Cassoulet

What is Cassoulet?
One of the most popular french recipes, coming from South West of France. Sometimes english people confuse Cassoulet with their own breakfast! Cassoulet is a rich combination of beans and meats. There are several recipes, here is the easiest to cook.

Cassoulet Recipe (serves 6)

Step 1: Soak the dry beans overnight in cold water.

Step 2: Cook the saussages.

Step 3: Remove the duck legs from the fat. Heat in the oven for 3 minutes unti fat has melt off.

Step 4: Cut the spareribs in 4, add salt and pepper.

Step 5: Sauté the vegetables with 1 garlic clove, thyme and laurel. Cover with water and cook for 1 hour and a half.

Step 6: Drain the beans and simmer slowly for 1 hour. Add 1 crushed garlic clove, salt and pepper.

Step 7: Put the meat, the vegetables and the beans in a baking dish. Cook in ther oven at 325° F / 160° C until there is no more liquid in the dish.

Cassoulet is better when reheated

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Marinating budget-friendly chicken pieces in herb-laced lemon juice and oil allows this succulent lemon sage chicken recipe to stay juicy through the cooking process. Simple grilled or baked potatoes, a fresh chopped salad, and a plate of fruit turn this into a complete, wholesome meal.

Prep Time: 1 hours, 05 minutes

Cook Time: 12 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds chicken pieces
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
• 1 clove garlic, crushed and chopped
• 3/4 teaspoon salt (reduce to 1/4 teaspoon if using sodium-containing chicken)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Preparation:

Stir the olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, sage, garlic, salt, and pepper until all the ingredients are thoroughly combined. Pour the lemon-sage marinade into a large glass baking dish; add the chicken to the dish, turning the pieces once to coat with the marinade. Cover the dish and refrigerate the chicken for 1 hour, turning the pieces once every 15 minutes.

Preheat a grill or brush a large skillet with oil and set it over medium-high heat. Arrange all the chicken pieces on the grill or place the chicken, in batches, into the hot skillet. Discard the marinade. Cook the chicken for 4 to 6 minutes on each side. The chicken is done when the thickest part feels firm to the touch and tests 165F on an instant-read thermometer. Serve hot as an entree or refrigerate the chicken and serve it sliced in a salad.

This lemon sage chicken recipe makes 6 servings.

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Frugal

French Cooking Tricks

Everyone appreciates a frugal recipe, but can it be cheap and delicious? It absolutely can! Try these easy tricks for cooking healthy, recession-proof French food that suits your budget and bring a touch of the French bistro to your home kitchen.

Make the most of seasonings. These can be as simple as salt and pepper, or as complex as your own special blend of herbs. The key to flavorful cooking is to be fearless when using them. It’s true that seasoning can’t be removed once it has been added to a dish, and that rationale makes people timid for fear of a super-salty, overly seasoned dish. The way around this problem is to add half the amount you anticipate needing, taste the dish, and then season again, accordingly.

An excellent, yet little-known, tip for stretching your food budget is to cut Allium vegetables (onions, shallots, garlic, chives) in smaller pieces. These pungent foods contain sulfoxides, the compound that makes your eyes water when you slice into an onion. As the knife cuts through the onion, it crushes the sulfur compounds and releases the familiar scent. The same goes for flavor; the more you cut an Allium vegetable, the more flavor it releases.

Studies have shown that a “poor man’s” diet, full of beans and grain, leads to a healthier, longer life. Beans have a silky, almost creamy texture and the capacity to take on the flavors of any recipe. What’s more, they can stretch a recipe by replacing some or most of the meat, and while providing an excellent source of protein.

Roasting vegetables gives them an extra kick of flavor for the cost of heating the oven. Get comfortable with roasting with this simple tutorial: Turn your oven up to 425F, line a baking sheet with parchment paper or non-stick foil, and roast your favorite vegetables (with a drizzle of oil) for 10 to 40 minutes, depending on your special mix. Check and stir them every 5 minutes to evenly distribute the oil. The vegetables are done when they turn fork tender and golden brown. The fantastic payoff is deep caramel notes and a wonderful texture in otherwise bland ingredients; this method provides a stunning transformation for a frugal recipe.

Nothing is new under the sun, and using grains to stretch a food budget is certainly not an innovative trend. Although it may be old-fashioned, it is a very healthy way to cut costs in the kitchen. Simply add a cup of cooked rice or barley to any soup or stew, or arrange a saucy meat dish atop a bed of couscous, rice, or pasta for a filling meal.

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Truffles or Truffes in France, are a group of valuable and highly sought-after, edible underground fungi.

Found in close association with trees, truffes are highly prized as food. They have a smell similar to deep-fried sunflower seeds or walnuts, and are praised for their aphrodisiacal powers. They are held in high esteem in France.

The most saught after fungi is the Truffe Noir or Truffe noir de Perigord (Tuber melanosporum) also known as the Black Diamond and comes from the Périgord region in France and grows exclusively with oak. Specimens can be found in late autumn and winter, reaching 7cm in diameter and weighing up to 100g.

The harvesters of truffe in France are called trufficulteurs. They are patient men, as it can take ten years to harvest their first crop of truffles after planting their oaks. Sometimes they don’t come!! and they still need to use highly trained pigs or dogs to sniff out the best ones.

Production is almost exclusively European, with France accounting for 45%. 80% of the French production comes from southeast France: upper-Provence, part of Dauphiné and part of Languedoc. 20% of the production comes from southwest France: Quercy and Périgord.

The largest truffe market in France (and probably also in the world) is at Richerenches in Vaucluse. The largest truffe market in southwest France is at Lalbenque in Quercy. These markets are busiest in the month of January when the black truffes have their highest perfume. Black truffes on these markets sell between $100 to $600, depending on the quantity and quality of the harvest.

Because they are so expensive, we have normally eaten them within dishes, or when whole truffes have been preserved within oils, eggs or rice, the aroma is left within these ingredients and lingers when you make your meal. They do not preserve for long, use within a month if you store within oil. Pack in rice and freeze, but again, use within a month or they have a tendancy to dry out. You can use the oil on salads and make a rissotto with the rice, the aroma will still be present.

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Ingredients

* 12 large tomatoes, deseeded and halved
* 4 cloves of garlic, minced
* 2 tablespoons of oil
* 1 handful of chopped parsley
* fresh breadcrumbs
* 1 tablespoon of thyme
* salt and pepper

Method

* pre-heat your oven to 200degC or gas mark 6

* fry the tomatoes on both sides very briefly

* put them in a roasting tin cut side up

* mix the garlic, parsley, breadcrumbs, thyme, salt and pepper together

* put a little of the mixture on each tomato

* then bake in the oven for 10 mins

* serve hot with a meat dish

* ‘bon appétit’

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Recipe from Le Cordon Bleu

Ingredients

* 350g of ripe black cherries
* 2 tablespoons of plain flour
* 2 tablespoons of sugar, vanilla sugar if possible or add a few drops of vanilla essence
* 2 eggs
* 300 ml of milk
* knob of butter
* 1 dessertspoon of ‘eau-de-vie’
* a little extra sugar to sprinkle on the top

Method

* pre heat your oven to gas mark 5 or 190 deg C

* butter a cast iron skillet or baking tray and put in oven to heat up

* prepare the cherries by pitting, de-stalking, washing and drying

* put the flour in a mixing bowl

* beat the eggs and add to the flour

* add the sugar, milk and eau-de-vie and mix well

* take you heated skillet and arrange the cherries within

* pour over the custard batter

* return to the oven and bake for 30-45 mins

* when done it is slightly risen and set in the middle

* sprinkle a little of the vanilla sugar on top

* best served lukewarm

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Ingredients

* 4 tablespoons butter
* 1/2 cup all purpose flour
* 1 cup heavy whipping cream
* 1 cup milk
* 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
* 1/2 teaspooon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
* 2 tablespoons diced celery
* 1 tablespoon grated onion
* 1 tablespoon chopped pimento
* 3/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
* 1 pound Maine lobster meat, chopped

Method

* Preheat oven to 350°.

* Butter a 6 cup casserole dish.

* In a sauce pan, melt butter over medium heat.

* Whisk in flour and cook, stirring constantly for 2 to 3 minutes. Be careful not to brown the flour.

* Remove from heat and slowly whisk in the cream and milk. Stir in the Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, celery, onion and pimento

* Add 1/2 cup of the cheese and the lobster meat, mix well. Pour the mixture into the prepared casserole dish and top with the remaining 1/4 cup of cheese.

* Bake until the cheese is lightly browned, about 20 minutes.

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Recipe Description: A heavenly light cheese soufflé from the haute Savoie region of France, made with Beaufort cheese.

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All about Chocolate this week!

Occasionally you should indulge yourself with the rich, satisfying taste of chocolate. It melts so perfectly in your mouth, and warms your soul. Chocolate gives you a mild feeling of euphoria, similar to when you fall in love, because it contains PEA a substance which releases endorphins in your brain.

Chocolate is a favorite for kids and adults alike. Chocolate bars, chocolate fudge, chocolate cake, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate ice cream, chocolate milk, chocolate cereal, hot chocolate, chocolate sauce… There is something special about this substance — so special that the average person in the United States eats 10 pounds (4.5 kg) of chocolate every year!

Have you ever wondered where chocolate comes from? In this article, we’ll enter the amazing world of chocolate so you can understand exactly what you’re eating!

The Cocoa Bean
Chocolate starts with a tree called the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao). This tree grows in equatorial regions, especially in places such as South America, Africa and Indonesia.

The cacao tree produces a fruit about the size of a small pineapple. Inside the fruit are the tree’s seeds, also known as cocoa beans.

The beans are fermented for about a week, dried in the sun and then shipped to the chocolate maker. In the next sections, we’ll look at how the chocolate maker turns these raw beans into luscious chocolate.­

There are three basic things that must be done by the chocolate maker to make a chocolate bar:

* Adding ingredients – The chocolate that we eat contains sugar, other flavors (like vanilla) and often milk (in milk chocolate). The chocolate maker adds these ingredients according to his or her secret recipe.

* Conching – A special machine is used to massage the chocolate in order to blend the ingredients together and smooth it out. Conching can take anywhere from two to six days.

* Tempering – Tempering is a carefully controlled heating process. According to this Chocolate FAQ, tempering is “a process where the chocolate is slowly heated, then slowly cooled, allowing the cocoa butter molecules to solidify in an orderly fashion.” Without tempering, the chocolate does not harden properly or the cocoa butter separates out (as cream separates from milk).

Types of Chocolate:

Baking Chocolate
Pure cocoa liquor with nothing added

Cocoa Powder
Cocoa bean solids; cocoa liquor pressed to remove the cocoa butter

Semisweet Chocolate
Pure cocoa liquor with extra cocoa butter and some sugar

Milk Chocolate
Pure cocoa liquor with extra cocoa butter, sugar and milk solids; more milk than chocolate liquor

White Chocolate
Cocoa butter with sugar and milk; no cocoa bean solids

This week:

Take the Chocolate Challenge

Chocolate

Mousse Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 4 egg yolks
• 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 7 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted and kept lukewarm

Preparation:

Heat 2/3 cup of cream in small saucepan until it just begins to steam. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar, and then add ½ hot cream, whisking constantly, until the mixture is thoroughly combined. Add the warm egg-cream blend back into the hot cream in the saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture reaches 165 F degrees on a digital candy thermometer. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract and melted chocolate. Chill the chocolate custard thoroughly.

Beat remaining 1 1/3 cups of cream in a separate bowl until stiff peaks form. Thoroughly stir ½ cup of the whipped cream into the chilled chocolate custard, and then gently fold in the remaining cream. The chocolate mousse is ready when the chocolate custard is thoroughly incorporated into the whipped cream, and no marbling shows. Serve chilled.

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Do you want to know if you suffer from “Alertness Deficit Disorder” (ADD)? Then just take this simple quiz. These questions will help us to determine whether or not you suffer from this terrible affliction; the only known cure for which is caffeine. ADD takes the lives of millions of Americans, hundreds of Canadians, and a handful of Ugandans every year. If that doesn’t scare you, let’s just say that you are more susceptible than anyone else. YES, YOU! If you suffer from this disease, missing just one trip to Starbucks could be FATAL. The following series of Yes/No questions will allow us to determine your Addiction Factor(TM). Keep track of the number of Yes and No answers you get and chart yourself at the end. Remember: Prevention is the best medicine. Or was it laughter? Either way, read on.

1. Do you use coffee to escape from your problems?

2. Do you eat spoonfuls of instant coffee because it’s easier?

3. Have you ever woken up in a puddle of your own coffee?

4. Do you find that it’s easier to drink more coffee than go to sleep?

5.

a) Have you ever drunk cold coffee?

b) Right out of the pot?

6. Do you spend more than 20% of your income on coffee and/or coffee related products?

7. Does your coffee cup resemble a beer stein?

8. Has anyone ever told you that you “have a problem”?

9. Do you need coffee:

a) …to get up in the morning?

b) …to get out of bed?

c) …to be injected intravenously to stimulate blood-flow?

10. Do you own a “Coffee Helmet”? (For the culturally ignorant, a coffee- helmet is a hat with coffee-cups attached to it and a straw coming out of each cup leading to the mouth, used for hands-free drinking.)

11. Do Native North American Aboriginal Indian Peoples call you “Ona mac towanda” (Smells-like- coffee)?

12. Does your doctor measure your heartbeat on the Richter scale as well as by its frequency?

13. Have you ever sold personal or other people’s possessions just to get your fix for the day?

14. Does the phrase “swiss water decaffienated” strike terror into your heart?

15.

a) Do you have a coffee maker in more than one room of your house?

b) …in more than five?

c) …in your bathroom?

16.

a) Do the people at Second Cup refuse do give you free coffee cards anymore?

b) …because you’re wearing out their hole-punch?

c) …and it’s bad for the environment?

17. Do you grind your own coffee?

18. Do you grow your own coffee?

19. Have you ever been fired from a job because you’re “drinking their profits”?

20.

a) Do you know Juan Valdez?

b) …and his donkey?

c) …intimately?

21. Do you salivate uncontrollably whenever you hear dripping water?

22.

a) Is sleep a hobby of yours?

b) …that you don’t like?

c) …because it’s too frustrating?

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