A sweet photo taken by a friend.
Merci Miche!
This Blog Still Exists!
In case you were wondering, Cuisine Quotidienne still exists as a functioning blog. It's just hard to write a lot about everyday French cooking when I'm spending a busy summer in the USA and doing everything but cooking! Wouldn't this be a good time to delve into my archives?
Vin d'Oranges
Every autumn, as the holiday season approaches, I like to make a special apéritif to serve when friends come around.
A couple of years ago I made quince liqueur, also known as ratafia de coings, from Susan Hermann Loomis' French Farmhouse Cookbook. It was really delicious and unique and I would make it again if it weren't for the fact that the quince is a particularly difficult fruit to deal with. Our poor little food processor just didn't have the power to grate the fruit so I ended up doing them all by hand, a process that left me with a couple of bloody knuckles and a mild wrist injury.
So, this year I decided to make vin d'oranges. Oranges are much kinder fruit and the entire process took much less time than the quince liqueur. So, if you start now, you can have your own vin d'oranges in just three weeks.
7 juice oranges (about 2 1/2 pounds), preferably organic
2 bottles dry white wine, rosé wine or fruity red wine (I used rosé)
grated zest of one orange
1 cup sugar
1 cup vodka
Peel the oranges and chop the flesh into 1/2 inch cubes on a cutting board that will collect the juices. Put the orange pieces and all the collected juice into a 12 cup, wide-mouthed jar with a tight fitting lid, or divide between two smaller jars. Pour the wine over and close the jar tightly. Set aside in a cool place for 10 days. Each day, gently shake the jar and on the 10th day, add the orange zest.
On the 11th day, strain the wine into a large bowl, pressing on the oranges to extract all the juice. Discard the oranges. Add the sugar to the wine and stir until dissolved. Then add the vodka.
Pour through a funnel into 3, sterilized wine bottles, seal with corks and set aside for another 10 days in a cool place.
Serve very cold.
Drink within three months.
This recipe comes from a cookbook published in 1994 called Backroad Bistros, Farmhouse Fare.
The French Farmhouse Cookbook has another version of this wine which I am making next week.
A couple of years ago I made quince liqueur, also known as ratafia de coings, from Susan Hermann Loomis' French Farmhouse Cookbook. It was really delicious and unique and I would make it again if it weren't for the fact that the quince is a particularly difficult fruit to deal with. Our poor little food processor just didn't have the power to grate the fruit so I ended up doing them all by hand, a process that left me with a couple of bloody knuckles and a mild wrist injury.
So, this year I decided to make vin d'oranges. Oranges are much kinder fruit and the entire process took much less time than the quince liqueur. So, if you start now, you can have your own vin d'oranges in just three weeks.
7 juice oranges (about 2 1/2 pounds), preferably organic
2 bottles dry white wine, rosé wine or fruity red wine (I used rosé)
grated zest of one orange
1 cup sugar
1 cup vodka
Peel the oranges and chop the flesh into 1/2 inch cubes on a cutting board that will collect the juices. Put the orange pieces and all the collected juice into a 12 cup, wide-mouthed jar with a tight fitting lid, or divide between two smaller jars. Pour the wine over and close the jar tightly. Set aside in a cool place for 10 days. Each day, gently shake the jar and on the 10th day, add the orange zest.
On the 11th day, strain the wine into a large bowl, pressing on the oranges to extract all the juice. Discard the oranges. Add the sugar to the wine and stir until dissolved. Then add the vodka.
Pour through a funnel into 3, sterilized wine bottles, seal with corks and set aside for another 10 days in a cool place.
Serve very cold.
Drink within three months.
This recipe comes from a cookbook published in 1994 called Backroad Bistros, Farmhouse Fare.
The French Farmhouse Cookbook has another version of this wine which I am making next week.
Food of the Month
Well it's October. And you know what that means. Or do you? There are so many food holidays this month it can be hard to keep track. So I thought I'd make a list to help you with your celebrations. You are planning to celebrate, aren't you?
October is...
Apple Month
Applejack Month
Caramel Month
Cookie Month
Dessert Month
Pasta Month
Pickled Peppers Month
Pizza Month
Popcorn Poppin' Month
Pork Month
Pretzel Month
Seafood Month
Vegetarian Awareness Month
October holidays
7th is Frappe Day
9th is Moldy Cheese Day
10th is Angel Food Cake Day
11th is Canadian Thanksgiving, also known as Turkey Day
13th is National Peanut Festival
20th is Brandied Fruit Day
22nd is Nut Day
24th is Bologna Day
28th is Chocolate Day
30th is Candy Corn Day
But if you want to skip all of these except of course for Chocolate Day, go right ahead! Personally I have no plans for Moldy Cheese Day yet...
La Citoyenne (someday)
Been reading up on becoming a French citizen.
I was under the impression that asking to become a citoyenne would require me to denounce my American citizenship. I was wrong . This is really exciting news! My American husband is particularly happy because I was toying with the idea of divorcing him, finding some unsuspecting Frenchman and forcing him to marry me, just so I could work here.
(at least I think my husband is happy with my change of plans...)
So, I need some advice. If there is anyone out there who has gone through this process and could offer some help, I would greatly appreciate it!
I was under the impression that asking to become a citoyenne would require me to denounce my American citizenship. I was wrong . This is really exciting news! My American husband is particularly happy because I was toying with the idea of divorcing him, finding some unsuspecting Frenchman and forcing him to marry me, just so I could work here.
(at least I think my husband is happy with my change of plans...)
So, I need some advice. If there is anyone out there who has gone through this process and could offer some help, I would greatly appreciate it!
Autumn Lamb Stew
This recipe came about last week when I was trying to find a use for lamb shoulder and turnips that I had bought at the market. I love turnips but I rarely buy them because I have so few recipes that call for them.
The result was a rustic stew with a rich broth that pairs perfectly with crusty, French bread.
A delicious starter would be a salad of sliced Belgian endive, lamb's lettuce and Granny Smith apples drizzled with lemony dressing and sprinkled with toasted walnuts.
The result was a rustic stew with a rich broth that pairs perfectly with crusty, French bread.
A delicious starter would be a salad of sliced Belgian endive, lamb's lettuce and Granny Smith apples drizzled with lemony dressing and sprinkled with toasted walnuts.
- 1 ½ pounds boneless lamb stew meat, I used shoulder, cut into 1 inch cubes and trimmed of fat
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled but left whole
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1 Tablespoon herbes de Provence
- 1/4 cup flour
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1 large onion, thinly sliced
- 2 cups water
- 1 cup diced carrot
- 2 cups diced turnip
- 1 branch fresh thyme
- 1 cup frozen baby peas, thawed
- Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium high heat.
- Mix flour with herbes de Provence, salt and pepper. Coat the lamb pieces with the flour mixture and add them, a few pieces at a time, in the hot oil. When browned, remove to a plate with a slotted spoon.
- About halfway through browning the meat, add the garlic cloves and brown them alongside some lamb, being careful not to burn them.
- When the pieces are all done, reduce heat to medium and add the onions. Cook, stirring occasionally until lightly browned.
- Stir in the water, scraping up the browned bits clinging to the bottom of the pot.
- Put the lamb, garlic, carrots, turnips and thyme branch into the pot, give it a good stir and bring to a boil.
- Reduce heat to low, cover and cook about 1 and 1/2 hours or until the lamb is meltingly tender.
- Stir the thawed baby peas in at the end and make sure they're warmed through.
- Before serving remove the thyme branches and smash the garlic cloves against the side of the pan and mix them into the broth.
- Taste and correct for salt and pepper.
Good fat, bad fat & a contest
Now that Valentine's day is over, it's time to get back to trying to eat healthy again. Not that chocolate isn't healthy of course. But what about fat? There I said it. Fat. It's not a bad word. It's a vital component to our health. We need fat in our diet, but how much and which fats are the source of much debate. Making sense of it all can be difficult but here goes.
Right off the bat it's important to know that trans-fats are bad news. Trans-fats are the hydrogenated fats that are slowly but surely being replaced in snack foods and margarines. Other fats fall into several big categories, saturated fats, mono-unsaturated fats, and poly-unsaturated fats. The right proportion is key. Unlike trans-fats,none of them are completely bad.
While it's best to limit saturated fats, recent research indicates some saturated fats have significant health benefits. For example coconut oil while high in saturated fat, has medium-chain fatty acids which provide energy and contains lauric acid, common in breast milk, which is antiviral and antibacterial. The easiest thing to do is to remember that fish oils, olive oil, flaxseed oil, rice bran oil, walnuts, and almonds are all good for you, in moderation of course. Other fats need to be judged on a case by case basis.
I've been cooking with olive oil for as long as I can remember. It's a "good fat" relatively speaking. I used to use canola oil, but I was never crazy about the flavor. I then used grapeseed oil. It is very mild flavored and not a bad choice. But my latest favorite is rice bran oil.
Rice bran oil has a high smoke point, meaning it is ideal for frying and it has a toasty, nutty mild flavor I really like. It's a very common cooking oil in Asia. The reason I favor it over grapeseed oil is that while grapeseed oil is high in unsaturated fat, it has more than the American Heart Association (AHA) recommendation for poly-unsaturated fat. Rice bran comes closest to the AHA recommendations for all three fats. It's high in Vitamin E, and many other naturally occurring antioxidents, such as tocopherol, tocotrienol, and oryzanol and phytosterols.
And now, a contest! Which of the following statements about rice bran oil is false?
Rice bran oil:
A. is good for cooking tempura and popcorn
B. has been proven to lower cholesterol
C. has twice as much saturated fat as canola oil
D. is produced in India, Japan, China, Thailand and Italy
The first person to correctly guess will win a bottle of California rice bran oil. California rice bran oil has no preservatives and is GMO free. The second two runners up will receive a handy dandy combination tasting and teaspon, tablespoon measuring spoon.
Choose the false statement and post your guess in the comment section, be sure to include your email so I can contact you, if you win! Mailing address must be in the U.S. Only one entry per person so choose carefully. Good luck!
FOOD + FAT + RICE
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