Merci

Merci Adeline!

xox

As I was saying...

As I was saying on Friday I was at home baking up a storm for the three parties on Saturday. I shared with you the truffles that I was making and I just couldn't not share with you the cupcake recipe.  Everyone, well everyone that I watched, who ate them murmured with delight and if it wasn't the middle of the silly season of overeating I'm sure everyone wouldv'e taken a second and/or a third one. But we were at a Hen's party which included: a bride to be, several witnesses (French equivalents of bridesmaids), and French girls who seem to have already learnt self-control and healthy eating habits. 

A Train Strike and Truffles

There is another strike on the trains! Hardly surprising during the months of November and December in France. The schools, the post office, the train drivers and even the Police have striked this year. It's the RER A again today, since yesterday, and it's all over a 4% pay rise (among other things).  I couldn't get to work this afternoon because every single train was cancelled. Sorry kids - no English History this afternoon.  


So while the Christmas music played I donned on my apron and set to work in the kitchen. I have three parties tomorrow. I know it's always busy close to Christmas but none of these parties are even remotely related to Christmas. A birthday party, a hen's party and an engagement party.  Lucky me!  While baby Jesus was being born in a manger and the angles were harking on the stereo I was baking Christmas flavoured cupcakes for my gorgeous friend about to get married and truffles to celebrate the engagement of other dear friends. The apartment smells so delicious I'd like to throw the windows open and share it with my neighbours.  It's a bit cold for that though!


Here are the truffles for you to share at your Christmas table this year. 

Autumn at Château de Vincennes

I just wanted to share autumn with you. I love this time of year.

lots of love

L x

Forget all other soups

Here it is - perhaps the 'piece de resistance' from my kitchen this season. I was flicking through some food magazines, entertaining myself while it poured with rain outside our Paris apartment. I wish I could tell you the fire was roaring and the cat was purring but that would be dreaming in a 35m sq apartment in central Paris.  However the heating was on and I was curled up under a rug on our sofa - one must make do with what one has. This soup caught my eye mainly because I was looking for ways to use the coconut milk in the fridge.  

Pretty soon the onions were chopped and cooking and the sweet potato was being cut up ready for dinner. 

Pumpkin Lasagne for you

It's a good thing to eat seasonally but inevitably there will be a glut of one kind of vegetable or fruit and at the end of two weeks you are ready to vow that you will never eat it again.  It is pretty hard to escape the pumpkin at this time of year. That and cabbage.  Last week I headed East and made a Pumpkin lakhsa. Next week I'm planning to make Pumpkin and Ginger cupcakes but this week we ate pumpkin Italian style. I'm sure the Italians would be horrified at this deviation from the original version, but to the Italians credit the lasagne is a very versatile dish. You can make as many variations of it as there are cheeses in France. (That's a lot in case you were wondering!) 
I was talking with my girlfriends last night and not surprisingly the conversation turned to food. One of them confessed that lasagne was her comfort food and begged for the recipe.  So here it is, just for you Helene.

a little something for starters...

Having done a cupboard inventory recently I realised that I had a large amount of cupboard space devoted to spices. I buy my spices in bulk and then need to store them in accumulated glass jars of various shapes and sizes.  Because they are different shapes they often don't sit side by side uniformly on the shelf, hence the reason they take up a lot of room.  I found my jars of seeds and so I was pleased to stumble across this recipe in the Saveurs magazine where I could use them.

We had a surprise birthday party for one of our friends recently. I baked these biscuits for the soirée because I had almost everything in the cupboard. After a quick dash to the supermarket for the cheese they didn't take long to whip up.  The recipe calls for Mimolette cheese. It's a semi hard cheese that is traditionally made in Normandy and Holland.  You could however use any hard cheese. Mimolette cheese works nicely because it is slightly orange and adds a lovely colour to the biscuits. 

Because it's not often that you find biscuits like this they are suitable impressive. And for the extra 2 minutes it takes to roll them in seeds you receive a healthy dose of compliments for your work. 

Cheese Biscuits

200g flour

80g mimolette cheese (or another hard tasty cheese if you can't get your hands on Mimolette)

70g butter - cut into cubes

1 egg

3 pinches of salt

2 tablespoons of sesame seeds

1 tablespoon of poppy seeds

Finely grate the cheese.  Mix the flour, salt and cheese together in a bowl.  Rub the butter in with your fingers and work the ingredients together until it resembles breadcrumbs.  

Beat the egg and then add it to the mixture.  Add 1 or 2 tablespoons of water so that the mixture holds together.

Shape the dough into a cylinder approximately 30cm long.

Sprinkle your work bench with the sesame and poppy seeds.  Roll the biscuit cylinder over the seeds, pressing lightly so that the seeds stick to the mixture.

Wrap the cylinder in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Unwrap the biscuit sausage and carefully cut into slices about 7mm thick.  Try to keep them all the same size so that they cook evenly.

Place the biscuits on the biscuit tray (buttered or lined with cooking paper) and cook for 20 minutes. 

They are cooked when they have turned a delicious golden brown colour and the cheese is sizzling.

Serve cold as part of an apéro selection.