Saturday, February 23, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
You should...
Make this*.
And watch this**.
Happy Friday.
*Easiest lemon pie ever. Probably even easier if you haven't had two glasses of champagne before getting started on the filling, resulting in a slightly over cooked crust. But seriously, I can't imagine ever bothering with lemon curd.
**Just freaking funny. Erik is trying to figure out how he can get his accent to sound like theirs.
And watch this**.
Happy Friday.
*Easiest lemon pie ever. Probably even easier if you haven't had two glasses of champagne before getting started on the filling, resulting in a slightly over cooked crust. But seriously, I can't imagine ever bothering with lemon curd.
**Just freaking funny. Erik is trying to figure out how he can get his accent to sound like theirs.
Queen West
I don't even know what to say. I can't stop thinking about how horrible a fire it must have been, and how sad it is that all those buildings were destroyed, and I keep wondering how much it will change the neighbourhood once rebuilding begins. Mostly I think I can't stop thinking about it because it was literally right around the corner from our house on Augusta, and that was our neighbourhood. We spent the better part of an hour trying to remember exactly what stores were on that particular stretch of Queen, and it just reminds me how much we loved that area. We used to go to the falafel shop all the time, and I got my bike tuned up at the cycle shop. Maybe part of it is that I like thinking that things in Toronto haven't changed since we left, and it's hard to accept that that part of Queen St will never again be how we remember it. Maybe it's hard to realize that although I'm happy here in Paris, and do truly want to stay longer, I really, really miss the life we had in TO.
Well, this last one is just a nice shot of Erik and his mom. Had to post it. :)
Well, this last one is just a nice shot of Erik and his mom. Had to post it. :)
Sunday, February 17, 2008
More pictures
Since I've finally gotten around to getting them off the camera, here are a few recent pictures:
Sunset from our window
Last weekend's dinner, I was inspired by a cooking magazine that I picked up.
Verrine of langoustine mousse, avocado cream and roasted pepper sauce
Hasan Pasa Koft: Turkish meatballs topped with mashed potatoes in a tomato sauce
Surprisingly, we've both forgotten what we had for dessert. Unheard of!
And pictures of us looking fairly confused with all this picture taking techmology.
Sunset from our window
Last weekend's dinner, I was inspired by a cooking magazine that I picked up.
Verrine of langoustine mousse, avocado cream and roasted pepper sauce
Hasan Pasa Koft: Turkish meatballs topped with mashed potatoes in a tomato sauce
Surprisingly, we've both forgotten what we had for dessert. Unheard of!
And pictures of us looking fairly confused with all this picture taking techmology.
Bread
And the winner is....
me, clearly, because I got to enjoy so much bread. I can't believe I'm posting this picture, but hopefully you'll excuse the blanket skirt (cold) and the horrible expression.
But seriously, we did our bread tasting last night, and as I expected, it wasn't too difficult. There was a clear, and expected winner, with the Monoprix downstairs bread coming in a close second. The other two were almost inedible when compared so closely to the others, but I'm sure a nice bath in eggs and milk for French toast will solve that problem.
Here's the play by play, for all who are interested:
Erik's super scientific blind taste test set up. All loaves were of the Tradition variety, except for C which was a regular baguette, and kind of made it pretty obvious where it came from.
D: Monoprix downstairs (2nd place)
A: bakery next to the Monoprix--I absolutely hate this bakery, not only because the bread tasted really chemical-y, but because they once sold me a stale loaf of bread. Last place.
B: Moisan Bakery, the organic bakery near Denfert Rochereau. The line up is regularly out the door when we go there, and rightly so. I've never left with JUST bread. After spending 15 minutes in line drooling over all the other things they've got on display, it's just not possible. 1st place.
C: the bakery on Ave du Maine across from the train station that's open on Sundays and closer to home than Moisan. This was the non-Tradition baguette, which means that its insides were the equivalent of Wonder bread compared to the others. Still better than evil stale bread bakery though.
Funnily enough, the baguette we eat most often isn't even from our neighbourhood. There's an excellent bakery near the nursery school, and since I'm in that area every day either teaching or tutoring, I make an effort to buy from there whenever possible. Unfortunetly the commute usually means that half the bread is missing by the time I get home....
me, clearly, because I got to enjoy so much bread. I can't believe I'm posting this picture, but hopefully you'll excuse the blanket skirt (cold) and the horrible expression.
But seriously, we did our bread tasting last night, and as I expected, it wasn't too difficult. There was a clear, and expected winner, with the Monoprix downstairs bread coming in a close second. The other two were almost inedible when compared so closely to the others, but I'm sure a nice bath in eggs and milk for French toast will solve that problem.
Here's the play by play, for all who are interested:
Erik's super scientific blind taste test set up. All loaves were of the Tradition variety, except for C which was a regular baguette, and kind of made it pretty obvious where it came from.
D: Monoprix downstairs (2nd place)
A: bakery next to the Monoprix--I absolutely hate this bakery, not only because the bread tasted really chemical-y, but because they once sold me a stale loaf of bread. Last place.
B: Moisan Bakery, the organic bakery near Denfert Rochereau. The line up is regularly out the door when we go there, and rightly so. I've never left with JUST bread. After spending 15 minutes in line drooling over all the other things they've got on display, it's just not possible. 1st place.
C: the bakery on Ave du Maine across from the train station that's open on Sundays and closer to home than Moisan. This was the non-Tradition baguette, which means that its insides were the equivalent of Wonder bread compared to the others. Still better than evil stale bread bakery though.
Funnily enough, the baguette we eat most often isn't even from our neighbourhood. There's an excellent bakery near the nursery school, and since I'm in that area every day either teaching or tutoring, I make an effort to buy from there whenever possible. Unfortunetly the commute usually means that half the bread is missing by the time I get home....
Friday, February 15, 2008
bread and cupcakes
I have a bit of a confession to make.
I have recently rediscovered my love of something that comes pre-sliced, wrapped in plastic to preserve all it's marshmallow-y softness and bears the word 'Americain' on the label.
Yes folks, it's sandwich bread. Which, when I was little, we actually called marshmallow bread. I remember quickly becoming repulsed by the way it would gum up behind your teeth when you had it for sandwiches, but I always loved it toasted with margarine and cinnamon sugar.
Anyway, I've had to buy a couple of packages of this stuff recently for other recipes that I've been making (mainly as a binder type thing in meatballs), and of course once the one or two slices that the recipe called for are gone, the bag stares at me daring me to eat it.
Which of course I do. Because it seems like I've met very few foods that I don't want to eat.
It didn't take long to remember that sandwich bread was basically good for two things: toasted with cinnamon sugar, or grilled around cheese. Seeing as I've pretty much satisfied my sweet tooth into the next millennium with that batch of brioche, that left only the cheesy option left to try. And let me tell you, I think I ate grilled cheese for lunch almost all week. Until we ran out of cheese. And every time I took a bite, I asked myself why I hadn't made this sooner.
My fondest grilled cheese memories are from camp, where one of the most popular meals was grilled cheese and tater tots. Of course the cheese was of the presliced and plastic wrapped variety, but I still remember how excited we would be on grilled cheese day. I haven't yet resorted to buying cheese slices (which are unfortunately available here, I think they call it hamburger cheese, and if I ever blog about loving that kind of cheese, please buy me a one way ticket back to North America because I clearly do not deserve to be living in this land of cheese any longer), so I like to think that my grilled cheese sandwiches were slightly better than the fare being offered by the kitchen staff at RPC. My favorite was the cheddar version, and Erik was a big fan of the bleu d'Auvergne one, and the tater tots were replaced by salad. Although I have been served a scary amount of oddly shaped potatoes as part of my school lunch on Thursdays, but don't even get me started on that...
Moving on to the cupcakes.
It's birthday season at the nursery school, and one of the little American girls in the 2 year old class had her birthday on Valentine's day. And of course her mom brought in a special snack for the class to share. Before I tell you about that special snack, let me just give you a quick recap of pretty traditional French birthday fare: flourless dark chocolate cake. No icing. Sometimes the parents get a fancy bakery cake which may also contain some kind of chocolate mousse. I have never in the three years I've been at the school had any kind of non-chocolate cake for a birthday. Ok, well one time there was a pie and one time a parent brought in boozy fruit cake (for the kids), but never any other kind of cake. I don't think I've seen cupcakes here before either.
So, mommy americain brings in cherry chip cupcakes with bright pink icing. The leftovers always go into the kitchen for the rest of the teachers, and usually they're all gone by the end of lunch. By mid afternoon there are still three cupcakes in the fridge, and I've already heard the verdict from one of the teachers: too sweet! I took one bite into the pink cake and quickly understood the problem. It's about as far away from flourless chocolate cake as you can get. The cherry chips make the cake part pink, the cake itself is light and fluffy and the icing was the stuff from a can, which I used to love eating off a spoon. I loved that cupcake, from the spongy greasiness of the cake to the tooth achingly sweet icing, mainly because I can't remember the last time I had cake like that, and I have so many good memories of making cakes from mixes when I was a kid (which is funny, because my mom's a good cook. What were we doing with cake mixes? And canned icing???)
So there you have it. Don't get me wrong, I'm still obsessed with baguette, to the point that Erik has decided that we need to do a blind tasting this weekend, because I have very particular preferences about where the baguette can come from (at the very least, not the bakery next to the grocery store! And if it has to come from the grocery store, the loaves downstairs are much better than the ones upstairs) and he doesn't think that I'll be able tell the loaves apart. And well, I still love cake, but have definitely developed a love of chocolate cake that I never had in Canada.
Hmm. I guess this has kind of turned into an "I love food, all food!" post, but for anyone who knows me well, that shouldn't be much of a surprise.
I hope everyone had a happy Valentine's day yesterday. We had a very romantic one: Erik came and took my BodyPump class, then I went out to see a movie while he finished up some work :). We're continuing our tradition of not celebrating on the day, and will be going out for dinner tonight, to the awesome little restaurant near our place, la Cerisaie.
I have recently rediscovered my love of something that comes pre-sliced, wrapped in plastic to preserve all it's marshmallow-y softness and bears the word 'Americain' on the label.
Yes folks, it's sandwich bread. Which, when I was little, we actually called marshmallow bread. I remember quickly becoming repulsed by the way it would gum up behind your teeth when you had it for sandwiches, but I always loved it toasted with margarine and cinnamon sugar.
Anyway, I've had to buy a couple of packages of this stuff recently for other recipes that I've been making (mainly as a binder type thing in meatballs), and of course once the one or two slices that the recipe called for are gone, the bag stares at me daring me to eat it.
Which of course I do. Because it seems like I've met very few foods that I don't want to eat.
It didn't take long to remember that sandwich bread was basically good for two things: toasted with cinnamon sugar, or grilled around cheese. Seeing as I've pretty much satisfied my sweet tooth into the next millennium with that batch of brioche, that left only the cheesy option left to try. And let me tell you, I think I ate grilled cheese for lunch almost all week. Until we ran out of cheese. And every time I took a bite, I asked myself why I hadn't made this sooner.
My fondest grilled cheese memories are from camp, where one of the most popular meals was grilled cheese and tater tots. Of course the cheese was of the presliced and plastic wrapped variety, but I still remember how excited we would be on grilled cheese day. I haven't yet resorted to buying cheese slices (which are unfortunately available here, I think they call it hamburger cheese, and if I ever blog about loving that kind of cheese, please buy me a one way ticket back to North America because I clearly do not deserve to be living in this land of cheese any longer), so I like to think that my grilled cheese sandwiches were slightly better than the fare being offered by the kitchen staff at RPC. My favorite was the cheddar version, and Erik was a big fan of the bleu d'Auvergne one, and the tater tots were replaced by salad. Although I have been served a scary amount of oddly shaped potatoes as part of my school lunch on Thursdays, but don't even get me started on that...
Moving on to the cupcakes.
It's birthday season at the nursery school, and one of the little American girls in the 2 year old class had her birthday on Valentine's day. And of course her mom brought in a special snack for the class to share. Before I tell you about that special snack, let me just give you a quick recap of pretty traditional French birthday fare: flourless dark chocolate cake. No icing. Sometimes the parents get a fancy bakery cake which may also contain some kind of chocolate mousse. I have never in the three years I've been at the school had any kind of non-chocolate cake for a birthday. Ok, well one time there was a pie and one time a parent brought in boozy fruit cake (for the kids), but never any other kind of cake. I don't think I've seen cupcakes here before either.
So, mommy americain brings in cherry chip cupcakes with bright pink icing. The leftovers always go into the kitchen for the rest of the teachers, and usually they're all gone by the end of lunch. By mid afternoon there are still three cupcakes in the fridge, and I've already heard the verdict from one of the teachers: too sweet! I took one bite into the pink cake and quickly understood the problem. It's about as far away from flourless chocolate cake as you can get. The cherry chips make the cake part pink, the cake itself is light and fluffy and the icing was the stuff from a can, which I used to love eating off a spoon. I loved that cupcake, from the spongy greasiness of the cake to the tooth achingly sweet icing, mainly because I can't remember the last time I had cake like that, and I have so many good memories of making cakes from mixes when I was a kid (which is funny, because my mom's a good cook. What were we doing with cake mixes? And canned icing???)
So there you have it. Don't get me wrong, I'm still obsessed with baguette, to the point that Erik has decided that we need to do a blind tasting this weekend, because I have very particular preferences about where the baguette can come from (at the very least, not the bakery next to the grocery store! And if it has to come from the grocery store, the loaves downstairs are much better than the ones upstairs) and he doesn't think that I'll be able tell the loaves apart. And well, I still love cake, but have definitely developed a love of chocolate cake that I never had in Canada.
Hmm. I guess this has kind of turned into an "I love food, all food!" post, but for anyone who knows me well, that shouldn't be much of a surprise.
I hope everyone had a happy Valentine's day yesterday. We had a very romantic one: Erik came and took my BodyPump class, then I went out to see a movie while he finished up some work :). We're continuing our tradition of not celebrating on the day, and will be going out for dinner tonight, to the awesome little restaurant near our place, la Cerisaie.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
The problem with making cinnamon buns is that we eat the whole pan.
Not really a huge problem as it's not something we do every day, but I do feel slightly more guilt than usual this morning after devouring half a pan of these.
My tips for anyone else brave enough to attempt this multi hour task that has created piles of very sticky and still unwashed dishes.
Not really a huge problem as it's not something we do every day, but I do feel slightly more guilt than usual this morning after devouring half a pan of these.
My tips for anyone else brave enough to attempt this multi hour task that has created piles of very sticky and still unwashed dishes.
- For the dulce de leche: skip the double boiler, and cook the condensed milk directly over the heat, stirring constantly. Much faster.
- The brioche dough was like no other dough I have ever made. How I wished I had my stand mixer to do this! My cheapo hand mixer was literally smoking while I tried to incorporate the butter. And no kneading? I did knead it a bit (with a ton more flour) after the first rise, because I couldn't figure out how I was going to be able to form the goopy mass that I had into any sort of a bun, and it was fine.
- I splite the dough in half, and made one batch of rolls with the dulce de leche and the other with cinnamon and brown sugar. Because of the amount of butter in the dough, I didn't add any extra butter when I sprinkled on the sugar and cinnamon (an effort to cut calories? hah!), and the rolls were definitely missing something. I also toyed with the idea of spreading Nutella on the second batch, and for some reason didn't. Next time.
- I was seriously doubting whether the amount of extra effort required to make the brioche dough would be worth it, and it absolutely was. Brioche comes out flaky and almost croissant like. So good.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Click
and it's done.
We just bought tickets to come home for Roman and Hannah's wedding at the end of March. Clear your calendars, people, cause it's going to be another whirlwind visit.
Oh, and how much does it suck that the taxes we had to pay were almost as much as the tickets?
We just bought tickets to come home for Roman and Hannah's wedding at the end of March. Clear your calendars, people, cause it's going to be another whirlwind visit.
Oh, and how much does it suck that the taxes we had to pay were almost as much as the tickets?
Monday, January 21, 2008
It's been awhile....
I know, I know. I've been a bad blogger lately. But since the holidays ended there really hasn't been much to share. We both went back to work ( :( ), I started counting down the weeks until my next holiday (5!), I did another gym training which ate up all of this past weekend plus the Friday, and voila. Here we are. Plus the sales started two weeks ago and I still haven't really checked them out. Hopefully I'll have some time tomorrow.
So there you go. What's new with all of you?
So there you go. What's new with all of you?
Friday, January 04, 2008
Smoke free in Paree!
It's true and what a treat! Restaurants and cafes are all smoke free as of the first, and we've all agreed that food tastes much better. And Erik's happy because now I have one less reason to avoid his favorite beer bar....
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Bon apetit!
Dinner time.
No pictures of the salad, unfortunately. Things got a bit crazy at that moment getting the next course organized.
Check out my gift on the stove behind Erik's shoulder: the red le Creuset cocotte. Love it.
The wine. Oh, the wine. Sooooo gooood...
The cheese course was drastically reduced. Not sure what we were thinking when we picked it all out, but we've got enough cheese left now to last us a month.
And the piece de resistance. Neither of us was even remotely hungry at this point, but we managed to find room for a couple of slices of this lovely dessert. You must make this buche. It was fantastic. Chocolate, and coconut and pistachios, oh my!
So we've now finished It's a Wonderful Life, and agreed that George Bailey did in fact have a wonderful life. I'm still in my pyjamas and the chances of me getting dressed to go out for a walk at this point are quite slim, so we'll probably roll into bed and call it a night bientot. It's been a lovely day full of eating and drinking and eating, and then more eating, and we're both happy to be wearing elastic waist pants at the moment. Life in Paris is so chic sometimes.
Merry Christmas everyone.
No pictures of the salad, unfortunately. Things got a bit crazy at that moment getting the next course organized.
Check out my gift on the stove behind Erik's shoulder: the red le Creuset cocotte. Love it.
The wine. Oh, the wine. Sooooo gooood...
The cheese course was drastically reduced. Not sure what we were thinking when we picked it all out, but we've got enough cheese left now to last us a month.
And the piece de resistance. Neither of us was even remotely hungry at this point, but we managed to find room for a couple of slices of this lovely dessert. You must make this buche. It was fantastic. Chocolate, and coconut and pistachios, oh my!
So we've now finished It's a Wonderful Life, and agreed that George Bailey did in fact have a wonderful life. I'm still in my pyjamas and the chances of me getting dressed to go out for a walk at this point are quite slim, so we'll probably roll into bed and call it a night bientot. It's been a lovely day full of eating and drinking and eating, and then more eating, and we're both happy to be wearing elastic waist pants at the moment. Life in Paris is so chic sometimes.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Photos
Christmas Eve-Pizza and Trivial Pursuit
Santa came
Christmas morning. Erik gets the sparkling wine and orange juice ready.
Merry Christmas!
Erik gets a guitar. I think he likes it.
Christmas breakfast, and the end of Trivial Pursuit. I won! :)
So far we have also watched the Rudolph movie (you know, the one you watched on tv as a kid. Erik had never seen it!), read our Christmas reading essentials (Economist and Elle), had a nap, Erik has just finished making his soup, and the next movie up is It's a Wonderful Life.
More pictures to come. Hope you are all having a wonderful day.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Noel a deux
Random picture taken the other day at Place de Concorde. If you look carefully you can see Eiffey to the right of the obelisk.
This is the first time that we'll be celebrating Christmas just the two of us. Despite the fact that we would love nothing more than to be with our families this year, we've managed to make the most of it. I have to admit that it's taken me a while to get into the holiday spirit this year, and I am definitely a lucky girl to Erik around to get things organized. He chose the tree, and put up all the decorations on Saturday as a surprise for me when I got home for work.
Please excuse my feet in the second picture, I'm on the phone with you, Nancy. :) And Joan, don't worry, the vienertarta in the first picture has been in the fridge since we recieved it. It's just been banished temporarily...
We've managed to get ourselves organized, and took full advantage of most stores being open on Sunday by doing a massive grocery shop and some last minute gift shopping. And I have to say the stores were pretty quiet! Almost no line-ups at the Monoprix and same at the Bon Marche. Maybe it pays to wait till the last minute? Hopefully I'm not developing any bad habits...
Our plan for tonight and tomorrow is as follows, for all who are interested.
I've spent the afternoon doing some last minute preparations for tomorrow's meal, and as a result our fridge is full to overflowing (literally. There is a bag of cheese that has been banished to hang outside the window. Partly because it's stinky, but mostly because there isn't enough room). Tonight we're making pizza and drinking beer (maybe a new tradition?) and are planning on going for a walk later to check out some Christmas lights. Erik has mentioned a couple of times today that this will be his first Christmas Eve that he hasn't been to church, so maybe we'll stop in somewhere just so we don't break a winning streak. Although I think we're definitely ahead after standing through the marathon service in Latin we endured last year in Italy. I never thought I'd get bored of looking at such a beautiful church.
One of the few times I've wished we had a bigger fridge.
Anyway. Really, the big day for us is all about the food, especially since we both know what we're getting from the other person. So much for surprises. Luckily we like to eat, and have a couple of bottles of wine that we're looking forward to opening, that should make it a bit more special.
Here's the menu:
Petit dejeuner/Brunch
Sparkling wine and orange juice
Fruit salad
Boozy baked French toast
Gouter/Mid afternoon snack
French onion soup from the Williams Sonoma Paris cookbook
Diner
Roquette salad with warm mushrooms from Ina Garten's Barefoot in Paris
Roast Pork with green peppercorns, also from Ina's Paris cookbook
Roast vegetables
Green beans with shallots and pancetta
Cheese course: gruyere, brie de meaux, bleu de gex, rochefort, and chevre enrobes
Chocolate and coconut buche de noel
Of course you're all invited!
Hope this tides you over until we have some more interesting things to share. Steve and Yoshimi arrive on Saturday, and we've already got a list of things that we need to do with them. It will be great to see them.
Merry Christmas everyone! We hope that you have a wonderful day filled with food, family and friends.
Bonnes fetes!
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