The Secret about Calories

As found on Twitter (WhattheFork LLC) - just couldn't resist sharing!

Yotam Ottolenghi's Savoury Ricotta Cheesecake

You probably know by now that I am a big fan of Yotam Ottolenghi's cuisine. Not only are his cookbooks beautiful but his recipes work. And that means a lot to me. Just this weekend I have been ranting (again) about a sloppily edited recipe that just didn't turn out the way it should - what a waste of time and ingredients! So when by browsing online recipes I found this one from Ottolenghi's column in the British newspaper The Guardian, I checked the list of ingredients, found I was well equipped and got started. And although it is a bit labor intensive it is so worth the effort! Served with a little salad on the side this makes for an elegant starter or a light and very delicious lunch. Try it, you will like it!

 

blind baking the tart shell

 

very gently frying onions and garlic

 

blending sundried tomatoes, garlic and thyme...

 

 ...into this wonderful paste that I'd eat just as well on its own

 

 Key ingredient: Ricotta

 

Ottolenghi's Ricotta Cheesecake in all its glory

 



 Looks just like Yotam's!

Pink Floyd Revisited

 

There is nothing better than to be invited to a Provençal "Apéritif Dînatoire" - a long, informal, lazy and at the end often rather hazy lunch involving numerous plates of different delicacies, wine and most important "convivialité" - a warm, generous, familiar get-together among friends. Yesterday we had the honor to be invited to our friends and new neighbours Eric and Nana's house. Owners of the fabulous "L'Epicurien" restaurant in Crestet, a neighbouring village of Vaison, Eric and Nana work so much they do not have much time for socializing so we knew it was a special honor to be invited to their house. And of course we also knew we were in for a treat, because not only do our friends serve great food at their restaurant where they have a chef - they are also great chefs themselves!

 Eric

We got spoiled with a delicious terrine

 

loads of other yummy dishes and

a leek tart of which I just have to have the recipe!!!

 

And then we were in for a real surprise:

Nana presented what turned out not to be just another bottle of Rosé,

 

 

but "Pink Floyd" the first vintage of

 Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's Provençal Rosé wine

 

Only available for sale in France the 6000 bottles of the 2012 vintage sold out the first day (you can now find it on Ebay). The Jolie-Pitts claim to be "intimately involved" in the production of the wine they produced in collaboration with Marc Perrin, the owner of Chateau de Beaucastel in prestigious Chateauneuf du Pape. And the verdict? It is a really nice rosé wine, but so are many other Provençal Rosé wines for which you pay a fraction of what "Pink Floyd" is now being hawked for.

 

Restaurant L'Epicurien

Quartier Glacière

84110 Crestet

www.epicurienvaison.fr

Spring in Provence

Having been away for just ten days Provence totally changed its outfit to welcome us back: the poppies are out, and I even detected the very first Iris blooming on the side of my road. Even the vineyards sprout their first little green leaves. Spring when it finally arrives after a long winter is probably the most beautiful season of them all in Provence!

 

 The poppies are out!

 

 The very first Iris

 

Our front Garden

Cookbook Challenge # 4 - La Cuisine de Provence

This is a cookbook I picked up on the spur of the moment at a Provence food fair in Arles. Intrigued by the title "The Cuisine of B&B's in Provence" I was curious to see what people who most of the time are not trained chefs prepare for their guests. To cut a long story short: I wish we had more restaurants around here that would cook like these hosts do! Delicious Provençal dishes like Soupe au Pistou, Zucchini Flowers filled with Basil, Lamb Carpaccio, Fougasse,  Tellines à la Carmaguaise, Brandade de Morue, a traditional Daube or a truffled Brie make the most of our regional produce and specialities. Looking for an apéritif offering I decided on the recipe for "Cake aux tomates confits, aux capres et au basilic" - what you and I would call a savory loaf or a bread in France is inexplicably called a cake. This is a recipe from the table of  Mas Silazac near Draguignan in the Var, which is run be Anne et Bruno Cazalis.

A Cake, not a Bread

 

You need 200 g of semi dried tomatoes (tomates confites), 200 g flour, 3 eggs, 15 g baking powder, 10 cl milk, 100 g grated Gruyère cheese, 50 g capers, 2 handful of chopped basil, 10 cl olive oil , salt and pepper.

Mix all ingredients except for the tomatoes, capers and basil into a smooth dough. Add the rest of the ingredients and fill into a buttered and floured loaf tin. Bake for 45 minutes at 180C/350F

A recipe that couldn't be simpler or more delicious. I cut the slices into four parts - moist and savoury finger food that was devoured by my guests. To be repeated.

 

Semi dried Tomatoes, Capers and Basil are the Key Ingredients

Healthy and delicious Bean and Vegetable Soup

I probably read more cookbooks and food magazines than is good for me but then I almost always find some recipe worth trying out. Two recipes made it onto our table from the April issue of Delicious magazine: "Rose Harissa Pork with Quinoa and Dates" (not bad but if I made it again I would replace the quinoa with couscous) and "Borlotti bean, Tomato and Sage Soup" - both recipes developped by Georgina Fuggle. I was intrigued by the combination of borlotti beans and sage of which I have a big plant in my kitchen garden that survives even the hardest winter and of which I don't make too much use. Which is about to change, because this  recipe is definitely a winner. I changed the ingredients somewhat since I am in the process of cleaning out my freezer and we liked the result so much I will keep my version.

 

 Borlotti Beans

 

I started by soaking about a cup of borlotti beans overnight. If you want to start cooking straight away use a tin of the beans, but take care to drain and rinse them. If using the soaked beans, boil them in enough water until tender, drain, rinse and and reserve.

Finely chop 3 carots, 1 mild onion, 2 garlic cloves and 2 celery sticks and gently fry them in a good splash of olive oil, taking care not to brown the vegetables. Add a can of chopped tomatoes, 6 fresh sage leaves, 1 cup of hot vegetable stock and 2 roasted and skinned red peppers (which I had left over in the freezer). Gently boil until the vegetables are tender, remove half and liquidize in a mixer or with a stick blender, then return to the pot. Stir in the borlotti beans and sprinkle with plenty of freshly chopped flat leaf parsley.

 



Healthy and pretty - Bean and Vegetable Soup

Little Easter Jewels

There are three different places where I buy eggs: one is the egg lady at Vaison's famous Provençal Tuesday market, the other the egg and poultry vendor at our Saturday Farmer's market and then there is my friend Berthe who has a cleaning lady who has chicken and sells their eggs to a chosen few. When there are eggs aplenty I am lucky enough to be one of them. These are actually the very best eggs since her chicken have the run of the garden and surrounding vineyard and pick at whatever they like best plus a few kitchen scraps. When I went Tuesday to get my Easter eggs to colour them the egg lady was also selling quail's eggs. Usually I buy those to hardboil, peel and serve them for aperitif dipped a a bit of hickory smoked salt. But don't they look just beautiful turned into little Easter Jewels?

 

Big eggs, small eggs, chocolate eggs -

Happy Easter everyone!