Posted on by Myfrenchkitchen

Pears in red wine and a wine harvest.

Pears in red wine. Always a winner in our house during the winter and especially over the festive season. In this recipe I used a cabernet sauvignon, but I have also used a (moelleux) sweet white wine before like a Montlouis moelleux or a semi sweet, which is just as delicious. Decorate the pears in red wine with some edible gold leaf and the pears in white wine with spun sugar. A post on how to make spun sugar will follow soon – before Christmas!

Pears in red wine

Why not gather all your wine corks and display them in pretty empty containers somewhere. Always a good talking point and especially the men like to dig and see the wines that passed through. I also colletct the wine cases, hoping I can get hold of enough to convert them into drawers and kitchen tops and units for Coin Perdu, our house in Corréze. They also make nice storage space in the pantry, can be used in the wine “cave”, the cats sleep in the empty ones and some even carry small twigs for lighting fires in my atelier.

winecorks 4 winecorks 1

wine cases 1 winecorks 6

In October we had one day of grape picking at the vinyeards of our friends Vincent and Tania Careme. The domaine vincent Careme is a bio vinyeard where no chemicals are used, wild herbs and weeds are allowed to proliferate, adding to the health of the grapes and picking is still done by hand. They have a traditional Saturday  during grape harvesting in Octobre, when all their friends and family get togetherfor a day of grape picking, press the grapes, feasting on a  huge lunch, continue picking afterwards, pressing again and finishing off with some more eating. We were all dead tired, but what fun we had, one of which was a grape fight when everybody started getting tired and sticky towards the evening. Here are some pictures of the Saturday at Domaine Vincent Careme.

…starting off early morning…

vendange-in the vineyard 2

…moving forward…

…up and down…

vendange-pickers

…picking carefully…

…emptying the bucket…

vendange 23

…into the remorque…

vendange-vider

…almost full…

vendange-grapes

…taking a break…

vendange 19

…something for the thirst…

…healthy vinyeards…

vendange-vignoble 1

…at the cellar…

vendange 56

…onto the press…

vendange 58

…cleaning up…

vendange 65

…resting…

vendnage 86

…late afternoon fatigue…

vendange-late afternoon fatigue

…going home…

vendange-finished

Soon to be followed: More about the wines of Vincent and Tania, their wine cellar in the typical “caves” of Touraine, a sculpteur doing his artwork in one of their caves and the many pleasure(and hard work) of daily life at Domaine Vincent Careme.

Posted on by Myfrenchkitchen

Baked topinambours with thyme(Topinambours aux thym)

Topinambours counts under “the old vegetables/foods” which have been making a come back the last few years. Previously I made a Velouté de topinambour which is great. This time it is is cut into chunks, sprinkled with powdered espelette pepper and baked in the oven on a bed of fresh thyme.

topinambours au four(baked topinambours)

Oven baked topinambours with thymSuggestions:

  1. Sauté some apple chunks in butter, add a bit of cassonade(brown sugar) and fry until nicely caramelized. Mix gently with the baked topinambours and serve warm.
  2. The piment d’espelette can be replaced by any other chili of your choice, either dry and in powder form, or finly chopped.
  3. Cook the  topinambours in water on the stovetop until almost tender and then add to an oven pan with the seasonings to caramelize. It shortens the baking time.
  4. Serve the topinambours on a bed of salad greens or as an accompaniment to any meat.
  5. By adding créme frâiche after baked in the oven,  you can serve it with a pasta or add it to a saffron risotto.
  6. Be sure to have it nicely tender or else it has a “burning” taste, much like raw potato.
  7. It is a healthy alternative to potatoes, seeing that it has a lower glycemic index than potatoes.
  8. Enjoy!

…topinambours…

topinambours - ingredients

Piment d’espelette is a variety of pepper, with a light “bite” that is produced in the Basque region of France. Because of its fragrant flavour and taste, it is frequently used instead of pepper. We also find a beautiful fleur de sel d’espelette, which is powdered espelette mixed with a good quality fleur de sel, which is what I used on my baked topinambours)

…piment d’espelette…

piment espelette

For Liandri’s  birthday in beginning of Octobre, we had dinner le chateau de Beaulieu here in Tours. A nice quaint hotel with a menu gastronomique;  we could choose between foie gras, turbot, pigeon, filet de boeuf, magret de canard, carré d’agneau… A small dinng room, a local wine list as well as some distant cousins, nice dessert, coffee and olde worlde ambiance. A charming place to stay and dine when you visit our area.

…chateau de beaulieu…

chateau de Beaulieu chateau de beaulieu 2

…Olde world memories for olde world foods…

old plates les carafes