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Red and green beans and a four-legged clown
I’ve long suspected Bijou, our five-year-old gelding, to have a highly-developed sense of humour. (One of his first jokes was to chuck me in a ditch and then tread on me. That was a real howl.) He’s also a non-smoker with a lean, muscular physique and indisputably good looks; really quite a catch. Always happy to be of service, he opens field gates to allow the other horses to come and go as they please, although he has yet to learn to to shut them. And he picks up buckets in his teeth and flings them against the wall, which is great fun I suppose as long as you’re not a bucket. He clings on to his bit with his teeth when his bridle is removed, like a baby refusing to give up his dummy and chews on freshly-washed clothes drying on the line.
His latest trick though was quite the most audacious, even for him. Luc, who had been working in the field, stripped off his t-shirt and put it over the tractor door as it was very hot. Bijou, who had been hanging out with him (he loves to socialise), didn’t miss a beat: He reached up and seized the t-shirt between his teeth, turned on his hooves and took off at a gallop, dust flying in his wake. When he finally stopped, he turned around defiantly with the t-shirt hanging from his mouth as if to say ‘well aren’t you coming to get it?’ There followed a lengthy negotiation before he would unlock his teeth, but the t-shirt was eventually retrieved sporting several chew holes and large grass stains.
Green beans are more nutritious than t-shirts and contain substantial amounts of chlorophyll, which can block the carcinogenic effects of meat grilled at a high temperature. In barbecue season, green beans make the perfect accompaniment. Green beans are also a good source of copper, vitamin B1, chromium, magnesium, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, choline, vitamin A, niacin, omega-3 fatty acids, iron, vitamin B6, and vitamin E.
Ingredients (serves 6)
1kg green beans
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 spring onions, peeled and sliced
1 red pepper, sliced
1 tomato, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper
1 teaspoon piment d’Espelette or paprika
Handful of fresh basil, chopped
Precook the beans until ‘al dente’, strain and set aside. Gently heat the olive oil in a large frying pan adding the onions and cooking for a few minutes. Add the sliced red pepper, tomato and garlic and continue to cook until the red pepper and tomato soften. Add the green beans and seasoning, gently combining and cook for a few more minutes. Add the basil and serve. -
Spicy almond and raisin biscuits (gf) and being knocked senseless
What do Hugo and a large buzzard have in common? The answer is they both have raging headaches. Hugo’s favourite thing in the world, other than mature camembert, is to jump into cars through their open windows. Much to the post lady’s dismay, he quite often ends up sitting on a massive pile of post in the passenger seat of the van. She has a tricky job explaining why the letters and parcels she delivers are covered in dog hair and paw prints. The other day though, the window was closed. Poor Hugo, who had taken a long and powerful run up, head butted the pane with a resounding thud and fell to the ground where he stayed knocked senseless. It was a good few minutes before he shook himself off and looked around to check that nobody had witnessed the fiasco. The next day, an impressive-looking buzzard did the same thing into one of our kitchen windows. It fell to the ground and staggered around a bit, before deciding to sit down and wait for the head spinning to pass. I did go out to offer a cup of tea and painkiller, as I had done with Hugo, but it just snarled at me, which I thought was a bit rich in view of the fact that it had come very close to smashing my kitchen window to smithereens.
Yesterday 52% of voters in Britain had apparently also had the sense knocked out of them. A sad day indeed for Britain and for Europe.
Ingredients (makes 25-30 biscuits)
125g millet flour (or normal flour is you prefer)
50g ground almonds
50g oat flakes
½ teaspoon ginger powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon powder
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
40g raisins
25g chopped or flaked almonds
80g cane sugar
100ml olive oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs, beaten
Mix the flour, spices, raisins, almonds, oats, spices, bicarbonate of soda, raisins, almonds and sugar in a bowl and set aside. Whisk the olive oil, vanilla and eggs together and add to the dry mixture. Mix thoroughly and roll into a sausage shape, roughly 5cm thick. Refrigerate for several hours or even overnight.
Preheat the oven to 190°C. Cut the dough into slices of just under a centimetre and space out onto a greased baking sheet. Cook for 12 minutes and leave to cool. -
Apple and raspberry crumble (gf) and patron saints
I am writing this in my new-found capacity as Patron Saint of Naughty Horses. Every time horses stray in our village, it is assumed, quite mistakenly of course, that they’re ours. I got a call from the Mairie early the other morning informing me that there were two horses loose in the village, and could I please go and sort them out. Looking out of the window to do a quick head count I said, not altogether un-smugly, that mine were all present and correct and that I wasn’t the only person in the village to have wilful horses. We then went through the list of horse-owning potential suspects, all of whose phone numbers I had, which presumably made me guilty by association. She then very kindly kept me updated after every conversation, which was nice as I had nothing else planned for the morning beyond fielding calls about delinquent quadrupeds.
My smugness was short-lived because the following Sunday brought a visit from the ‘gendarmes’; our most recent purchase had been found dazed and confused in town and, in view of the fact that he was roaming the pavements and cruising the shops and bars, they muttered something about vagabondage charges. At the suggestion of my imaginative husband however, we ended up agreeing that, just this once, they would squint and pretend he was a particularly large and docile deer (Bijou our horse; not my imaginative husband).
This crumble is made using millet flour, which is a delicious, slightly nutty-tasting gluten-free alternative. It is one of the least allergenic of all flours and very easily digestible due to its high alkalinity. It is an excellent source of iron, magnesium, calcium, phosphorus, manganese, zinc and B vitamins.
Ingredients (serves 8)
For the filling:
2kg of apples, peeled, cored sliced and sprinkled with lemon juice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons of honey
Several handfuls of raspberries, fresh or frozen
For the topping:
125g millet flour
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
50g coconut oil
50g butter, cut into cubes
50g oats
50g almond flakes
100g cane sugar (or rapadura sugar)
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Gently poach the apples in a little water, adding the cinnamon and honey. Add the raspberries once the apples have softened and mix. Transfer to a ovenproof baking dish. For the crumble, put the flour, salt, ginger, coconut oil and butter into a mixing bowl and rub in using your fingertips. You should obtain a sandlike mixture. Add the oats, almond flakes and sugar and mix well. Cover the fruit with the crumble mixture and bake for 40 minutes or until the topping begins to turn golden brown. Serve warm with ice cream or Greek yoghurt.
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Garlic mayonnaise and tractor-shaped puff pastry
Never judge a book by its cover, or a mechanic by his trade. My husband’s beloved tractor broke down this weekend, which is always something of an emotional upheaval. When we first moved here and people came to visit for the first time, he would always show them his shiny red tractor before the house or grounds, which he seemed to consider to be of secondary importance.
Upon his much-anticipated arrival, Repairman and Husband started talking in earnest, and I scathingly thought to myself that this was a conversation I would rather gnaw my own arm off than listen to. How wrong was I? It was actually a conversation that taught me an awful lot – and not about tractor entrails either – about the trials and tribulations of puff pastry! Thinking about it, I suppose the two are not that dissimilar; they both involve oil, sweat, swearing and tears and even then, with so many uncontrolled parameters involved, the results are decidedly unpredictable.
Mayonnaise, like puff pastry and tractors, is also temperamental. If the bowl is too cold, the air too hot or your mood too irascible, you WILL screw it up. Earlier in the year, I made a wonderful batch to go with a seafood platter, only for it to end up splattered over the floor, interspersed with broken glass. I tried again to no avail – my cool, calm, collected demeanour had deserted me and we had to eat seafood sans mayonnaise.
Ingredients (roughly 12 servings)
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
150ml olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
Squeeze of lemon juice
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon paprika
Beat the egg yolks and mustard together. Add the olive oil, little by little all the time whisking well in order to obtain the right consistency. Ad the garlic, lemon and seasoning, whisking continuously. The result should be glossy and luscious. Be careful to refrigerate before dropping on the floor! Must be kept in the fridge and served cold. -
Raspberry cheesecake tarts (gf) and pedalling is the way forward
Home bears a close resemblance to an Accident and Emergency Unit at the moment. To start with, no fewer than 25% of the human knees here are toast. Burnt toast in fact. One knee belongs to The Tall One, and the other belongs to a friend who is staying with us. Both bad knees are as a result of interaction with horses; I have made my point and will say no more on the matter. The butcher told the Tall One that cycling was excellent for the sort of knee injury he has, which means that he pedals absolutely everywhere, even when pushing (or pulling) his friend’s wheelchair. Never mind the knee, what about his sanity?
Bossy has a broken little toe, but since little toes don’t count, I consider her disproportionate cursing when she hits it to be melodrama. A mild dose of laryngitis on the other hand wouldn’t go amiss. Nothing painful you understand, just enough for her to stop talking – or verbalising as the Noisy One says – for a bit.
Moving on with the inventory, Java has a sore foot due to an impaled pine needle. Big deal – I have those nearly every day. You wouldn’t believe the fuss she made. We were all witness to her pathetic crying, whimpering and exaggerated limping for hours. Also, she keeps vomiting because she steals and eats raw eggs. I have tried to explain that lightly-poached eggs (as opposed to fully-poached in this case) are far more digestible than raw, but I’m afraid it falls on deaf ears. As for me, I have developed tinnitus and migraines because I have to sleep between two snoring girl dogs. Ladylike they are not.
On to the volatiles, I’m a little concerned about one of the hens because she has been trying, unsuccessfully, to lay an egg for over two weeks. I think she might have an intestinal blockage. Either that, or a brain blockage, something I certainly wouldn’t rule out. Another of the hens has a very nasty-looking foot and the Tall One says she’ll probably die soon, but whoever died from a bad foot? I think it’s wishful thinking on his part because he’s irritated that she only ever lays an egg once in a blue moon. A couple of swallows have built their nest on the spotlight above the front door. Every time the spotlight comes on, they fly out crossly wiggling their singed bottoms. How many times do they have to be burnt before they realise they should relocate? How many shades of stupid can a swallow actually be?
These tarts are nothing to write home about in my opinion, but they seem to make Bossy happy, so here you are.
Ingredients for pastry (makes about six tarts)
75g buckwheat flour
35g coconut flour
30g butter
30g coconut oil
½ teaspoon powdered ginger
Pinch of sea salt
Roughly 6 tablespoons of cold water
Ingredients for ‘cheesecake’ filling
250g mascarpone cheese
Juice of half a lemon
3 tablespoons raspberry jam
100g fresh raspberries
2 tablespoons desiccated coconut
To make the pastry, begin by cutting the butter and coconut oil into small cubes. Add to the flours and a pinch of salt in a mixing bowl. Blend by hand until the mixture becomes crumbly. Add the cold water, mixing rapidly with a spoon. Remove the mixture from the bowl onto a lightly floured surface. Knead until you obtain a ball of pastry (if the mixture isn’t ‘sticky’ enough to form a ball, you may need a drop more water). Wrap in a clean cotton tea towel or some cling film and leave to ‘rest’ in the fridge for about two hours. This relaxes the dough and makes it easier to use.
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Roll out the pastry on a clean, lightly floured surface and fill the tart tins. Bear in mind that buckwheat and coconut flour pastry is extremely crumbly as it contains no gluten to ‘stick’ it together. You’ll probably need to patch and press the pastry into the tins as opposed to just cutting and placing it in as you would with normal pastry. Cook the pastry cases for 15 minutes.
Blend all of the ‘cheesecake’ ingredients together well, keeping a few raspberries aside for garnish. Fill the precooked tart cases and decorate the tops with the set-aside raspberries. Chill for at least an hour before serving. -
Apricot buckwheat cake (gf) and Hugo sorts things out
As is too often the case, I feel compelled to tell my side of the story following Bossy’s latest piece of intelligence (I use the term with a generous helping of irony). I was so annoyed that I had intended to ‘forget’ to include her silly recipe in this post, but Bossy can be very insistent. Obviously my ‘forgetting’ would have been a pedagogical measure and not out of pettiness. Between ourselves though, I consider Bossy to be a lost cause so I didn’t press the issue.
As I mentioned before, in my spare time (sadly lacking because I’m so exploited), I am studying for a degree in psychology. This is quite a challenge as it’s very hard to find peace and quiet to study in this house. Also, I have to be careful not to leave my books lying around because Java chews them to pieces, Bossy drops them in the bath (she falls asleep while reading), the Noisy One makes aeroplanes from them and the Tall One uses them to light fires. The upshot is that there is hardly any room left for me to lie in my basket as, once I’ve finished studying I have to hide all my books under the blankets. I don’t think Bossy takes my degree very seriously, which would explain why she doesn’t understand my need for time on the couch to contemplate. The couch plays a very important part in a psychology degree.
Bossy is in denial about just how annoying Java is. She thinks she’s ‘adorable and perhaps a tiny bit dizzy’, whereas in reality she’s an unrelenting and unspeakable pest. Actually, they both are. For the record, Java is also in denial about just how annoying she is. Or maybe she isn’t, which is even worse. Sigmund (I think we would have been on first name terms if he had ever been lucky enough to meet me) believed that when people explain their behaviour they rarely give a true account – not necessarily because they are deliberately lying, but because they are great deceivers of others and, to an even greater degree, themselves. Bossy meet Java, Java meet Bossy. I rest my case.
Ingredients (serves 8-10)
170g dried apricots (preferably organic), chopped
100ml olive oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 eggs, separated
100g cane sugar
100ml plain yoghurt
70g ground almonds (you could substitute ground hazelnuts)
40g buckwheat flour
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon powdered cinnamon
Preheat the oven to 180ºC and prepare a medium-sized loaf tin. Whisk the egg yolks, sugar, olive oil and yogurt until light and smooth. Mix the ground almonds, buckwheat flour, salt, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon together and then combine well with the wet mixture. Whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks and gently but thoroughly fold into the mixture. Pour into the loaf tin and bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the tin and leave to cool. Delicious served alone or with Greek yoghurt or ice cream. -
Peanut anzac biscuits and a civilised sofa and its contents
This is a sofa. It is a pretty, clean sofa for humans. This is Hugo the big black dog. He is a naughty dog. This is Java the little speckled dog. She is also a naughty dog. Hugo does not like Java to join him on the sofa. Hugo kicks Java. He growls at Java. Poor little Java. She is sad. Hugo can be a sadistic son of a bitch at times.
Ingredients (makes 16-20)
125g spelt flour
100g desiccated coconut
40g raisins
100g rolled oats
Tablespoon chia seeds (optional)
150g unsalted peanuts
Pinch of sea salt
75g coconut oil
50g butter
80g honey
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Prepare and grease two baking trays. Combine the flour, coconut, raisins, oats, chia seeds, peanuts and salt in a large mixing bowl. Gently melt the coconut oil, butter and honey in a small saucepan and stir until smooth. Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in two tablespoons of boiling water. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and combine well.
Roll walnut-sized pieces of dough into balls and place on the baking trays, leaving space between each ball. Flatten them slightly and bake for 15 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool before serving. -
Cinnamon: a multitalented spice
Cinnamon was popular with the Ancient Egyptians as a perfuming agent during the embalming process, and was mentioned in the Old Testament as an ingredient in anointing oil. Legend holds that the Roman emperor, Nero, burned cinnamon on the funeral pyre of his second wife, Poppaea Sabin, in 65 AD to atone for his role in her death.
Today, there are two main varieties of cinnamon available: Ceylon and cassia cinnamon. Cassia cinnamon is largely produced in Indonesia and is the variety most widely available for sale. It also has the stronger smell and flavour of the two. The more expensive Ceylon cinnamon has a more subtle, sweeter flavour and is better suited to baking and sprinkling on hot drinks such as coffee or chocolate.
Perhaps one of the benefits for which cinnamon is most reputed today is as a blood sugar balancing agent, which is proving to be very useful in the management of type 2 diabetes.
Cinnamon also gently stimulates the circulatory system by relaxing and widening the vessel walls, which is particularly effective for issues such as cold hands and feet. It is also a powerful anti-fungal agent, especially useful in cases of fungal infections of the digestive tract, such as Candidiasis.
Cinnamon has very potent anti-oxidant properties, so much so that it is sometimes used as a food preservative. It also acts as an anti-inflammatory and aids digestion by increasing gastro-intestinal enzyme secretions. It is an excellent source of minerals such as potassium, calcium, manganese, iron, zinc and magnesium and also contains vitamin A and vitamins B3, B5 and B6.
Use liberally in sweet or savoury cooking and baking, as well as on yogurts and cereals such as muesli. Cinnamon makes a delicious and healthy substitute for sugar. -
Guest post: Sugar-free loaf
Today I’d like to welcome Susan from Our French Oasis, who, like me, lives in the South West of France with her husband, various children, chickens and naughty dogs.
I have lived in France with my husband and five children for many years; we used to live close to the Spanish border, then work took us to Florida for four years and when we returned permanently two years ago we bought a house close to the coast in the Charente Maritime, a department we have all come to love.
Last year I decided to give up all forms of added sugar, for absolutely no other reason than I thought I would see if I could do it, we don’t after all need sugar, and I wondered if I could really live without it? The answer is yes, seven months later and I still have not had a grain of added sugar, honey, maple syrup or any other form of non naturally occurring sugar such as that found in fruit and wine (of course). Now our French friends think I am quite mad, they all eat healthily but they don’t do fad diets and they do eat sugar, a little coffee is always taken with sugar, a little dessert after dinner, bien sur, they don’t do large portions but they do have a little, something sweet to finish a meal, in fact they look at me quite aghast! But in truth we really do not need sugar, I had no withdrawal symptons and sometimes I do look at a chocolate or a biscuit and think, gosh I’d like one, but I won’t! Why? Because I have never felt so full of energy, I need less sleep and I feel totally invigorated and I know it is very good for me, I scarcely miss it at all and I won’t go back to eating it!
Ingredients
125g wholemeal spelt flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon allspice
50g butter, softened (I use salted butter)
100g raisins
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
3 large bananas mashed
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
4 dates (optional)
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a loaf tin with baking paper. Put all the dry ingredients into the mixer and turn on to low. Add all the remaining ingredients excluding the dates and mix further. Place the mixture in the prepared cake tin, pressing four dates along the top (optional) and bake for about 40 minutes. Test with a sharp knife; if it doesn’t come out clean, cover with some tin foil to stop the top burning and bake for a further 10 minutes. Turn out onto a cooling rack and try not to eat it all at once! -
Courgette and cumin bread (gf) and haywire hens
My husbandorderstrains our hens to lay their eggs in a methodical fashion in satisfyingly tidy wooden boxes filled with hay. Each box is equipped with an enticing ‘wooden egg’ in case the hens are still in doubt as to their duties, and emptied of any real eggs at 5pm. The anomaly is, that when they’re not ‘working’ (i.e. laying), they’re allowed to cause mayhem anywhere they please – in my more fragile plants for example – and even come into the house should the idea take their fancy.
There are three identical boxes, but for some reason they greatly favour one above the others. I think it’s a case of full restaurant syndrome; everyone crowds into the full restaurant, even if the food is just as good at the empty restaurant next door. I invariably find five eggs in this one box and none in the others. This morning there were three hens and a cat piled on top of each other in an alarmingly chaotic way in the preferred box. Needless to say, the sight made my husband break out in a cold sweat. I see an intensive revision course on the horizon.
Ingredients (10 servings)
4 eggs, separated
100g olive oil
100ml plain yoghurt
170g courgette, grated
100g hard cheese, grated (I used Comté)
70g chickpea flour (you could substitute plain flour)
40g buckwheat flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon paprika
Preheat the oven to 180ºC and prepare a medium-sized loaf tin. Whisk the egg yolks, olive oil and yoghurt together until light and smooth, then combine with the grated courgette and cheese and set aside. Whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks and set aside. Mix the flours and spices into the egg yolk mixture and then gently but thoroughly fold in the beaten whites. Pour the mixture into the loaf tin and bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the tin and leave to cool. Delicious accompaniment to soup, salad or vegetable dishes.