Jamie Oliver - A Valentine's with Benefits...

I have to admit that I find Valentine's Day one of the most superfluous "holidays" ever. Love on command, all those totally overpriced roses, chocolates and bottles of bubbly - not for me, thank you very much. And what is more depessing than a whole restaurant of tables of two drinking their pink champagne, eating a pink starter, pink main course and pink dessert? Been there, done that, exactly once and we still laugh about it. But somehow my darling husband saw all those guys queuing at the florist's and probably felt kind of funny being seen without anything (Valentine's is huge here in Provence!) . And so what did I get? A beautiful rose and this:

The French version of Jamie Oliver's magazine. Monsieur just knows that I love cooking mags and used to buy far too many of them and recently put myself on a strict magazine detox.

Guess who was first to look through it and decorate it with more than half a dozen page markers? Let me just say that so far these are the only recipes I had time to look at and today we had Jamie's very simple but delicious "Tarte de Printemps" for lunch. The ingredients are easlily found this time of the year, leeks and spinach are about all the fresh produce you find besides various cabbages and squashes in our markets now. So I guess my husband got himself a Valentine's with benefits...

Jamie Oliver's Tarte de Printemps (Spring Tart)
270 g filo pasty
200 g baby spinach leaves
6 slices bacon
6 eggs
200 ml milk
3 medium sized leeks
pepper and salt
Preheat the oven to 180 C, oil a 20 x 30 cm tart tin.
Distribute the filo leaves one by one slightly overlapping the tin and oiling between layering the next filo leaf. Put the spinach in a colander and pour boiling water over the spinach so it wilts. Leave to cool. Finely chop the well rinsed leeks (white parts only). Grill the bacon until crisp, degrease on some papertowels. When the spinach is cool enough to handle, squeeze out as much of the water as you can, then roughly chop the spinach and mix with the chopped up leeks. Crumble the crisp bacon and mix with the spinach and leeks.
Distribute this mixture on the filo pastry. In a bowl mix the eggs and the milk with freshly ground pepper and salt and pour over the tart. Bake for 30 minutes.
PS: The only thing I would probably add next time is a handful of grated cheese into the egg mixture.

Jamie's Tarte de Printemps

Happy Valentine's Day!

It is Loto season in Provence - what is generally known as Bingo is called Loto here and is very poular during the winter months. The local Lion's Club usually kicks off the season on the first weekend in January and then it is - in no particular order - the Cat's Lovers Loto, the Firefighter's Loto,  the Loto of the staff of the local Hospital, the Bridge Club's Loto etc., etc.

Yesterday it was the turn of the Rotary Club of Vaison la Romaine whose Valentine's Day Loto is always extremely popular. "Love means winning together" is their slogan and their prizes are not to be sniffed at: a romantic trip worth 1000 Euros, a laptop, a big flat-screen TV, a wheel barrow full of wine bottles (after all we are in Côte du Rhône country here) and, to top it all, yesterday they even had two scooters to be won!

Most of these prizes are donated by local businesses and the money made through these Lotos are invested in local causes - student scholarships, soup kitchens etc.

There is much work involved - starting from going around town asking for prizes, printing and distributing flyers and posters, putting up chairs and tables in the townhall, providing refreshments and last but not least, cleaning up afterwards. All the members and their partners are busily working to make the annual Loto a success.

This year my girlsfriends Thérèse, Elizabeth, Annie-France and Babeth and I were in charge of providing 150 sandwiches:

Thérèse and Elizabeth cutting the Baguettes

Annie-France and Babeth: filling the Sandwiches

French Classic: Jambon-Fromage

Ham and Cheese Sandwich

We had real fun working together, and even more fun at the Loto, although none of us won a prize. But as the saying goes: Lucky at cards, unlucky in Love, and I know which I prefer....

No Luck playing....

Happy Valentine's to all of you!