wayfaringwordhack | Entries tagged with gourmandise

I made a galette des rois yesterday. And all the filling leaked out. Ugh. Since I had invited G over to eat it with us, I had to make another, pronto. This one turned out much better and very tasty.

Not my prettiest, but probably my puffiest. :D

With my leftover puff pastry (homemade, thank you very much), I made a much smaller version for J to take to work on Friday to share with his colleague.

And because I am on snack duty at church this Saturday, I think I will make a giant one, capable of serving many people. In France whenever you attend a "fête des voeux" with a larger gathering, the galette is rectangular instead of the traditional round form, so that is what I will do... There is a lot of butter in my future.

A little anecdote: The link above goes to an entry about the second galettes I made, back when we lived in Egypt. That means the first time I made a galette des rois was almost 10 years ago. That is just crazy. I have no sense--despite having kids that are a growing and constant witness to the passage of time--that that much has passed. I have a better picture of the above pictured cake, but this one was taken out on our terrace, reminding me of photographing this one out on our teeny tiny balcony in our first Egyptian flat. :P

The frangipani icon is for you,

asakiyume , in reference to our long-long ago convo on the other post. :P

Forgive the weird photo, but this a snapshot of the front of our building, taken by leaning over the balcony railing--in the rain--without letting my phone plummet 5 stories to the ground....

but I needed to give you an idea of what I am going to moan about. :P Let me preface this by saying that I am a fan of electrical storms and have always gotten a thrill when a really good thunderstorm gets going.* Last night, around 11p.m. a doozy of a storm started and went on until 8 am this morning. ** With the valleys running from the mountains to the sea, each thunder peal is a echoing, long-lasting event that makes you think the ruckus can't be natural. That kind of noise is not what bothered me and kept me from sleeping, though. It was the whistling winds and lashing rains and hail that relentlessly pelted those glass windows above, the plasticky aluminium frames in particular. It reminded me a bit of hearing the rains falling on my grandparents' tin roof, only worse because our bed sits just behind some of those windows, the sounds in no way attenuated by a ceiling, etc. And while a seive might let more wind through, those frames do a pretty good job of it, too. So, yes, the windows give us great views and lots of light, but they are not only a blessing. We will see if they qualify as a blessing or a bane in the summer months.

At 5:20, I finally gave up on trying to sleep and got up to another view of a hail-white ground. I worked a bit on my BuJo, and then decided to crochet myself another hat*** as one does when feeling a little punch drunk:

The hat is so warm and matches my mitts/wristies that I made the other day. I then started one for Sprout since I had plenty of yarn left over. However, using a 5mm hook instead of 6mm AND decreasing the intial 15 stitches to 12 was probably not the best idea. I am now adding more rows on hers than I needed on mine. :-/

If you feel like a chuckle, I will share an anecdote to convey just how tired I was: While taking the above photo, I wanted the focus to be on the hat, so in order to make it sharp, instead of tapping on the phone screen, I pressed my head. O.o FYI, it doesn't work. :P

Then I decided to make bread because playing with fire is always a good idea when tired. Because I was exhausted, I forgot to prop open the oven door for a few moments for the gas to really get going. After about about 5 minutes, I went to preheat the Dutch oven only to discover the pilot had gone out. We opened the windows and I waited for a bit, but even so, when I struck a match to finish burning off the gas, the flames billowed out and singed all the hair off my forearm. Luckily, I had my face well to the side.

I don't have any sourdough starter going here, so I used the poolish method and the recipe/method found here. **** (I had started the poolish the previous day)

And while I was at it, I stared another poolish to make some baguettes today following this recipe. I'll let you know how it turns out if I remember.

Since the oven was on anyhow, I made some pumpkin spice bread ***** to use the pumpkin I had cut up to use as a still-life subject. More about that in an post (I hope).

I had planned to get to bed early to catch up on sleep, but J wanted to stay awake as late as possible because he has to work the night shift tonight, so we watched a movie. He of course fell asleep in front of it. :P I am happy to report that while it did rain a bit last night, I was able to get some much needed shut-eye. I hope to buy earplugs today.

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* I believe I already shared many years ago that one of my mother's childhood nicknames for me was "Thunderhead" because I could always hear the thunder coming before anyone else. As an aside, I think of all the other places I have lived, Lebanon has the longest lasting thunderstorms. ETA: I did indeed share this, almost 11 years ago.

** I actually started this post yesterday morning, but Internet problems and then having to share my device with a needy boy means that I am only picking up the thread now while the needy boy sleeps.

*** video tutorial here

**** I used the third method, the one with the pre-heated Dutch oven

***** Living up to my reputation as a food snob, I am here to tell you it has proven hard thus far to get my hands on some decent baking chocolate. Preferring to do without than eat sugar-disguised-as-chocolate, I omitted the chips from the recipe.

The other day, while perusing YouTube, a video about pickling food came up. I decided to watch while I worked on cleaning and blanching brussel sprout leaves and florets just harvested from the garden. After that video was over, I scrolled down to see what else this person had on offer and saw this video. The title mentioned perfect lentils and rice, and well, I needed to make something for lunch that day and thought, "I have lentils and rice and a fairly well-stocked supply of spices. I'll give it a go!" And I did. Without watching the video first. What could go wrong, right?

So, when the lady starts talking about minced meat and how it is optional anyway, I thought, Oh, good, don't have any of that right now and besides Sprout doesn't eat meat...

Then she mentioned needing saffron. Oops, not a spice I keep on hand and I just planted my own crocuses. Won't be able to harvest from them until next spring. Oh well, carry on....

Before placing the layers of rice and lentils into the pot, the lady covered the bottom with a special kind of flat bread which gets crispy and prevents the rice from burning. Whoops again. But not really a problem; I'll just make some tortillas and use one of those.

Finally, in the video, the meal is cooked outdoors over an open fire. With the campfire and many timelapses and cuts, I had no idea how long she let the final dish cook, so I looked up a recipe online to get some ideas. Naturally the recipe I found did things way differently. I did what I do and incorporated some ideas from that site, too, but I did not use potatoes to line the bottom of my pot since I had already made the tortillas. *files the idea for a later iteration of Adas Polo*

I learned my lesson (let's be honest; I probably didn't) and won't start a recipe before at least looking at the whole of it, but boy, what a deliciously tasty bit of culinary recklessness that was. :D

With one car in need of repairs, snow outside, and the cozy-indoors or close-to-home lifestyle that can induce, we have been voyaging in other ways these past few days.

First of all with food.

I don't know if I have shared a recipe for Poulet Coco (coconut chicken) from Mayotte before, but I made it last night and thought I would share the culinary love. Hang tight for a "how to" and not ultra-precise measurements:

If you are not pressed for time, cut up your chicken, salt and pepper it and sprinkle with turmeric powder, then marinate it in the juice of one lemon for an hour. I usually do not do this step and add my spices and lemon juice later. Regarding what kind of cuts you use, that is up to you. I do the whole bird; you can do thighs and drumsticks or just breasts. Cooking time will vary according to your choice.

Brown the chicken in a bit of oil. After browning, remove it to a plate and sauté one diced onion, when translucent add a few cloves of garlic. Add about four fresh diced tomatoes or a can of whole/diced tomatoes, and a bell pepper cut in strips (I often leave out the bell pepper just because I don't always have them on hand and ate plenty Poulet Coco dishes in Mayotte without). Return chicken to pot. Now, if you can, grate your own fresh coconut and make the milk from it, using about 2 cups/480 ml. My next choice is to make my own coconut milk with 1 cup dried shredded coconut (NOT THE SWEETENED kind) and 2cups/480 ml of water, which I blend in my Vitamix and then strain (doesn't have to be through a nut bag). If you can't do either of those things, use a can of coconut milk plus a cup of water. Season with about 1tsp of tumeric, salt, pepper, a bit of thyme, and parsley. Cook until sauce has reduced a bit and chicken is tender. Stir in the juice of a lime or lemon, and serve over rice. I also made a basic rougail to go with it (dice 4 tomatoes--used dried, see below, finely slice one small onion, either finely mince a nub of ginger and one small chile or use a mortar and pestle to make them into a paste. Stir all ingredients together, add the juice of one lime and salt to taste.)

Today, I made Egyptian Ful Medames, with some distinctly seasonal compromises. I made dried tomatoes this summer and preserved them in oil, so those stood in for fresh tomatoes, and ditto for some dehydrated cucumbers. I also made this quick Yoghurt Flatbread (soooo good!) to go with it. However, next time I will add a touch more salt and will have to fiddle with the amount of yoghurt (I had fromage blanc on hand) because the dough was excessively sticky and hard to work with. The resulting flatbreads were incredibly pliable and had a very nice texture for a yeast-less bread.

phone photo:

And OY! I just realized I forgot to serve it with tahini. Ah well, just reason enough to make it again.

And my elsewhere finale is the movie Padmaavat. Epic, gorgeous, lush cinematography. The landscapes, architecture and costuming were to die for. The movie apparently (I was not privvy to this before watching, having never heard of it before stumbling across the eye-catching theatrical release poster) caused a lot of protest for various stereotypes, which I understand, one plot element being telegraphed by the disclaimer before the opening credits. But like I said, gorgeous. Not being a Hindi speaker, I watched a subtitled version, so I am sure there were plenty of things lost in translation. As a Westerner, one thing I loved watching was way the male actors express their virility, like the dancing, that are foreign to the cultures I have frequented.

Watch on YouTube

I have made this recipe a few times now, and I thought I would share it in case anyone else has some apples they need to use up (I have a couple of crates!). And posting it allows me to keep a handy record of the changes I have made. One of these days, I'll transfer all my notecard-recorded recipes into a notebook, but until I do, this is a nice way to organize them.

Let me know if you make the crisp and what you think. Bon appétit !

This is adapted from "Potluck Apple Crisp" on tasteofhome.com

Ingredients

Apple filling:

12 medium apples, sliced & peeled ¹
1 cup sugar (200 g)²
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Crust and Topping:

1/2 cup shortening (95g)
1/2 cup butter, softened (113g)
1 cup packed brown sugar (I use 200g raw sugar with 1T molasses)
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour (210g)
1-1/2 cups old-fashioned oats (150g)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°F (205°C) In a Dutch oven or heavy pot, combine apples, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg; cook and stir over medium heat just until apples are tender. Cover the pot if the apples are drying out too much.

Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream the shortening, butter and brown sugar. Combine the flour, oats, baking soda and salt. Add to creamed mixture and mix well. Pat half of flour mixture into a greased 13x9-in. baking dish and bake for 10-15 minutes, long enough for the crust to start to set.³

Remove from oven and spread apples over top while still hot. Crumble remaining flour mixture over apples. Bake at 400°F (205°C) for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm with ice cream or whipped cream if desired.

Notes:

^{1. I use an apple peeler that cores and slices the apples at the same time. I then break these slices into quarters. I also use about four kinds of apples for different flavor notes. If you buy organic apples, save your peels and cores to make Apple Scrap Jam. So easy and delicious.}^↩
^{2. Two cups of sugar is called for in the original recipe, which is just way too much for my taste. Depending on your preferences and apples, I would err on the side of less sugar and work your way up. I put only 1/3 cup the 2nd time I made it and found it fine.}^↩
^{3. The original recipe calls for adding the apples over an unbaked crust, which I did the first time. However, the bottom crust was lost in a total mush with the apple filling and was a bit gritty in the mouth. I much prefer to pre-bake the bottom first. Your tastebuds may disagree.}^↩3)

Take a look and tell me what you see:

Need a closer look?

What do you suppose this is?

This, my friends, is the makings of kimchi, all homegrown, even the ginger there in the front that looks like a dirty stone.

Deliciousness will ensue.

(copy pasted from LJ)
ETA 08.08.19: The link to the original recipe that I posted below is no longer working. Using Wayback Machine, I was able to snag the recipe, which I have put under a cut below.

Even in my earliest memories as a child, I absolutely hated ketchup (and mayonnaise*), that much loved condiment of lots of people. Oh, how I would hate when some adult would "generously" put a huge squirt of it on my food when serving me.

Then, in Egypt, when learning about fermenting, I came across the idea of lacto-fermenting ketchup. I swore that when I got a garden and grew some tomatoes, I would try it for myself.

And this year I was able to.

I used this recipe and absolutely loved it. I used juice from my kimchi and don't think I added the fish sauce, since that is already an ingredient in my kimchi. I also used the same kind of apple cider vinegar and cut back a tad on the Cayenne so that my kidlings would eat it.

I brag about how good it is every time I eat it. I am a ketchup convert...but only to the homemade, fermented kind.

( Don't let the length of the ingredient list scare you )

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* that's because I was only ever given the Miracle Whip, etc. kind, not REAL mayonnaise. Now that I know how to make it myself (so simple), I love it. Rien à voir with the processed stuff.

asakiyume has some lovely painted cookies, and she shared the recipe with me in the comments of this post (do click through, even if you don't plan on making any cookies, to admire more angels). I made a batch to take to a Christmas party today* (um, many cookies did not make it because we had to, um, well, eat them. For research purposes, you understand. Oh, and I gave a few to my housekeeper in her Christmas gift bag).

I wanted to experiment with natural dye and a red-and-white color scheme so used lingonberry (similiar to cranberries but smaller) juice. I think two things went "wrong."

First off, I perhaps made the icing a bit too thin. Not from a taste standpoint because, being made from powdered sugar, the icing was already sweet enough, but maybe the icing would have held up better to the juice? I dunno know.

The second problem, then, was the juice was too acidic and ate through the icing, making it hard for me to do detail. Instead of painting smoothly *on* the icing, I found that the colors pooled a bit under the surface. You can't tell in the photos, but looking across the cookies, you can see where the glossy surface of the icing has been disolved. Maybe beet juice next time?

Still they are pretty, I think, and I had a lot of fun doing them.

Sprout helped, but she ate all of her creations (except the unfrosted tree you can barely glimpse with the brightest red touches). My favorite was when she painted big swatches of red across a hedgehog, adopted a squeaky voice, and said, "Oh, I'm bleeding!" before she gobbled it up. :P

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*It isn't late for Christmas parties because here in Egypt we get the fun of having celebrations from the Western-assigned 25 December Christmas day until the Coptic Christmas on January 7.

Can you guess which one?

I made a Thai-influenced soup for lunch:

Junebug took his spoon, dug in, and proclaimed, "Tasty!"*

Sprout looks in her bowl and without tasting it, wails, "I like shrimp, I like calamari, I like chicken; what a bad surprise this is, having them all together! And rice! I didn't want my rice mixed in!"

o.O

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* Yes, I made the soup, so I might be biased, but it was very tasty.

I made a galette on Saturday, and it was great. If I do say so myself. :P

This time there were no leaks, it wasn't too sweet, and the crust rose even more beautifully than last time. I tried a method that called for baking 20 minutes at 180 (Celcius), then 20 min at 160, and 20-40 min at 140. As you can imagine, with the oven I have, that wasn't really feasible but I did my best to progressively lower the temperature by propping the door open with a wooden spoon, and then turning off the oven toward the end of the baking process. It takes longer and is a bit more tedious, requiring more attention, but I'll try it for sure when I have a better oven.

I also opted for a freehand design of my own imagining. I should have thought it out a bit more rather than doing it spur of the moment with a 4-yr-old chattering at me and a crying baby hanging on my leg. :-/ Apart from the few places that I cut a bit too deeply, it turned out all right:

I was thinking of olive branches and a little dove of peace. I wanted to do several little animals and leaves, but then the kids started in on me, I decided to keep it simple.

Entry with links to how-to videos (in French) and recipes.

For the second time, I've made a galette des rois (kings' cake) for Epiphany (which is also the Coptic Christmas Eve); acutally I made two. Last year, my puff pastry puffed only moderately; this year, lots of puff--oh glorious flaky layers!*--but both of the galettes leaked, losing quite a bit of filling. Thankfully, I had put in a lot of frangipane. Another thing for me to be thankful for is that these galettes des rois can be cooked at very high temperatures, seeing as how my oven doesn't like to cook anything under 200 degrees C / 400 F.

galette des rois

Next year will be my year! But, I just might make another one in a couple of days to see if I can get it right. ~~I want to eat more!~~ I want to make more pretty designs on the top.

We invited some French friends over to enjoy them with us, and their youngest daughter got la fève. I had made a crown for her but forgot to take a picture. If you go to this Wikipedia page and scroll down to the section about the French king cake, it'll tell you about the tradition.

For this year or next, for my own record, here is a list of sites and videos I used to study the recipe and techniques:

Recette pour pate

Recette technique de la pâte feuilletée par Chef Philippe (video and recipe; butter trick since "beurre de tourage" is not readily available to lay bakers: Put softened butter on baking paper or plastic wrap and, using a rolling pin, flatten it into a 20X20 cm square, about 1.5 cm thick. Put back in fridge to firm up a bit.)

Recette façon grand chef : la galette des rois (YouTube video about how to put the galette together and make the frangipane. This link writes out the recipe for the frangipane and provides slightly different instructions than the one I usually use for the puff pastry, adding 100 grams of melted butter to the détrempe. Might make it too rich for J. :P)

Pour chiqueter la galette

Some notes:
- Make sure to work the détrempe well so as not to have lumps in it that will cause the dough to crack upon rolling it out (yeah, learned that one the hard way).
- Re frangipane: Equal parts butter/sugar/almond powder didn't work for me. Way too sweet. Scale back on the sugar. Did not use a recipe that called for a thickener like cornstarch and the frangipane was fine. For two cakes, I did 250 each of b/s/ap and four eggs and had plenty left over.
- Do NOT crowd the border with filling; otherwise, a good seal will be impossible.
- Start the pastry the eve (at least) of baking day to save time and headaches. Dough keeps 2-3 days in fridge.
- By following the two-washes-with-egg procedure in the "grand chef" video, my galettes were shiny and did not need to be brushed with syrup. I brushed them anyhow, but maybe it would be better not to to cut back on sweetness

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* The angle doesn't do the cakes justice, making them look flatter than they were. :P

J has to work on Thanksgiving Thursday, so I was not planning on doing anything this year. What with being sick* and not knowing many people here in Cairo for whom Thanksgiving is a big deal, I was all right with the idea of not making a fuss. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized I didn't have to do much in order to mark the occasion.

So, we had slow-roasted duck, homemade cranberry sauce (found frozen lingonberries), cornbread dressing, and pecan pie as traditional fare, with green beans, a green salad, and roasted potatoes and garlic with a homemade baguette. And we watched Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving just before eating. Not to be all bah-humbug or overly-critical of "must-see" holiday movies, but that cartoon is really blah. I never cared for Chuck and his friends while I was growing up, and I see the love has not grown with me into adulthood. :P

Wishing all who celebrate (and even those who don't) and thankfilled and blessed day tomorrow. If you do "do Thanksgiving" what is your one (or 2) absolute must eat item for it to fill like Thanksgiving to you? I once knew a boy whose family had hamburgers every Thanksgiving because none of them liked turkey and the trimmings.

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* Sprout is feeling so much better. She went to bed at 4:30 p.m. yesty and slept (a bit fitfully, it's true) until 6:45 this morning. She has been herself all day, without a hint of fever. Also got my lab results, which declared that I have not "pathogenic bacteria" and do not need antibiotics. I sure am glad I asked for a throat swab because, had I not been adamant about not wanting to take antibiotics while pregnant, the doc might have prescribed them anyhow. My throat still feels irritated, but it is nothing I can't live with.

Been a busy week here, but not on the house cleaning front. Still haven't finished that, and what with the dust, it looks just as bad as when we arrived. I'll get to it. Soon. Soon.

In the meantime, I've been making:

- sourdough starter (let the other one die while struggling through the first trimester)
- kimchi
- dilly beans
- makdous (combined this recipe and this one)
- homemade body butter (riffed off this recipe)

And I started a little sketch while S does her art. And the blanket. Slow progress, but I think I finally have a suitable join-as-I-go technique down. Took me many false starts to find something I'm OK with. It isn't perfect, but I think it will do.

The bananas here in Egypt aren't quite as good as they were in Mayotte (you can't get a lot of different varieties, either), but they are so much better than the supermarket offerings in France. You can, of course, buy them in the store here, but they are better fresh off the cart where the hands are still in a bunch.

And did I mention cheaper? If you are up to speed on your Arabic numerals, you will see that you can buy a kilo for 5 EGP (Egyptian pounds), which works out to about 32 cents a pound.

Hail the street vendor from your balcony, pop down to the street to buy a hand or two, hurry upstairs, and make banana pudding pie. If you want. :P

Guess who has dessert waiting for her? :D

I wanted to post about our sea-filled Sunday, but I have to make some room on my laptop hard drive before I can play with photos. Instead, have a post about something else. How about food? You good with that? OK.

I've been wanting to make this delicious-sounding recipe for "Chilli Chicken"

khiemtran posted about a while back. However, I could never conspire to have all the ingredients on hand at the right time. The other day, after having chicken three days in a row, I thought, "To heck with it, I'll make Chilli Chicken with pork instead."

Only I didn't have dried chilies. No problem; I had fresh ones. I didn't have soy sauce, neither light nor dark. No sweat. I had miso. I just mixed that with a bit of water. No Shaoxing wine to be had either. No worries. A splash of Genmai Su did the trick. And I didn't really know how much sichuan peppers to throw in there, so I guestimated based on

khiemtran's photo.

Thank goodness, I remembered to drizzle on some sesame oil just before serving. Otherwise, the dish might have been too far from the original. ;) Despite all the changes, it was verrrrrrry tasty. J was relieved, though, when I told him he could stop eating the chilies. "You could have told me that earlier," he said, dabbing sweat from his forehead. >:}

In other spicy news, I made another batch of kimchi based on

barry_king's recipe, linked to by

asakiyume. It isn't fermented yet, but I had a bit that wouldn't fit into the jar and decided to eat it today.

S asked for a bite, and I told her it was spicy. She insisted she wanted some (she regularly tastes my "spicier*" food, like the Chilli ~~Chicken~~ Pork above), so I dipped the very edge of the spoon into the juice and let her lick it, thinking that would be enough to suit her.

"'picy," she said. "More!"

"More?"

"More 'picy." She grabbed the spoon with a bit of cabbage on it and shoved it in her mouth. "Mmmmmm. More!"

"More kimchi?"

She dropped the spoon, snagged the almost-empty bowl of kimchi from me, tipped it to her lips, and slugged down the rest of the juice...then used her finger to scoop the remanents into her mouth. "Mmmmmm, kiiiiiiimchi!"

Needless to say, the jar I made is not going to last long...

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* She's always eaten the same things we eat, but if we are eating something spicy, I make sure hers isn't as piquant as ours, and I'm using "piquant" in the true French sense of "stinging/hot."

Current Music: Wilco - Heavy Metal Drummer

I tossed my sourdough starter out! I had put it into a different jar so I could clean the one I normally keep it in, and when I came across this "different" jar of starter in the fridge, I thought it was some extra that had been forgotten. I just poured it down the drain. Then today, when I went to feed it...no more starter. >.<

It had just reached a stage where I was finally getting good, consistent results with my bread. Now I have to start all over.

Argh!

I saw a twist on hibiscus tea the other (sweltering) day and just knew I had to make it. Score that I had all the ingredients on hand. The only problem was that I didn't read the directions all the way through and didn't realize it needs a night of chilling before being ready to drink. I cheated and tasted it after a couple of hours, when the chia seeds had had time to gel, but the beverage really is best when very cold. So think ahead!

Hibiscus Chia Fresca
Adapted from recipe by Heather Lionelle via Real Food and Health

What you need:

1 T hibiscus flowers, dried
1 t lavender flowers, dried
2 t mint, dried
1 T organic orange peel, dried
1 quart/950 ml water
1-2 T honey, depending on how sweet your tooth is
1/2 cup fresh or frozen berries, mashed
2 T fresh lemon juice
3 T chia seeds (you could actually omit these and just make Hibiscus Fresca. Different texture, but the taste would be the same)

NOTE: All the dried ingredients could be substituted with fresh, just increase the amounts a tad.

How you do it:

Bring 1 quart of water to a boil. Remove from heat, add first four ingredients, cover and allow to steep for 20 minutes.

Strain liquid and stir in honey. Once it reaches room temperature, stir in mashed berries, lemon juice, and chia seeds.

Refrigerate overnight.

Shake before serving.

The Sprout really loved it, so I think next time I'll have to double the recipe. I'll also add a cinnamon stick to the mix. (ETA: I did add a cinnamon stick to my last batch, and while it was tasty, next time, I will take it out of the steeping ingredients after 10 minutes so it doesn't overpower the other flavors.)

By the way, I think the tea is better served without ice, but since I slurped down so much of it, there wasn't enough for another full glass...after I knocked over the one I was photographing. >.< Hence the ice cubes to fill it back up. :P

- Had a productive writing morning; was able to plot out Bax's arc/scenes across the trilogy, give or take a few scenes that will either become redundant or be added as/if needed. I am doing this plotting on index cards for all the POVs, just jotting down the basic scene ideas, sometimes no more than a couple of words. I'm OK with this part of the plotting process, but every time I expand the ideas into actual scenes with scene-essential ingredients like goal, conflict, disaster, I get stumped. I think I don't need to know these key bits of info just yet and I can write on, trusting the point of the scene to magically metamorphose into something plot-relevant. Only, I ended up writing pointless scenes at worst, low-impact scenes at best. So this time, I'm realllllly trying to stay focused.

- Gathered some crithmum (rock samphire) at my special writing spot and ate it for supper. Very tasty raw (and steamed, which is how I served it to Sprout). Can't wait to experiment with it some more. I also gathered a new-to-me mint. There were two types: the one I picked, which was tasty; and the other, with small, deep red flowers. The second did not have a distinctive smell and the small nibble I took seemed OK, but I'd like to be sure of it before gathering a lot more.

- Napped for almost two hours.

- Biked down to the beach with Sprout and J this arvy. Had ice cream and played in the sand. Sketched a bit while J pretended to be a zombie in pursuit of of Sprout for supper. We get such a kick out of hearing her exclaim, "Encore 'ombies! Encore!"

- Kim chee is my friend. Finally got around to tasting the batch I made, and it is yummy. J thought it was good, too, but said, "I don't know what you would eat it on, though." Eat it on? I thought. Just eat it out of the jar! :P

A perfect gift for me would be a guided walk with a botanist/forager extraordinaire. I know there are so many plants all around me worthy of my plate (80% of plants are comestible; not all 80% are delectable, though), but I just don't know how to identify them.

However, I do know alliums when I see--and smell--them; so during a drive with S and my mil, when I spied beautiful globes of clustered flowers bobbing amidst the tall grasses, I knew I had to go back with a trowel for a little wildcrafting.

In the prairie behind my mother-in-law's house, I also stumbled upon some fennel. Perfect for mixing with that wild garlic. Along with some narrowleaf plantain and wild violet* leaves, we had the makings of what I call my Poor Girl Soups. Wild Garlic and Fennel Soup probably sounds more appetizing to most, I'm sure.

If you'd like to make something similar, first go a-gathering:

( Recipe under the cut )

taste tester

I think she approves. :D
_______________

* With all plants, know what you are gathering! If you can't make a positive ID, don't eat it, and don't consider me an expert or use my photos as your only guide. Don't confuse violets with lily-of-the-valley, a plant that likes similar growing conditions to violets and has a similar leaf. The best way to identify violets is wait until the plant is in flower.

Sorry that this is in French for now. Don't have time to translate it, but I want to have a copy of the menu to remember:

( menu )

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The Wayfaring Wordhack

Valises in Lebanon

Entries tagged with gourmandise

Tis the Season for Les Galettes

Both a Blessing and a Bane

Adas Polo, A Story of Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Elsewhere

Recipe: Apple Crisp

Homegrown

Food Snobbery - Ketchup

Painted Christmas cookies

One of them will be the death of me

Third time's a charm

Galette des Rois

Thanksgiving with a fraction of a shebang

Snippet Sunday

Oh, come, Mr Tally Man, tally me banana

Same Same But Different

What a dough head

Cool off with Hibiscus Chia Fresca

Just the highlights

Wild Garlic and Fennel Soup

Le Moulin D'Alotz