La Mia Italia

I almost missed out on this one!
Shelley from At Home in Rome will be taking the month of April off to go on her honeymoon so has decided to let others share their stories, pictures and blogs about Italy.
I've added my post from October about Lucca to the event.
Happy honeymoon, Shelley! Pin It

Saumur Spring

Spring, beautiful spring.
The almond trees are in bloom, the vines are waking up and strawberries and asparagus are in season.



Asparagus Risotto time. I look forward to this every year.
I picked up a fat bunch of asparagus and a basket of deep, red strawberries at the market on Tuesday morning. The cupboards were pretty bare when I returned from the States, so I had to make do with what I could find.
Asparagus risotto usually calls for white wine but I didn't have any. I did, however, have Saumur, a sparkling white wine from the Loire Valley. A quick look in the Internet and voilà, a recipe for Champagne and Asparagus Risotto.



This is my adapted version. I didn't even have cheese for the recipe! Fortunately, the flavor was great without it.

• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1 medium onion, minced
  
• 1 cup arborio rice
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups chicken broth
  
• 2 cups Champagne
• 1 lb medium sized asparagus, trimmed
  
• black pepper, freshly ground
• salt
• 1 Tbs butter
• 2 Tbs Pecorino-Romano cheese, freshly grated

Directions

1. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat.
2. Add onion and cook until the onion is translucent.
3. While onion is cooking, blanch asparagus for 2-3 minutes, plunge into ice water and cut into 1 inch pieces.
   
4. Add rice, stirring to coat all the grains. Cook, stirring, for a few minutes.
5. Add 1 cup stock. Cook, stirring, until stock is absorbed.
6. Add 1 cup Champagne or Saumur. Continue to cook over medium heat, stirring frequently.
7. When almost absorbed, add the rest of the Champagne.
8. After the Champagne is absorbed, add 1/2 cup of the stock. Cook, stirring, until the liquid is almost absorbed.
9. Add the rest of the stock in small amounts until rice is tender, about 30 to 40 minutes from when you put in the first cup of stock. I always find that the liquid to rice ratio is relative to the quality of the rice. You may need more than 4 cups liquid, you may need less.
10. Just before the last of the stock is added, add the asparagus to the rice.
    
11. Stir in freshly ground pepper, to taste.
12. Add the butter and cheese.
13. Stir well, taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper if necessary.
14. Enjoy!
    

The risotto had a really lovely, balanced flavor from the sparkling wine. It was creamy and delicious! I plan to do more experimenting with replacing regular white wine with the fizzy stuff in recipes.

For dessert: strawberries and the rest of the Saumur.

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Tagged

La Bella Sognatrice at Bleeding Espresso tagged me for an interesting meme yesterday.

"The Seven Songs I Would Pick If I Could Only Listen To Seven Songs For The Rest Of My Life, Which, Yeah, Like Someone Is Going To Impose That Condition On Me, And Assuming I Can Even Come Up With Seven.”
Wow.
The original meme asked for "Seven Songs You Are Into Right Now."
I was given the choice and I chose the former, which is much more fun!
My jet lag kept me up half the night anyway, so I had plenty of time to think about seven songs. Why do I always get tagged for meme's when I have jet lag?

1. Because it invokes memories of afternoons drinking champagne and dancing in my backyard in the Seattle summer sun with my girlfriends, ABBA's Dancing Queen definitely makes the list.

2. Annie Lennox is a goddess. I loved her with Dave Stewart in the Eurythmics and I love her on her own. There are several of their/her songs that could make this list but if I have to chose just one it would have to be Erased. "Well here I go, remembering again. All the anger and the blame. People in glass houses shouldn't throw those stones. But...something just flew through my windowpane." The pain and bitterness are palatable.

3. Wonderful! Wonderful! by Johnny Mathis. A great song with sweet lyrics. It is forever etched in my mind however, as the music in a wicked X-Files episode entitled Home.

4. This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) by the Talking Heads. I just love this one.

5. Sheryl Crow is another one I love and choosing just one song was tough, but A Change has got to be it. "Hello its me. I'm not at home. If you'd like to reach me, leave me alone."

6. Via Con Me by Paolo Conte. Another song full of the lyrics "it's wonderful, it's wonderful." (is there a theme here?) I love his raspy voice.

7. I need at least a couple of good songs to dance and sing along to, so after Dancing Queen I have to add Copacabana by Barry Manilow to the list. Poor Lola with that faded feather in her hair. The ultimate karaoke song.

I'm going to tag Donna, Susan, who loves her music, Sam and Laurie. Take your pick of which meme to do and let's see what you come up with!

Thanks Sognatrice! This was a fun meme!

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Watch Out Easter Bunny

What is the deal with all the rabbit cooking going on?
I wanted some new recipes for rabbit. It's about time I make another attempt at cooking it. Pin It

Home!

Finally back home in France!

On our drive home from the airport I panicked a bit and thought we were going to be killed by all the Mario Andretti wannabes speeding down the Autoroute. Then I noticed that my husband was also driving like Mario Andretti and calmed down until we hit the back roads and he was driving down the middle of the tiny roads, taking blind corners at 50 miles an hour and I was freaking out and pleading with him to slow down and he was arguing with me that he wasn't doing anything wrong and that he always drove like this and what was wrong with me. It was a tense trip home and I think he would have preferred that he had never come to collect me at the airport.
Yesterday I got behind the wheel of our little car and was driving like my old French self after a couple of kilometers and realized that I too drive around blind corners at 50 miles an hour down the middle of the little roads.
Dear husband, I apologize.
I obviously spent too many weeks driving in America. Pin It

So Very Happy

I took my mom home from the hospital again today. She's finally on the mend and I'm so relieved! We picked up all of her prescriptions, the prices of which are insanely expensive, (I sometimes forget how lucky we are in France) and got her settled back into her home.

A few hours later I met up with a friend I've known since we were four years old. She suggested a local restaurant and when I arrived I realized it was Happy Hour!
$2.99 Margaritas and half price crab cakes, coconut shrimp and artichoke dip.
What a fabulous invention.

All in all, a great afternoon! Pin It

Chinese Take Out

After a harrowing day at the hospital I managed to drive my tired and sorry self to a little Chinese place and order take out. This is one of the things we miss most in France. Take out food, especially Chinese take out.
There's just something about slurping noodles out of those little boxes with a pair of chopsticks... Pin It

Still Here....

My flight home left today...without me.
I made the decision to stay and help my mom for another week as she had to go back to the hospital last Thursday due to complications from her surgery. Hopefully she'll be released again tomorrow and her life will get back to normal.

The last two weeks have been some of the strangest of my life.

I've found myself slipping back into a stressed-out, things-aren't-moving-fast-enough, American much too quickly.
I need to go home! Pin It

Just Answering the Question!

So the other day my friend introduced me to an acquaintance of his and this guy asked where I live and I said, "I live in France" and he said, "really, where in France?" and I replied "in the south of France." (I rarely say exactly where because we live in the middle of nowhere)
Then he said, in this really mocking, sing-songy, bitchy tone, "oooohhhh, you live in the south of France."



No, you jerk, I was fishing for a bitchy retort.

*sigh* Pin It

Notebooks

About 10 years ago I had accumulated an insane number of cooking magazines. They were piled up in the kitchen, on bookshelves and down in the basement. Now that I think about it, I had decorating and home magazines all over the place too. I had recently bought my first house and was going through a nesting stage...
Then one fine day I was in Office Depot or Staples or some other office supply store (I have a secret fetish for paper products and pens) and saw some clear, plastic sheet protectors and a little light bulb went off in my head.
These are the result.

I tore out all the recipes I wanted to keep from those magazines, resulting in loads of space in my house for some new magazines! And new cookbooks!

The original ring binder notebook style.

The 20-40 page pre-made sheet protector notebooks they sell in France. I've had mixed results with these. Some have very flimsy plastic so when you slide the sheet of paper into it, the seams rip open. Now I look for heavy duty plastic pages.

I keep notebooks for home and decorating ideas, places I want to travel and miscellaneous stuff, in addition to the growing number of cooking, food and wine related one's.
Organizing at its finest!

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Things I'm Taking Back to France

Before each trip to the States we have a look around the house and (mainly) the kitchen to make The List.

Last trip it included;
tofu for making Szechuan mapo tofu
Reese's Pieces for our young, English neighbors
tea for Riana
Crystal Hot Sauce-I have a love affair with this stuff
hominy for making posole, a Mexican soup that includes pork, avocado, lime and cilantro
clothes and shoes I'd ordered with a gift card
and not on the list-a virus I caught on the airplane

This trip I have a lot more space in my luggage;
Airborne to keep me from getting sick again when I fly home!
Emergen C-same as above
bagels for my husband-his great love
chili powder for it's obvious use
dried chili peppers to use in recipes from Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen
Reese's Pieces (the girls ate the last bag in three days!)
Karo Syrup because I sometimes need it
assorted birthday cards as they are difficult to come by in our little corner of France and usually really expensive
peanut brittle from the Davenport Hotel here in Spokane, Washington-addictive and divine
rewritable DVD's as they cost a fortune in France
M A C lipstick in Odyssey
cans of chipotles in adobo sauce for use in dozens of recipes
Snoqualmie Falls Lodge oatmeal-never mushy

As soon as I have a chance to get to the grocery store I know I'll find many more items and end up with a suitcase that I can barely zip shut. It happens every time.


Update
My mom is doing much better and should be going home from the hospital today. She'll be so happy to be home and her cat will be very happy to have her there! Pin It

Mutt Lynch Winery

Sitting here in Schiphol Airport, waiting for my flight to Seattle so I decided to rent a computer for an hour. This is a post I started a couple of days ago but didn't have time to finish.

There are some great pet stores in New Orleans so whenever I go back I like to check out all the fun and frivolous pet stuff that I don't see in our corner of France.
One of my favorite's, maybe having two chihuahua's has something to do with it, is a quirky little shop in the French Quarter called Chi-wa-wa Ga-ga, "A Small Store for Dinky Dogs". The owner, Angel, is a really cool woman who carries her very mellow chihuahua, Angelo, around in her bag. She takes him to movies and everything! He loves to go along and does very well to not call attention to himself.
While browsing in some shops out on Magazine street I came across another tempting shop called Petcetera. This place is jam packed with everything you need and didn't know that you needed for your cats and dogs. They offer a free, locally published magazine called Urban Dog which has some interesting articles and some ad's that really caught my attention.
Like the one for a winery with dogs on the label. I decided to have a look at their website...

Out in Sonoma County, California, live a dog-loving couple with a sense of humor who have created a winery called Mutt Lynch Winery. Now I'm not a great fan of California wine, but I am a lover of dogs and think their less than serious approach to wine making is refreshing.
Their labels are fantastic!



I read some reviews of their wine, which are consistently good. I hope to buy a bottle for myself while I'm in the States and give it a try. Pin It

Leaving on a Jet Plane

In a few hours I'll be boarding an airplane in Toulouse and heading to Spokane, Washington to be with my mom. I hope to be able to use her computer while I'm there, but if not, I'll be writing again around the 20th.
A bientôt. Pin It

Cravings

It's four freaking o'clock in the morning. My codeine cough syrup wore off, I woke up and I'm hungry.

This is what I'm craving. A fried shrimp po' boy.

Looks pretty good, huh? Too bad I can't go out and order one!


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Feeling Like My Old Self

This virus has finally released me from it's bondage. I feel like a human being again, not a tired, crabby, dismal blob. My husband is breathing a huge sigh of relief because I have not been much fun to be around lately!

And I've been cooking again.
Thursday night I made two dishes from Meena's inspiring blog, Hooked on Heat, for my husband's Bridge group. The meal was fabulous! Dahiwali Chicken Curry, Alu-Pyaaz Fry (Fried Potatoes with Onions) and Basmati rice. Merci Meena!
Last night two American friends came by for dinner and I made this wonderful dish. The original recipe didn't call for chili flakes, so feel free to leave them out if you don't want the extra kick. And I doubled the recipe to serve four. The chicken was tangy, moist and perfectly matched with the lemony chickpeas. I started the meal with a spinach salad with warm bacon, shallot dressing.

Spicy Mustard Chicken with Chickpeas
serves 2

1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp red chili flakes
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
4 chicken thighs, skin on, bone in
400g (13oz) tin chickpeas
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Juice and grated zest of 1 lemon
3 tbsp chopped parsley

1. Heat the oven to 425 degrees, or 220C (gas mark 7). Combine the mustard, chili flakes, balsamic vinegar, olive oil and one clove of garlic, and brush the chicken thighs with the mixture. Season well with salt and ground pepper.

2. Heat a frying pan over a medium heat and, when hot, add the chicken, skin side down. Sear for 3-4 minutes, then turn it over. Remove the pan from the heat and baste the chicken with any remaining marinade. If the pan has a heatproof handle, transfer it to the heated oven; otherwise, transfer the chicken to a baking dish and place in the oven. Roast for 15-20 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked and golden.

3. While the chicken is cooking, drain and rinse the chickpeas. Place them with the extra virgin olive oil, remaining garlic and the lemon juice and zest in a saucepan over a gentle heat and warm thoroughly. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper. Just before serving, stir in the parsley.
4. Serve the warm chickpeas with the chicken.

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