Leftovers / Les restes

End of the month sadly means less money in the piggy bank for food shopping. For Chéri and I it often means eating up what's left in the fridge. 

On the menu this month: sliced coppa, creamy scrambled eggs and a pear, walnut and rocket salad.

With a bit of imagination and by mixing different flavours and ingredients that you might not always put together, leftovers can become a delicious meal in their own right. I quite like the picnic feel to these kinds of meals too, where you can pick at bits of everything. 

Bon appétit!

Life is peachy / La vie au goût des pêches

After losing at crazy golf, Cheri's forfeit was to cook dinner for four all by himself. I have to say I did doubt a little as to how he was going to manage saying as I do most of the cooking à la maison but I shouldn't have worried. Take a look at the peach tart he made for dessert! 

This is admittedly quite a simple recipe, but really tasty. Roll out a ready prepared packet of puff pastry, cover with sliced fresh peaches and brush with melted butter. Sprinkle all over with sugar (you need to use quite a bit to caramelise the peaches) then pop in the oven for 30 mins. Half way through cooking, brush with a little more butter and sugar if you think it's needed.

 A perfect dessert - fruity, not too stodgy and very gourmand! It's worth waiting until the summer months to try it out as that's when peaches are at their juciest and cheapest.

Chicken in a bag / Les papillotes de poulet

Nothing makes me think more of home than a good old roast dinner, lovingly cooked by my Mam. When I'm feeling homesick I like to give the Sunday lunch a try but whereas Mam's chicken is always lovely and juicy, mine has the unfortunate habit of turning out dry. 

I was therefore intrigued to see a new product in the supermarket designed to overcome this problem: Les papillotes de poulet, or chicken in a bag. 

The magic bag

There are a variety of flavours available (lemon and herb, tarragon and garlic) but I opted for tomato and paprika, knowing that Cheri likes a bit of spice. The instructions are clear and simple: Unfold the plastic sachet and pop in your chicken, then add the packet contents and a couple of soup spoons of water. Close up the bag and pop in the oven for approximately 1 hour 30 depending on the size of the bird.

Ready for the oven!

Cooking time over, it was time to see the results! Even before taking the chicken out of the oven, an inviting smell of roasted tomatoes managed to coax Cheri down from the study. And taste-wise? I have to say I'm impressed! The chicken was well-cooked, moist and juicy, and the mixture of paprika and tomato made a lovely jus for our mashed potatoes. The fact that you only add water (no oil or butter) to the chicken is also a plus.

The only down-side is that the sachets are quite pricey, on average at least 1 euro 50, but the results are worth it, especially if you only cook a roast chicken from time to time. 

The only test that remains will be to cook this for my Mam the next time she comes over! 

Greedy is back / La gourmande est de retour

A big thank you to my good friend for inviting Cheri and I to dinner last Saturday. After a week's recuperation where I did little else than change my ice packs and mope around in the thirty degree heat (note to self: listen to the dentist when she tells you not to get teeth taken out over summer) I was both excited and apprehensive at the thought of my first real meal in a week as my poor mouth was still a bit tender and there are quite a lot of restrictions as to what you can and can't eat post-operation.

I needn't have been worried as ma copine had thought of everything! For nibbles we had ripe melon from the garden cut into tiny pieces that just melted in the mouth and some crabsticks with a homemade chive and cream dip. I must say at this point that crabsticks are one of my guilty pleasures as I know there is loads of rubbish in them but I just can't help myself, I love them!

Starter was a nice creamy vegetable soup, admittedly not a seasonal choice as it is pretty warm outside but it felt so good just sliding down with no chewing required.

Main course arrived and I was ecstatic to see we were eating some meat as this is one if the things I missed over the week. Lots of things can be mixed and liquidised to be suitable for post dental surgery diets but meat is just not one of them. I did buy some rilletes which filled a bit of the meaty void but nothing could compare to the delicious sausage meat casserole that was set down before me. Anyone who knows me well knows I am a fan of sausage in all its forms and so there couldn't really have been a more welcome ingredient! Combined with courgettes and tomatoes from the garden, slowly stewed until they became almost melting, this is a perfect summer dish. Only regret is that the sausage meat is a bit salty when prepared like this as it breaks down during the long cooking time. As a helpful gourmande I advised mon ami to put a raw potato cut in half in to the casserole dish the next time as this would absorb the extra salt.

Dessert didn't disappoint either. My mate excelled herself and dished up a bowl of egg custard, which I absolutely LOVE, served with homemade vanilla cream. This was always my favourite food as a baby and then even as a teenager I would sometimes allow myself to buy a pot of egg custard with rice baby food..Mmmm heaven! 

Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me to document my return to real eating as the anaeasthetic has made me a bit dozy this week and I forgot it.

Little greedy pleasures / Petits plaisirs gourmands

After having my wisdom teeth out this week, my daily diet has been reduced to mashed potatoes with gravy, vanilla ice cream and the French equivalent of Yop. For a self-confessed gourmande, I'm sure you can understand that not being able to eat proper food is even more painful than having my actual teeth pulled. Today is the first day since the surgery that I've felt like leaving the house and I decided to celebrate by indulging in some greedy therapy. Good enough to eat!

Peach and Basil Room Spray, Durance / Confiture Candle, Durance / Strawberry key chain

The confiture maison (home-made jam) candle has a nostalgic smell that makes me think of home. Just need a cup of tea and some warm jammy toast to go with it when I've recovered...

After coming across Miam Paris online, I have become a fan of greedy jewellery and was thus delighted to find out that one of the shops in Saintes has a whole collection! I couldn't resist this strawberry keyring that makes me feel all summery. Almost as good as the real thing.

Which one's the fake?

 Living in the town center can have its advantages but the smell of cigarette smoke and car exhaust fumes wafting in from the street outside are not one of them. That is why I have become a fan of scented room sprays, with the condition of course that they make me feel happy and that they last a long time. Otherwise it's a bit of a rip-off. I really like this collection from 'Durance', they do loads of different scents and have just brought out this sorbet collection for summer. After hesitating between raspberry and mint or peach and basil, I gave in to the exotic smell of peaches (the minty after-smell left behind with the former was a bit strong, dommage!)

 

Recette: Scallops in Champagne Sauce

Finally found the photos I took of the New Year’s meal I made for Chéri! And as not a meal can be blogged without images, of course, I can also finally share this delicious and festive recipe taken from a range of seasonal cookbooks brought out by Sud Ouest newspaper. Each month takes into account the ingredients which are in season in the South West of France and gives you plenty of greedy ideas on how best to use them. This one comes from December!

Scallops in Champagne Sauce (serves 2 as a main course or 4 as a starter)

You will need:

12 large scallops in their shells 
1 tsp olive oil
150ml champagne
60ml double cream
2 tsp fish roe e.g. salmon or cod
sprigs of dill
salt, white pepper, ground black pepper


Open the scallop shells and remove the scallops. Separate the scallop from the coral and discard the corals. Season the scallops. Keep the 4 best shells and carefully wash them. Put to one side.


Heat the oven to 180C/gas 6. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over a high heat and fry the scallops for 1min on each side. Share between the 4 shells and bake in the oven for 4min on a baking tray.


During this time, bring the champagne to a simmer and add the double cream. Season with salt and the white pepper. Simmer for 2min, remove from the heat.


Sprinkle sea salt on to 2 plates, remove the scallops from the oven and lay them on the sea salt. 


Blend the champagne sauce with a hand mixer to make a nice mousse and share this sauce between the shells. Add the salmon roe and decorate with the sprigs of dill. Sprinkle with black pepper before serving with a crisp rocket salad.

Greedy Notes: Buy the biggest and freshest scallops you can afford from the fishmonger. They are the key to the recipe and are really worth the money. However, if you are on a tight budget, try swapping the champagne (which can be very overpriced in the UK) for Spanish cava or Italian prosecco, both of which will create the same effect while being kinder on the purse-strings.

Greedy Guide to Cordial

Much more popular in France than back in the UK, cordial (sirop to the French)  has taken the place of high juice and squash in my everyday drinking habits. Originally this was more of a forced change as squash does simply does not seem to exist in the supermarket. To get my hands on some I would need to make a costly detour to the English shop in Saintes town centre, a guilty pleasure my purse cannot afford! However, as with many of the changes I have made since moving to France, what starts out as bedrudgement often leads to new discoveries and greedy pleasures, and cordial has definitely become one of these fetishes.


Existing in an impressive range of flavours from the traditional lemon, mint or strawberry, through to more bizarre flavours like bubblegum or basil, cordial in France is most commonly diluted in water and is actually more cost-effective than squash as a little goes a long way! Mixing with lemonade is also popular especially with kids; this is known as a 'diablo' and is a bit like ordering a lime or blackcurrent and soda in a pub. The French also add cordial to their beers, most commonly lemon and peach, and I was even introduced by a colleague to cordial diltued in milk: mint flavour is surprisingly tasty and very refreshing in summer.

Cordials can be used both hot and cold, which also means they can be using in the kitchen to experiment with unusual flavours or bring an intense burst of colour to a dish.
Try marinating prawns in banana cordial before pan-frying, adding a bit of acidity to red meat dishes with a raspberry cordial, or even bringing a bit of zing to tomato soup with a ginger cordial.

Greedy Note: Sugar-free cordial does exist, but I find the flavours less intense and oddly sweeter than the pure sugar alternative.

Monin Sirops
Moulin de Valdonne