09.09.07
Posted in Cuisine, Family at 11:07 pm by rachel
We’ve been celebrating Seth’s birthday all weekend, so by the time the big day came today, we really just spent the day hanging out and eating lots and lots of cake.
Last night I tried my hand at a French yogurt cake (recipe below). Baking is never an easy task with the toaster we pretend to call an oven, but after cutting off the burnt top (a casualty when trying to make a normal-sized anything in the tiny oven), all was well. I made it a marble cake by splitting the dough in half and adding a melted chocolate bar to one half.
After having lunch and a first piece of birthday cake, I presented Seth with his gift, a book of walks throughout Paris, written in English. It’s called Walks Through Lost Paris and is just the kind of book Seth loves: old pictures, little-known historical stories, architecture… We took it with us on a walk to Saint-Germain-
des-Prés and the Luxembourg Gardens since the weather was beautiful and we were in the walking mood. Seth read it at the park while I took pictures and soaked in some of the last of the summer sun. You can tell in the picture to the right that the sun was blazing: we couldn’t stop squinting!
I spent the late afternoon at a flea market and Seth’s birthday meant he didn’t have to accompany me, hehe. Tonight we had our friend Corry over for bread, cheese, wine, and more cake!
In all, a wonderful day!
~Yogurt cake~
What you need:
**Note: Use the yogurt container to measure the other ingredients. This is the coolest part about the recipe!
1 single-serving pot of plain yogurt (the kind that comes in a glass jar is ideal)
2 pots sugar
1 pot vegetable oil
3 eggs
3 pots flour
1 packet of levure chimique or about 1 T baking soda
What to do:
Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. For the marble version, divide the dough in two and melt 1 bar 70% cocoa chocolate bar in the microwave (about 1 minute), mix in the chocolate to 1/2 of the dough. Pour the plain dough into a greased cake pan. Drizzle the chocolate half on top and use a knife to make the marble design. Bake for 30 minutes. Glaze as you wish, but it’s really not necessary.
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09.07.07
Posted in Cuisine at 5:11 pm by rachel
Here we are at the end of the first week of September and I forgot to post about a special food event going on this month! My brother-in-law, Jeff, is participating in this September’s Eat Local Challenge. The idea is to define what you mean by “local” (usually about a 100-mile radius) and then choose to eat foods that are primarily produced in that area. September is a great time to try this, as even northern climates have a bountiful harvest with plenty of variety.
The idea is to reduce the amount of waste and pollution that goes into transporting food to you. The farther a tomato has to travel, the more carbon dioxide goes into the air.
Of course, there are other ways to participate if a 100% local diet does not sound feasible (as I will probably not be able to do!). One idea is to visit a local market once a week, or focus on making one local meal per week. Check out a related blog that challenges contributers to do just that, called One Local Summer. Yes, we are coming into this a little late, but it’s better that than never!
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09.04.07
Posted in Cuisine, Paris Life at 9:13 am by rachel
On Sunday I accompanied two friends to the fruit and vegetable market at Place de la Bastille. The market closes around 2pm, so our mission was to go at 1:30 and see what kind of end-of-the-day deals we could get. At around 1:45, the vendors start to offer huge quantities of vegetables and fruits for 1€. It gets very animated.
The Market at Place de la Bastille
I will warn you that a huge bag of food for 1€ can mean a lot of rotten fruit to sort through. This was the case with a huge bag of bell peppers I got: I had to throw away half of them, but it was still an amazing deal. The cucumbers I got (7 large ones for 1€) were all edible, as were the beautiful tomatoes (I couldn’t resist and got both vine-ripened ones and grape tomatoes). The green beans didn’t look too bad, either, so I stocked up on about a kilo of those as well. But what to do with so many of them? Homemade green bean casserole, of course!
There’s no can of soup in my version - I made it all from scratch and with my own, newly-invented recipe.
What you need:
1/2 - 1 handful green beans per serving (I used about 2 handfuls for this recipe)
4 large white mushrooms, chopped into 1/2-inch chunks
1 tbsp butter
1 yellow onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp flour
1/2 cup milk
1 small piece of toast, crumbled
salt, to taste
What to do:
In a non-stick frying pan, melt the butter and add the mushrooms and onions. Cook until the onions are golden. While these are cooking, wash the green beans and remove their tips. Cut into thirds (about 1.5-inch long pieces). Put the green beans into a glass baking dish, cover with some salt, and mix in the mushroom and onion mixture. In the same non-stick pan, pour the heavy cream and add flour, mix well (it helps to use a non-stick whisk to avoid clumps - I don’t have one, so I just used my wooden spoon). Add the milk and cook about 1-2 minutes over high heat, to reduce. Pour over the green bean mixture and then sprinkle on the crumbled toast. Bake, uncovered, about 20 minutes at 350 degrees.
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09.03.07
Posted in Family at 9:54 pm by rachel
Granny would have been 80 years old today. Above is her engagement picture, from the summer of 1948. Everyone always thought she looked like Jackie O…only prettier.
What a wonderful life she led. Yes, that’s her at the steering wheel of that Jeep! I picture her and her sisters growing up like the Ya Ya Sisterhood. This is why our family is full of such powerful, take-charge women!
Only as she got older did we discover she had special artistic talent: and in watercolor, the most difficult medium. Granny painted this ocean scene in 1998, when she was already in an assisted living facility.
We miss you, Granny.
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