summer – Page 3 – Myfrenchkitchen

At the end of every summer I have the disappointed feeling that I haven’t had enough of the summer fruits and then I go into a frenzy to get my qoata for the season in. And so we have a last chance to indulge in all the summer fruits, especially the peaches and nectarines, the watermelons and melons. All of them my favorite fruits.

If you haven’t had roasted fruit before, you are truly missing out on a great experience. It is so simple so make and brings out the best of a fruit in a different way.

There is no formal recipe for this dessert. I used a mix of peaches and nectarines.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.
Use 2 peaches per person. Wash and cut each peach in half. You can remove the seed or leave some in.
Place the peach halves in a roasting tin.
Spoon some honey into the peach hamlves, drizzle liberally with lemon juice, sprinkle some fleur de sel and add lemon slices to the peaches.
Add lemon thyme branches to the peaches.
Roast at 200 degr C for about 15 minutes. Stick under the grill fora further 3 minutes if they aren’t browned enough to your liking.
Serve warm with créme fraîche of vanilla ice cream.

Pincée de sel:

Use plums or figs instead of peaches.
Use brown sugar or maple syrup instead of honey.
Make a vanilla syrup of 1/2 cup water, vanilla pod and 3TBSP sugar . Leave to boil down to a syrupy consistency and add to the peaches along with cream. Omit the herbs.

June and July went by so quickly, I am still wondering where I was..I fell and broke my leg 2 weeks ago, so my moving about is somewhat restricted, especially here in the barn and on the rugged terrain of Coin Perdu. The crutches drive me nuts, but they are my best friends at the moment. At least my biceps are now something to look at. I’m not doing a lot of cooking, if any and it is only the most easiest of cooking – a handful of tomatoes from the potager on the plate with the salt and pepper pots beside it. A bowl of peaches. Half a chicken done by mon chéri on the barbecue. A tub of ice cream. A slab of Lindt fleur de sel chocolate.Lots of water to prevent the leg from swelling. More chocolate and ice cream. Macarons. Don’t you think I am a good girl for eating so healthy?

WARNING: This is a fairly long post! I am also adding my Facebook page if you would like to follow and my instagram account as well as Lindiwe, our german shepherddog’s account.

Facebook page: Café des artistes
Instagram: Ronellesatelier
Lindiwe’s instagram: shepherddog_lindiwe

In the meantime, the garden is running out from under my hands. Our summer has been very hot up to now and very dry and the garden is showing signs of fatigue without water and my loving care. It is big holiday time and France has come to its summer standstill. No one is available for helping in the garden. But it was nonetheless so beautiful before the drought took over and I thought I’d share it with you, since I can’t really show you my plate of tomatoes with salt and pepper or half a chicken on my plate…even though it was as goo..ood!

June/July 2015 it started off lush and green in May, everything was flowering beautifully, newly planted lavenders santolinas…

..even when the pool was being built, it looked…OK

iceberg roses, feverfew,, salvia nemerosas to name but a few

On the terrace with Partia, purple oxalys, herbs..

..My beloved olde world flower, the hollyhocks, a lost sunflower that sprouted from the birds’ winterseeds and even dried roses..

..new additions to the family are the two babygees, who mon chéri calls Hansie & Grietjie, some cute chicks and Lindiwe, our german sheperd dog, who has her own instagram account, should you be interested in following!