Posted on by Myfrenchkitchen

Mini carrot loaves and Easter spirit.

Here we are. Easter.

It is actually not about  Easter bunnies and eggs and chickens. But to lighten the heaviness of  “La Passion” a bit, we bring some pastel blues and pinks and yellows into our house, letting our children search for eggs behind trees and prop a chocolate egg ourselves into our cheeks.

So I also spent some playful time around the house and in the kitchen, using my good friend Karin’s microwave carrot cake to bake individual carrot loaves. It is SO moist and quick…I don’t know why I don’t bake it more often. Maybe because I’ll eat more often..?

I baked it in mini loaf pans(brown carton and silicone) and it took only about 8-10 minutes to bake. I also didn’t have cream cheese, so I used a soft goats cheese, which was as delicious, of not more delicious than cream cheese!

Suggestions:

  • Use the recipe and bake mini individual loaves or cakes.
  • Add some dried currants for variation.
  • Add  a tsp of mixed spice along with the cinnamon.
  • Use soft goats cheese instead of cream cheese.
  • Bake in a glass pyrex bowl or in a microwave ring pan.

…bunnies in chocolate, young Prunus trees in blossom just before they go off to Coin Perdu next week to be planted in the garden. They are simply decorated in their black plant containers with old lace and some chocolate eggs and tiny glass vases with an Easter chicken feather…

.. a white wooden basket filled with anything and everything – an ostrich egg, some fresh moss from the garden, tulips, cute bunnies crawling all over, old lace, fresh eggs from the farm, a big heart and time that runs out quick…

…”will this work never end”…?

…peeping in the kitchen, or perhaps smelling the tulips?…

…”I knew I was good, but I never thought I was THIS good?”…

…a full tummy…

…le livre des mères parfaites by Alison Maloney…

(Fun extracts from what mothers tell their children…)

Mother: “If you swallow your chewing-gum, it will stay in your stomach for seven years!”

Fact: Chewing-gum, like any other food, will be in the digestive system for  round about 20 hours.




Posted on by Myfrenchkitchen

Picnic by the Loire

Time for informal, relaxed picnics is here. Our summer weekends consist mostly of some working on the house and in the garden, some tennis, and then some extended dinners that linger along with our dusk…late and lazy. I love simple meals where colour and texture play a major role and each ingredient stands on its own. A long time ago, I once thought I made an innovative potato salad, just to have my youngest 10 year old daughter tell me: “I can’t eat this salad! It’s too complicated.”

That was a lesson never to be forgotten.

For a Sunday afternoon by the Loire river across our house, this is a typical salad we would pique nique on. Very ordinary, but spiced up with an interesting vinaigrette of your choice and accompanied by an array of cheese and grainy baguettes, not forgetting an ice cold Rosé, it becomes a meal I’m sure that is served frequently in paradise, which makes it one of the reasons why I intend on going there one day…

 

As usual, I don’t give a formal recipe , but will mention what I’ve used in my salad.

  • Cut some vegetables in different shapes…carrots in spaghetti, roasted red peppers (of which I don’t bother to remove the peel), some mango slices, a few slices of smoked duck and cooked quinoa with sauteed onion. (Read more about quinoa. )
  • A handful of fresh herbs; rocket, sage, large Italian parsley, chives, wild celeri and tarragon.
  • Vinaigrette: make a puree of the small pieces of mango that you cut off the seed. Add some white balsamic vinegar, some poppy vinegar, salt and pepper, a small finely chopped shallot and add olive oil to your taste and whisk until creamy. I prefer a pungent vinaigrette.
  • Add some cheese triangles, a handful of olives and a fresh baguette.
  • Pack some ice cream in a cool bag along with the wine, or fresh fruit for dessert.
  • And don’t forget a flask of good coffee for that wake-up call after the nap…
  1. Pack interesting layers of individual portions in picnic hampers.
  2. Take the vinaigrette separately in a little container and add to your salad just before serving.
  3. Finish off with cheese and fruit.

Bon appetit!

This is an entry for Weekend herb blogging, hosted this week by Laurie at Medcookingalaska