or more).

Orange cream
-250ml orange juice
-cinnamon
-1 tablespoon rum
-5 dried apricot (not mandatory)
-1g agar-agar

Cut apricots in small pieces and let them in the orange juice to humidify.
After 10 minutes, add the rum and a pinch of cinnamon to the juice. Then boil the juice+apricot with 1g of agar for 30s and let it cool down for 2h.
After 2h process in food processor and eat as a cream or build the dessert : cover 1 leaf of chocolate with the O&A cream and alternate layers of chocolate and cream.

Fou rire

Once again a post in french... it was too difficult to write in english today. But if you want a translation of the recipe, you can for it in the comments...


Hé, oui, encore une fois je poste en français, en effet, je ne crois pas que j'aurais réussi à expliquer ce qui va suivre en anglais...

La réalisation de cette brioche fut épique.... Commencer à 21h une recette qui inclut 3-4h d'attente était un peu fou mais nous étions en week-end, une énorme buche flambait dans la cheminée et nous voulions des brioches fraîches pour le petit déjeuner.

La recette en elle -même n'a rien de drôle... seulement les personnes présentes étaient toutes fan du SAV d'Omar et Fred diffusé sur Canal+.
La fatigue et certaines intonnations de voix aidant, le pétrissage de la brioche a fini en pleurant (de rire).

La recette originale vient du livre "Le recette de Marie-Louise Cordillot"

Les brioche "d'Omar et Fred"

Ingredients pour 9 brioches individuelles environ :
200g de farine
160g de beurre (dans la recette originale, mais 100-150 devraient suffir)
10g de sucre
7-8g de levure de boulanger
2 oeufs

Préparer le paton:
Melanger du bout des doigts :1/4 de la farine (soit 50g) , la levure et 3 cuillières à soupe d'eauchaude.
Former une boule et inciser en croix sur 2cm. Recouvrir d'eau chaude (50°C) et l'aisser lever jusqu'à doublement du volume). Le notre a fini quasi dissolu dans l'eau... La technique doit pouvoir être améliorée.

Pate à brioche :
Disposer le reste de farine en couronne dans un grand saladier. Déposer les oeufs au centre et incorporer doucement la farine en tournant à la cuillière en bois. Pétrir jusqu'à ce que la pate soit homogène. Ensuite, il faut lever la pate à 30cm et la plaquer violemment dans le saladier. Répéter l'opération jusqu'à ce qu'elle soit élastique et non collante.
Ajouter ensuite le beurre ramolli mais non fondu.

Quand le paton a doublé de volume, incorporez-le à la pate avec les mains.

Ramassez au fond de la terrine, couvrir et faire lever dans une pièce à 20-25°C sans courant d'air pendant 3-4h.

Quand la pate a levé, la battre du bout des doigts pour la faire retomber. Et réserver dans un endroit froid jusqu'au lendemain.

Cuisson:
Former des boules de la taille d'un oeuf et les faire lever dans un endroit chaud pendant 25-30min. Cuire à four chaud (200°C/th7-8) pendant 8-10 min.


Et le sucre? Je n'avais pas noté quand l'ajouté, nous l'avons donc incorporé après les oeufs... mais peut-être aurait-il fallut le mettre dans le paton... Quoi qu'il en soit les brioches étaient bonnes et il n'en restait plus après le petit-déleuner!

Evil week-end and terrific chocolate cake

It was supposed to be a "playing and cooking" week-end at my grandmother country house. We were supposed to be 10 friends spending the week-end together and we had a long list a meals we wanted to taste. Well...

To make a long story short, destiny was against us and we were finally 3 remaining after the timetable/conference/car problems that happened. Not enough to play but some cooking was involved !

I will post the recipes we follow (or not!) in the forthcoming days... But the one I want to share first is the Chocolate and salty butter caramel cake we prepared for sunday lunch.

This recipe was inspired buy a recipe I saw on David Leovitz's blog. I had a big plan about preparing my own dulche de leche a week in advance, but was unable to find enough time... So I came with that new plan of using "caramel au beurre salé" (I found it "taste" better in french) instead.


That's very easy...

1/ Prepare a cup of salty butter caramel (recipe there)

2/Follow David's recipe and use caramel instead of dulche de leche... I also reduced the amount of sugar (100g) and didn't used any nuts.
You can also use your favorite browny's recipe...

Tip: put more caramel in the cake than at the top of it. But we all liked the caramel crust that appeared over the cake and on its sides...

Next time I'll tell you the story of our brioches.

Crumble

I'm leaving for the land of chocolate tomorrow, and so it wasn't reasonable to go to the market during the week-end. For once I bought some fruit in the supermarket on thursday, but I was desapointed by the greengages (reine-claudes) I had. And after few days it was obvious I wouldn't be able to eat them if I didn't cook them.

Then arrived the coincidence: on friday, Lilian told me she was planning to bake a crumble and when I turned on the TV on saturday I saw a show where they were talking about english food, and a woman was explaining her crumble recipe.

I had no choice...
What was particularly interesting for me in Rose crumble was that it didn't needed an oven to be baked.

Greengage and almond crumble
for 2
5-8 greengages (depending on their size
1/3 of stale bread
4 table spoon almonds
2 tablespoon "vergeoise" (I think you can use brown sugar instead, it was actually the only suger I had at home)
butter

Cut the greengage in 2 (or 4) and remove the stone. Cook in a pan with 1/2 teaspoon of butter for 5 min. Put in the dish you choose to serve them.

Process bread, almonds and sugar until it's like a powder.
In a pan, melt 1 tesponn butter. Had the powder you made and cook it until it browns. Don't stop stering (I did and it started to burn!).

Cover the plum with the bread and almond mix.
Serve warm.

Looking the best way to prepare hummos... and failing(!)

I have to confess : I looove Lebanese meals. So when I discovered that hummos (or hommos or hummus or houmos, I can't find wich one it the right) was so easy to make I was really pleased.

The first recipe I tried was from a cooking mag : Cuisine et vins de France (actually the recipe that was in the printed document seems a bit different). But there was a je ne sais quoi that needed to be added or removed to reach the hummus perfection.

Then I tried the recipe that David Lebovitz posted but I didn't had all the ingredients since my parsley died unexpectidly in my fridge and I was unable to find the chili powder on the spices shelf. But it was close enough from the taste I was looking for.

Today I'm going to P & C place for a post holidays friend's dinner and I said I would bring some home-made hummus. So yesterday I went to the supermarket, bought some chickpeas and olive oil (and forgot the parsley again).

At home I mixed together 2 cloves of garlic (because some people there don't like garlic as I do), the olive oil, the chickpeas, the lemon juice. The taste was strange but I thought it was because of the new brand of chickpeas. So I rectified the seasoning, added a little more of lemon, oil, again lemon and find a taste that was satisfying... but still there was something strange...

This morning I almost forgot to take it out of the fridge, but when I did I realized what was strange : I forgot to add the tahine, one of the more important ingredients!!! It was too late to arrange it, so I packed my "chickpeas purée" and the tahine and I will try to mix them tonight just before dinner (crossing finger, hoping it will be good).

And that's the end of my terrible week...

EDIT : I finally had 2 or 3 tablespoons of tahine and it was good...

Omnivore’s Hundred

Summer, means holidays, and since I was away staying at a hotel I couldn't cook.

Back home, I'm too busy to try new recipes so, sorry but I have nothing special to write

except that I found this oomnivore's 100 on some food blog I was surfing and I thought I could share.

The original list was build subjectically by Andrew from Very good taste.

Here's how it works:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating. (I used italic)
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile > but I tried kangaroo, does that count?
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi >this strongly ressemble something I cooked last winter
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper >Never ever ! (considering how i react to normal pepper...)
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float > I don't like sodas (no sparkling things for me except champaign ;-) )
36. Cognac with a fat cigar > I have nothing against cognac, but cigar: pouah!
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O > Interesting...
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects > I 'm not sure I would, but baked in a sauce, maybe?
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear > on my list, and I brought back some prickly pear liqyuor from hols
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine > I's been on my list for a while... just need to fly to Quebec
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian > not sure
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette >tried in someone else's plate (don't like it)
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost >not really interested, I prefer cheeses that don't look like plastic
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie > I don't see the point of trying that
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. >no, but if anyone plans to invite me, I'd be more than happy to try
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate > you can guess that's on my list now...
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Total : 35...not that bad...

And now it makes me wonder what I would put on my omnivore's 100... and what would be yours?

The tiniest market ever

Last week-end I went to my grandmother's place with some gourmet friend.. While looking for things to do in the area I discovered there was a place where you can pick the fruit yourself at less than 15min walk from the house.
Some of us where excited by the idea of picking fresh raspberries and strawberries to prepare desserts. Unfortunately we were lazier than planned and woke up too late to be there in time...

So to have fresh fruit we had to go to the market on the Sunday. This was probably the tiniest market I ever been (4 stalls : fish, cheese, fruits and meat). We bought salmon, prawns and no fruit because I found them too expensive.

When we started preparing lunch, someone pointed out that we planned no dessert and that the tart I mentionned earlier should me tried... So V and S went back to the market to find raspberries... they came back with 3 cups of delicious fresh raspberries and I was forced to prepare the tart...



Chocolate and raspberries macaroon tart

This recipe is adapted from a book that Lilian offered me for my birthday. Original recipe is for individuals tarts, and I changed slightly the proportions.

Serves 6/8

Macaroon:
-3 eggs white
-125g grated coconut
-4 tablespoons sugar

Chocolate filling :
-3 eggs
-150g dark chocolate (I took nestlé dessert corsé)
-3 small (or 2 big) tablespoon cream
-4 tablespoon sugar
-2 tablespoon flour

-2 cups of raspberries (fresh or frozen)

Macaroon : mix all ingredients and spread the dough in a pan (the kind where you can remove the side, it makes things easier to take it out!)

Bake at 140°C for 30min (watch from time to time, you want it golden not burnt)

While the macaroon is baking, prepare the chocolate filing.
Melt the chocolate slowly with the cream. Beat eggs and sugar until white.
Pour melted chocolate in the egg+sugar, stir and add the flour.

Spread the chocolate filling over the macaroon, cover with raspberries.
Bake for 20 more minutes at 120°C.

Serve at room temperature.

Introducing agar agar

When Anelore gave me this set of spoon I was a bit surprised by the 1/4 of teaspoon that came with it. I never saw a recipe using so few ingredient. Yesterday evening was the 1st time I used it.

On my way from lab to home are a few "organic shops" and I sometimes stop bye to buy some thing I cannot find easily elsewhere like tahina (to make hummus) and I usually use my visit to the shop to try some "exotic" things.

Last time I went there I bought 2 individual drinks : one made of rice, the second made of hazelnuts. I also took some agar-agar because I heard about it...

The idea to cook with agar-agar was strange since the only time I ever used it was in biology courses... For this second experimentation with agar-agar I thought I should use it to prepare a dessert in combination with the hazelnut drink.


Hazelnut surprise cream

Ingredients (for 2 desserts - yogourt size)

-20cl hazelnut drink
-1/4 teaspoon of agar agar (~1g)

The recipe was very simple : open the drink box, put it in a saucepan, add the agar and boil for 30s... that cannot be easier!

That wouldn't have been a real dessert : too pale, no surprises... so let's add a little fun to that cream.
I made 2 versions:

Apricot : cut into small squares 3 dryed apricot. Pour the liquid over it. Cool down for 2 hours.

Dulce de leche : spread 2 teaspoons of dulce de leche in a little pot, pour the hazelnut cream over it. Cool down for 2 hours.

As a toping I used grated almonds...

Easy strawberries

For few weeks we can find beautiful tasty strawberries on the market... And that's hard to resist sometimes... Last 2 sunday I came back home with 500g wonderful strawberries.
The easiest and best way to eat them according to my taste is to alternatively dip them in cream and sugar (not that they need more sugar). But after eating some for lunch dessert, "gouter", diner dessert, and breakfast the day after... I still had some leftover.

Unfortunately this is not a kind of fruit that can be kept easily and I find 2 ways of using them the second day.

A chemist friend (whom cooking blog has disapeared) told me I should try with Balsamic vinegar...


Strawberries with Balsamic syrup

- just put 2 spoons of balsamic vinegar in a pan an let it reduce until it look like a syrup
- during that time, cut the strawberries in pieces
- whip 2 spoons of cream with a little sugar

Put the whiped cream in a plate, add pieces of strawberries and top with balsamic syrup...


Strawberries soup

Take the juice of a grapefruit. Warm the juice until boiling, and add strawberries cut in pieces. and cook for 5 min.
Sweeten with liquid honey. Once you take it out of the fire, you can add some mint leafs.
Serve cold

Spring market

Some might find me a bit old fashioned, but yes, I like going to the market on the sunday morning. Sunday morning exists! But I recognize I'm never there early... and sometimes it makes things more difficult since my favorite vegetable producer might have sold out something I need...

So back to last week-end. As usual I was wandering along the market when I stopped at my usual fruit place. While I was choosing avocado and grapefruit, I saw nice baskets of strawberries and some asparagus... and I couldn't resist!

Back at home, I was wondering what to do with my asparagus when I remember a very good meal prepared by J. I didn't had the recipe but I decided to prepare my own chicken with asparagus.


Chicken & Asparagus (for 2)

- tagliatells (I used spagetti, but believe me tagliatel are better)
- 200g chicken breast
- 10-15 asparagus
- 2 tablespoon cream
- salt & pepper


Wash asparus and cut the bottom end. Cut them in 3 (so you have 2-3cm long sticks). Place in a microwave cooker with a little water (I used 1 tablespoon water). And cook it in the microwave for 3-5min. Keep it in microwave so it remains warm.

Cut the chicken in "1 bite" pieces. I prefer it grilled, so I cooked it in a pan without oil or butter until it takes a nice golden-brown color.

Cook the pasta (hope you know how to do!)

When pasta are cooked, placechicken and asparagus in a saucepan to warm them a bit, add the cream, salt and pepper. Add pasta and mix everything.

Serve!

Unfortunately I had no wine to drink with... but I'm pretty sure the nice muscadet we tasted during our "foody week-end" (see Lil's Blog for a description) might have been great !

As a dessert I had strawberries dipped in cream... but that's another story...

Ode to my microwave

Cooking without an oven is challenging... cooking without decent stove is too... so I become addicted to my microwave.
Sure I miss cakes, especially the chocolatey ones, and I cannot bake tarts, quiches or pies, but I can cook healthy things like vegetables...

Yesterday evening was one of those evening when you want to eat something good but are to lazzy to prepare something elaborated (yes it happens quite often to me!). In my fridge was a piece of fish (lieu noir) I was to late to prepare on the morning. I decided it should become a frill...yes I can do it without an oven thanks to my suister who offered me a silicon cooker that allows me to bake such things in the microwave!

Lieu noir en papillotte (per person)

- 1 fillet of fish
- 1 small zuchinni
- 2 tomatoes
- 2 teaspoons of mustard
- salt, pepper
- herbs you like
- olive oil

Slice the zucchini and tomatoes (remove the tomato water)
Spread the mustard on both sides of the fillet.

In microwave, cook the vegetables for 2 min (max power) then add the fish (+ herbs) for 3 minutes. Remove the water and cook again for 2 minutes.

Add salt add pepper and a drop of olive oil... serve!

1st salad (of the summer)

Yesterday was a warm spring day in Paris : over 24°C in the afternoon. I went to the market for some vegetables and decided to prepare them in a salad. I had tomatoes, radish, zuchinis...
Based on a pasta recipe I tried last week for my birthday picnic, and with the ingredient I made my first salad of the summer (I know it's not summer right now, but as I've been sunbathing in the park and eating icecreams, let's pretend it is).

1st Salad (for 1):
- 1 tomato
- 1 small zucchini
- 1 small white onion
- 5-10 radishes (depending on their size)
- some feta
- some chicken (I took leftover of grilled chicken)
- cumin and curcuma
- cream
- balsamic vinegar

- Grate the zucchini, slice tomato, radich, feta and chicken, chop the onion.
- Stire cream, spices and vinegar
-Mixe all ingredients together

The recipe I will not write

Last week-end was the first really nice week-end of the spring (sunny, 24°C) and so it was perfect for a picnic. As it was also a way to celebrate my birthday for the second time, I decided I should prepare a birthday cake.
My mother used to bake it every year for my birthday so it became my official birthday cake... As I still have no oven (and no place to have one!) , Emilie was kind enough to lend me hers. It was the first time I was preparing it by myself and it turned out to be really good! (I don't have a picture because it was eaten to quickly!)

Unfortunately, I'm not ready to post the recipe on the interweb right now...
This recipe came from my grandmother (father's side) and my mother only got it by watching her preparing it...
So you will have to wait some time or become a spy and watch me next year when I will bake it again for my birthday!

;-)

Lazy dinner

Yesterday I came back home at reasonable time but seing the dishes waiting to be cleaned I decided I would do that later and I postponed as well preparing the dinner to start reading.
When my stomach decided it would be time to eat, it was 9:30, the dishes were still waiting to be washed and I wasn't in mood to cook something.
After a quick inventory of the fridge I choose to prépare something quick, and it turn out to be a kind of mussels and zucchinis soup.

Mussel and zucchini soup (for 1)

- 1 small zucchini
- frozen mussels
- 1 tablespoon of cream
- 1 teaspoon curcuma + salt

Palce the frozen mussels in a cup.
Cut the zucchini in small pieces and add to the mussels
Put in the microwave for 2 minutes.
Add the cream and curcuma, and put in back in microwave for 2minutes.

It's ready!

NB: as mussels were frozen they realized some water when defrasted and that was enough liquid to make it look like a soup...