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White watermelon jam and tacky kitchen floors
My poor kitchen has undergone another hostile takeover; my husband is in the midst of his biannual jamathon. I lose the use of my kitchen in September to fig jam and in January to white watermelon jam. God forbid we should grow any other jam-suitable fruit – I don’t think my nerves are sufficiently robust. I just don’t have the patience to make it myself – all that peeling and de-pipping would have me gnawing my limbs off. The truth is, once Luc, my husband, enters the kitchen he becomes a bit of a prima donna, and asOCDtidy as he usually is, the kitchen is left in a very sorry state. The floor tiles become hazardous and moving around becomes fraught with danger and an immense effort. You either have to unstick your foot vigourously after each step, or take long circuitous routes around puddles of sugary water. I’m wrung out just thinking about it. Of course, it goes without saying that the final result is beyond divine and after all, I was born to mop kitchen floors 😉
Ingredients (makes four or five jars)
1 white watermelon
250g cane sugar
1/2 lemon, grated and juiced
20g fresh ginger, grated
1 tsp cinnamon
Cut the watermelon into quarters, then peel and remove the seeds. Cut the flesh into cubes and put into a large pan. Add the sugar, ginger, lemon and cinnamon and gently heat to draw the moisture from the fruit. Simmer for between an hour and a half and two hours, or until desired consistency is obtained. This jam is fairly runny due to the relatively low sugar-content. Transfer into sterilised jam jars while still hot.
Watermelons are rich in many essential nutrients such as vitamins A, B1, B6 & C, pantothenic acid, biotin, potassium, and magnesium. They also fight cancer, relieve kidney disorders, reduce high blood pressure and the risk of heart problems, boost the immune system and help keep the eyes healthy. Get chopping ! -
Chocolate and pear tarts, compulsive behaviour and chainsaws
This will be the last pear/chocolate recipe for a while, I promise. I appear (!) to have become slightly obsessed with this heavenly combination, but that’s still no excuse for being a bore. Talking of bores, I’ve been having wild cow-related issues this week. We’ve had a lot of very strong gales which, if you live here, translates into the need to travel everywhere with a chainsaw (pine trees are quite vulnerable and fall easily in high winds). Personally, I never go anywhere without mine – you just never know when it’s going to come in handy. Which brings me back to wild cows; I have spotted several within uncomfortably close range recently. When I reported my ‘sightings’ to the local Mairie, the information was met with a definite ‘course you did, dearie’ sort of look, which I thought was a bit audacious, especially in view of the contents of my car boot 😉
The pastry for this tart is wheat-free, but not entirely gluten-free, spelt containing a small amount.
Ingredients for pastry (serves 6-8):
150g buckwheat flour
70g spelt flour
50g butter
50g virgin coconut oil
Roughly 6 tablespoons of cold water
Ingredients for filling:
40g dark chocolate (min. 70% cocoa)
1 tablespoon rum
15ml cream
1 large pear
3 tablespoons watermelon, pear, apple or ginger jam
To make the pastry, begin by cutting the butter and coconut oil into small cubes. Add to the flour in a mixing bowl and add a pinch of sea salt. 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 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. Precook the pastry for 12 minutes.
Melt the chocolate with the rum. Once melted, add the cream and mix to form a smooth sauce. Line the base of each tart with the chocolate. Peel the pear and cut into thin slices. Cover the chocolate base with the pears, overlapping them to cover well. Cover the top with a thin layer of jam and then cook for about 15 minutes. Delicious hot or cold. -
Healthy cheese scones (low-GI)
This week it snowed everywhere in France except here; we got the torrential rain option instead. Yesterday, I donned my guise as a North Sea fisherman (waders are definitely the way forward) to take Hugo for a walk. I squelched my way through sodden fields for 20 minutes before cottoning on to the fact that he wasn’t actually with me. My dog may have ‘issues’, but he’s certainly not stupid. I came home to find him bone-dry and curled up in front of the fire. One nil Hugo.
I used Comté cheese, which I call French Cheddar, to make these scones. I suspect the French might be rather mortified if they heard this moniker, but that’s OK because, as of this week, I am French. This gives me the right, amongst other things, to Cheese Irreverence, so there.
The photo is of the second batch of scones, as my rain-fearing labrador ‘sampled’ the first batch. All of it.
Ingredients (makes 12-15)
150mg spelt flour
100mg buckwheat flour
1 tablespoon chia seeds (optional)
3 tsp baking powder
large pinch sea salt
1/2 tsp paprika
100mg strong cheddar cheese (or Comté, or similar), grated
1 tablespoon olive oil
125 ml milk
1 egg
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Sift the flour, baking powder, chia seeds, salt and paprika into a large bowl. Add the cheese and mix well.
Beat the egg and milk together in a separate bowl and add the olive oil. Pour the milk/egg/oil mixture into the flour mixture and using a metal spoon / fork, mix the dough until it clumps together, but is not too dry. If it seems too dry, add a tiny drop more milk.
Press the dough out on a clean floured surface until it is about 5mm thick, then fold it over ontop of itself (this gives the finished scones the natural “break” to cut open), flatten it again, using the palm of your hand. Do not use a rolling pin as it is too heavy and will prevent the scones from rising.
Use a round cutter to cut out the scones. Place on a baking tray and cook for about 15 minutes or until golden. Serve hot or cold. -
Guest post: Eight herbs and spices with fantastic health benefits
Photo: ©The Healthy Epicurean
Today I welcome Rose Marie Baker, a nutritionist who believes in a responsible lifestyle through healthier eating. When she’s not in the kitchen, you can find Rose reviewing herbs and spices online. Some of her favorites can be found here.
We all want to eat healthier so that we can stay in shape, live longer, and keep our bodies free of unnatural chemicals and pollutants.
The problem is, many of the healthiest foods out there are just kind of, well, boring. At least that’s the opinion of many people, and it’s hard to maintain a healthy lifestyle if you find it bland and tasteless.
What’s the solution? Try some herbs and spices. Tasty and aromatic, these typically ground-up plants and seeds are nature’s way of dressing up your food without adding lots of unnecessary calories and fat. Find the right combination and you can make even the most boring food into a culinary delight. Even better, many herbs and spices actually have quite a few health benefits as well. Here are eight of best ones out there.
Cilantro. Not only is it great tasting (unless you’re one of the unlucky few for whom it tastes like soap), cilantro does a bunch of wonderful things for your body. Because of the large amount of vitamin K in cilantro, it helps blood clot better and makes bones stronger.
Ginger. Most people know that this spicy, delicious root can help with nausea (why do you think so many people drink ginger ale when they feel sick to their stomachs?), but some recent evidence points to the fact that it’s also a pretty decent painkiller, easing muscle soreness and joint pain related to arthritis.
Cinnamon. It’s not often that you can find a food that’s high in fiber, contains no fat or calories, and still manages to do a great job of satisfying our cravings for sweets. Oh, and did we mention that it also may help to lower your cholesterol and help people with type-2 diabetes to better manage their blood sugar levels?
Fennel. With its licorice-like flavor, lots of people find the taste of fennel to be pleasing. But what they like even more is the fact that it can help to ease heartburn and assist with digestion issues like gas and bloating.
Turmeric. This jack-of-all-trades spice has been used to help people suffering from everything from skin problems to depression to liver disease. Many of these applications don’t have conclusive evidence showing that they work, but there is quite a bit of research showing that it can help with heartburn and arthritis pain.
Cumin. This diabetic-friendly spice not only works to regulate blood-sugar levels, just like cinnamon, it’s also a great source of iron, calcium, and magnesium- and it fights the germs that can cause ulcers.
Rosemary. With its high levels of antioxidants and rosmarinic acid, rosemary can be a great help in protecting against inflammation. Many people also believe that it can boost your memory and learning by producing acetylcholine.
Holy basil. Yes, that’s right. Not just basil – holy basil. With a name like that, how could it not be good for us? Commonly used in the treatment of people suffering from high cholesterol, research indicates other benefits, such as alleviating asthma, upper respiratory infections, and diabetes. Experts argue that these effects are due to the compounds of the herb reducing swelling and pain.
These eight herbs and spices represent only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to healthy spices, and aren’t even necessarily the best ones out there. There are at least another dozen herbs that could just as easily make that claim. That means that you have a lot of healthy (and tasty) options available to you. -
Alcoholic pears and chocolate sauce
Did you know that alchohol doesn’t completely evaporate when you use it for poaching? No? Neither did I. I poached some pears in calvados yesterday morning to make this and, once they were cooked, I was tempted, Alice in Wonderland-style, by the delicious-looking poaching juice that had ‘drink me’ written all over it. Big mistake. I’ll leave to your imagination the damage done by a hefty measure of calvados on the empty stomach of someone who gets tipsy on anything more than a glass of wine (in the evening, with food). Just how ‘blonde’ can you get? Yesterday wasn’t a productive day, but it was a happy one!
I suppose that pear alcohol, such as Poire Williams, would work well too. If you try it, please let me know because I’m certainly not taking the risk 😉
Ingredients (serves 4)
4 pears, peeled carefully
25ml calvados
1 teaspoon cinnamon
50g of dark chocolate (min. 70% cocoa solids), in small pieces
120ml green tea
Place the pears in a casserole and fill with just enough water to cover them. Add the calvados and cinnamon and gently simmer for 20 minutes. They are cooked when you can stick a knife in with no resistance. Harder varieties, such as Conference will need to be poached longer than say, Williams. Drain well, taking care not to damage them.
Bring 120ml of green tea to the boil in a small casserole. Then add the chocolate pieces and stir well until the chocolate has all melted and you have a homogenous consistency. Serve the pears with the chocolate sauce poured over the top.
This dessert has been suggested for While Chasing Kids’ ‘skinny parade’. -
Leek and Bayonne ham quiche (gluten free)
If the 1980s bestseller ‘Real Men don’t Eat Quiche’ is anything to go by, you might want to refer to this as egg, leek and ham pie if you feel that might go down better with the men at your table. Of course, strictly speaking, I suppose it’s a tart and not a pie, but I’d put money on the fact that a man who won’t eat quiche won’t be buying into ‘tart’ either. Anyway, enough wittering, I believe in calling a quiche a quiche and if the neanderthals eating at my table don’t like it they can go and shoot their own dinner 😉 My alpha-male husband is actually the exception that confirms the rule – he worships at the altar of The Quiche.
The pastry is made with buckwheat flour, which not only makes it gluten-free, but healthier and tastier than regular pastry; it even stays crisp when served cold. And even if you don’t fancy quiche, it makes a superb base for apple, or any other fruit tart too.
Ingredients for pastry (serves 6-8):
220g buckwheat flour
80g butter
20g virgin coconut oil
Roughly 5 tablespoons of cold water
Ingredients for filling:
3 leeks, washed and chopped
2 shallots, sliced
1 tablespoon of olive oil
75ml chicken or vegetable stock
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 egg
150 ml double cream
2 thin slices of Bayonne ham (or Parma ham), cut into strips
50 mg Cheddar, Parmesan or Comté cheese, grated
To make the pastry, begin by cutting the butter and coconut oil into small cubes. Add to the flour in a mixing bowl and add a pinch of sea salt. 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 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 tin or tins. Buckwheat pastry contains no gluten, which makes it very fragile. You’ll find that you have to treat it delicately and possibly fill in the cracks with remaining bits of pastry by pressing gently. I tend to use individual tart tins. Precook the pastry for 12 minutes.
For the filling, begin by frying the leeks and shallots in olive oil in a small frying pan. Add the stock and braise for about 20 minutes, or until the leeks are well-cooked and the stock is absorbed. Break the egg into a small bowl and add the cream and seasoning (salt, pepper, paprika). Beat well to form a homogenous mixture. Place a few small strips of ham on the pastry base, spoon the leek mixture over that, add some grated cheese and then pour the egg and cream mixture over the top. Cook at 180°C for 20 minutes, or until the top is golden-brown in colour.
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Crab noodle soup and dispiriting temporary assignments
I have been working as Builder’s Assistant, though not a very successfully it would seem. Léo, my well-adjusted ten-year-old son (I feel the need to account for his emotional health in view of the calamity that is my dog’s), has been busy building a three-story log cabin, as you do, and needed help with the basement. My job was to lean on the planks of wood while he randomly banged nails into them. As if this doesn’t sound like torture enough, I was yelled at for not ‘leaning heavily enough’ and also for coughing, causing the nails to bend. There was subsequent, rather barbed commentary on the fact that my work wasn’t up to par, and also detail as to why it was my fault that the floorboards of the cabin are now crooked. After much deliberation, I think I’m going to stick to cooking.
Ingredients (serves at least 4)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon sesame seed oil
1 onion, chopped
1 leek, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1.25 litres organic chicken or vegetable stock
4 tablespoons frozen peas
4 tablespoons pre-cooked sweetcorn
2 tablespoons soya sauce
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
3 kaffir lime leaves
sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1 teaspoon chilli flakes
75g thin Asian rice noodles
1 tin (175g) of crabmeat
Fresh coriander to garnish
Gently heat the oils in a large saucepan. Add the chopped onion, garlic, leek, celery, carrot and red pepper and cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the stock, soya sauce, peas, sweetcorn, seasoning and herbs and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the noodles and crabmeat and cook for a further five minutes. Serve with fresh coriander chopped and sprinked over the top. -
Antioxidant chocolates
Happy New Year to everyone. It hasn’t been easy to blog recently, what with being surgically attached to the oven and all that. Christmas went swimmingly and canine meltdown was forestalled. Despite my agonising, the Great Christmas Tree Standoff was averted at the last moment with some subtle but timely psychology. Hugo’s chair was moved the day before the tree was put in place, completely avoiding arboreal negative thought association and attendant angst. Hugo and the tree are still co-existing happily as I type; I am nothing short of a genius 🙂
These chocolates are NOT for dogs, however depressed they might be (chocolate is very toxic for them). Dark chocolate with a high cocoa content really is a powerful antioxidant (great excuse to justify eating them ;-)). And of course hazelnuts and pears are positively virtuous, making these chocolates practically medicinal. Obviously you can fill them with whatever takes your fancy, but I particularly love the combinations pear/chocolate and hazelnut/chocolate. I think next time I’ll try ginger too…
Ingredients (makes 24 chocolates)
For the shells:
200g dark chocolate, minimum 70% cocoa solids
A silicon mould
For the filling:
100g dark chocolate, minimun 70% cocoa solids
40ml cream
15 hazelnuts, chopped
1 pear, chopped into tiny pieces
Melt 150 g of chocolate in a bain-marie, then add the remaining 50g of non-melted chocolate. Mix with a spatula until the mixture becomes shiny and thickens slightly. Pour into the moulds, immediately turning over to allow the excess to run out. Clean the edges with a spatula and leave to cool for 30 minutes.
To make the filling, bring the cream to a gentle simmer then pour over 100g of chocolate. Separate the mixture into two and mix half with the chopped hazelnuts and the other half with the chopped pear. Cool for 15 minutes and then fill the chocolate moulds three-quarters full with one mixture or the other. Set aside to cool.
Finish off the chocolates by ‘sealing’ with the remaining mould chocolate. Leave to cool for an hour and remove from the moulds by gently tapping. -
Curried parsnip and apple soup and badly behaved females
It pains me to admit that the males of our menagerie are far better behaved than their female counterparts. Obviously I’m not including myself in this. The hens spend a bigger part of the day than is ladylike pecking the crap out of each other. Usually over a live worm or dead mouse (I apologise for the revolting visuals) or some such. The prized place on the perch nearest the horses is also pretext for belligerant fisticuffs. The mares are no better; despite being separated by an electric fence, they are incapable of any form of communication that doesn’t involve bitch-slapping. Their hind legs lash out at alarming angles and this is usually accompanied by a side-order of blood-curdling squeals, noises that the male horses couldn’t make if they tried. The last time they were on the same side of the electric fence, I had to administer twice-daily TLC, arnica and clay poultices to both for two weeks. I’m definitely putting an embargo on any further females, well, apart from my future labrador bitch and perhaps a few ducks 😉
Ingredients (serves 8) :
1 tablespoon olive oil
20g butter
1 onion, chopped
1 leek, chopped
2 apples (preferably not too sweet), peeled and sliced
4 medium-sized parsnips, peeled and sliced
1 medium-sized potato, peeled and sliced
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 bay leaf
1 sprig of rosemary
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon tumeric
1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
Gently brown the onions and leek in the butter and olive oil in a large casserole or saucepan. Add the apples and potato and continue to brown until golden. Add the remaining vegetables , then the seasoning and stock. Simmer for about 45 minutes and then purée. You could stir in some single cream before serving, although I don’t really think it’s necessary. -
Healthy gluten-free chocolate brownies. Take II.
Despite living a kilometre from our nearest neighbour and more from the nearest tarmac road, there are nights I hardly sleep a wink due to noise pollution. First, there are the cuckoos that I find very challenging; there’s something extremely provocative about the way they ‘cuck’ at random intervals. Then there are the barking deer – they apparently ‘bark’ to mark out their territory. Deer: as appealing as you are, please go and mark out your territory out of ear-shot, or in the daytime. Alternatively, take a leaf out of Hugo’s book and cock your leg (silently) on a tree. On cool nights, the horses rejoice with much noisy, vigorous galloping and bucking. Then there are the ‘break dancing toads’ that amuse themselves at night by dancing in front of our light sensors to switch them on and off, making Hugo bark furiously and at great length. Idem, hedgehogs (the dancing, not the barking). Lastly, from November to February, we have migratory cranes that fly overhead in the very early morning squarking loudly as they go.
These brownies somewhat compensate for lack of sleep. For me dark chocolate and prunes is a match made in heaven.Hugo and Léo catching up on some sleep
Ingredients (makes about 12):
10 prunes, pitted
55ml Armangnac or rum
1 tin of cooked chickpeas (400g), rinsed and drained
50g almonds
2 tablespoons organic cocoa powder
2 eggs
2 tablespoons agave syrup
200g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids min.)
20g butter
20g organic virgin coconut oil
Ideally, you should soak the prunes in the alcohol overnight. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Blend the chickpeas well, then add the soaked prunes, cocoa powder, almonds, agave syrup and eggs. Blend a little more until the almonds are roughly chopped and the eggs are beaten. Slowly melt the chocolate, butter and coconut oil in a saucepan or bain-marie, being careful not to burn. Once melted, add the chocolate mixture to the chickpea mixture and combine well. Spoon into a tin roughly 25 x 25cm (or equivalent). Cook for 25 minutes.
