Keeping vampires away, but not during the working week!

I love garlic. I love cooking with garlic.  I love the smell of garlic.  I love the taste of garlic.  I, however, do not like the smell of stale garlic …. on mine or someone else’s breath.

As a result of this strong dislike, I have – what my husband thinks is – a rather silly habit of not eating garlic during the working week. My job entails a lot of meetings in my not-overly-large office and I am very conscious of being up close and personal with people.  I mean, who wants to smell stale garlic on someone else – or any other less than pleasant odour for that matter??

So, when we come to France, I indulge.  We have a lot of garlic!  We have garlic with everything possible.   We buy bread daily in France for a couple of reasons; firstly, if you are going to gorge yourself on white bread, then it must be fresh and, secondly, I like to keep a baguette to hand in case I want to make garlic bread to eat alongside our evening meal.

I made the mistake once of making garlic bread with Elephant garlic – wow!!  Apart from nearly burning our throats, I think any vampires from here to Transylvania would have been kept away!!  That was seriously strong stuff.

There are many types of garlic available over here in France and when we visit the local market every Friday there is a stall dedicated to the little bulb.  Hardneck and softneck varieties, including purple stripe, black, smoked and, at this time of year, we mustn’t forget the gloriously fragrant wild garlic.  We have some wild garlic in our garden, although we didn’t know until we cut the grass and the wonderful scent filled the air.  If I had known earlier (before we it ended up in the grass cutting box on the lawn mower!) then this definitely would have ended up in the kitchen.

Roasted garlic is a fantastic way of preserving garlic – especially if, like me, you bring ‘ropes’ of it back to the UK with you – and it gives the taste in garlic bread and pasta sauces an unexpected sweet twist.

All you need are ‘some’ (the choice is yours as to number) heads of garlic and takes the tops off them.  Then drizzle a couple teaspoons of olive oil over each exposed head, using your fingers to rub the olive oil over all the cut, exposed cloves. Cover the bulb with aluminum foil. Bake at 400°F (205°C) for 30-35 minutes, or until the cloves feel soft when pressed.  You can then store these in olive oil and squash them into your cooking as required.  Gorgeous!

Above all else though garlic is good for you.  It is brimming with vitamins and aids digestion.  It helps to lower cholesterol (maybe with the exception of my extra buttery garlic bread!) and can also regulate blood pressure as well as blood sugar levels.

Maybe smelly breath is a small price to pay for the benefits eating garlic can bring and, as my husband constantly tells me, I should just get over my silly ‘no garlic in the working week’ rule….. but, until that time, I have another ten days in France which means plenty more of the good stuff…… so, for now, just pass me the extra strong mints!

Breakfast of Kings….

For a healthy life we are told to ‘Eat breakfast like a King, eat lunch like a Prince and eat supper like a pauper’.  This way your body takes in all the energy it needs for the day ahead first thing and then, by the time supper comes around,  we eat a light meal which is easy to digest before bed.  Makes perfect sense…… BUT does it work in reality?

Well, not for me it doesn’t.  I am the person who would prefer to have an extra ten minutes in bed and then have my coffee at the office and the mere thought of eating anything – especially anything ‘wholesome and heavy’ – first thing in the morning makes my stomach turn.

I do my best to eat breakfast in the office – I take porridge pots and fruit in with me – but invariably the day takes hold and the porridge stays in my handbag and the fruit slowly ripens on my desk, until I get to throw it away later in the week!  On really busy days I can also end up skipping lunch and these are the days I arrive home starving hungry – or is the correct word ‘hangry’!!!??

So, that is me during term time, but I have the luxury of being able to work away from the office outside of these dates and even more luxurious is the fact my ‘out of term office’ is in South West France.  Here, I don’t have to rush.  Here I can have a slow start to my day with a ‘posh’ coffee – ok, it’s not overly ‘posh’ as in the blend, the beans or the brand, but it is ‘posh’ in that I put on a pot of filter coffee and positively enjoy it. Slowly.

After a hour or so, I follow this with breakfast.  Again, nothing overly fussy or fancy.  Normally just a bowl of porridge with some fruit, nuts and seeds.  But the fact is, I actually eat breakfast!  Do I feel better for it?  Yes, probably.  I say ‘probably’ because I am not sure if it is the fact  I start my day with a warm drink and some food that makes me feel better or if it just the fact I start my day at a leisurely pace in a relaxed environment that makes me feel happy.

I guess these days the old adage of ‘eating breakfast like a King’ could have two meanings.

Yes, it can mean a big meal to set you up for the day but, in theory, we are all leading busier lives with so many responsibilities with places to go and people to meet and everything can be a rush.  As a result, breakfast could be one of those meals that slips by the wayside as we instead choose to have a few more minutes in bed or need to put the bins out.  This is, of course, unless you are lucky enough to be a King and get it served to you by one of your many courtiers before you go about your business?  Maybe this is the 21st Century meaning….?

Whatever the conclusion, I am enjoying my porridge, my ‘posh’ coffee and the time to take stock and count my blessings – not something I do often enough – and it is definitely making me feel like royalty……. now, where did that corgi run off to?????

 

 

 

 

 

Is it me, or is it a bit cold?

We have recently had a cold snap.  The run up to this was mentioned in the national and local news for days and then dominated the same while we were suffering from sub zero temperatures.  The entire country ground to a standstill and panic buyers invaded the supermarkets buying everything they could lay their hands on.  For about two days you could not buy milk in the supermarket and yet farmers were having to throw away thousands of litres of milk as they could not be collected.  This is the UK in Winter.

By pure coincidence I had visited Finnish Lapland the weekend before all this ‘chaos’.  While staying in this beautiful, ‘Narnia-like’ part of the world we were subjected to temperatures of minus 26 degrees and, despite deep snow EVERYWHERE, our aircraft landed safely (in fact as a nervous flyer, it was one of the best landings I have ever experienced), the roads were still full of traffic and people went about their business as normal.

We stayed for four days and literally had the best time.   From ‘mushing’ huskies to racing reindeers round a circuit and from snowmobiling across frozen lakes to visiting Santa.  It was all incredible.  However, the thing that amazed us both was the quality of the food.  I didn’t know what to expect – I knew there would be pickled ‘stuff” and maybe an odd crispbread or two – but I did not expect the amazing variety of cuisine on offer.

For our first night in the Artic Circle we stayed at the Ice Hotel (yep, we slept in conditions of minus 30 degrees on a bed of ice!) and here the food was rustic and wholesome.  The salmon cooked over an open fire in a Kota (Finnish traditional wooden teepee style building) was just amazing.  On first taste I thought it was too salty, but then you realized it was just the intense taste of the fish.  Hubby isn’t a salmon fan and even he was impressed.

The following couple of nights were spent at the ArticTreeHouse and here we sampled some of the most gorgeous food.  Evening meals consisted of fish (lots of, which I love!), reindeer, elk and the most amazing puddings.   The food itself was divine, however the staff also impressed as they were so knowledgeable about the food they were serving and the provenance of it.  One evening I asked for fish roe on a blini and the waitress let me know this roe was collected by a local woman from the next village who went out and cut a hole in the ice to fish and brought the roe to the hotel.  Food miles = less than one!

When you think of Lapland you think of snow, ice and cold – and maybe Santa!?  No?? Just me then!  But, I shouldn’t imagine you think of summer berries.  They were everywhere – in salads, in puddings, in main courses and in drink – which came as quite a surprise.  One of the best ways I sampled some of these berries was in a warming drink after a day on the snowmobiles.  Glogi  is traditionally only served at Christmas, but we were grateful it was still being served when we visited.  It was lovely.  A little potent, but lovely.

In fact we loved it so much we made it ourselves last weekend.  Often meals, drinks and experiences are so much better while you are on holiday….. well, because you are on holiday.  However, I can honestly say we enjoyed our snowy Cotswolds version as much as our very snowy Lappish version…. well, maybe nearly as much!  If the temperatures drop again, give it a go and see what you think……

Ingredients

• Bottle of red wine
• Couple of shots of run or whiskey (to taste)
• Freshly squeezed juice of one orange
• Zest from one orange
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 4 whole cloves
• half a cup of redcurrants, cranberries of any red berry

Place all the ingredients in to a large pan and heat until warm.  Cheers!

SO, here we are ….

….  after months of running up to the ‘Big 5-0’ and thinking of a little challenge to ‘stop me turning into a cabbage’ (my mother’s concern, not mine!), I have decided that writing a blog would be a fun thing for me to do.

I have been skirting around this idea for a while, but decided nobody would want to read anything I have to say, and I guess time will tell on that score!  Then I recently watched a film called Julia and Julie and it reignited some excitement for the idea of starting a blog and here we are!

The film was about Julie Powell, a blogger in America who made a recipe each day by Julia Child an American chef, author and television personality who was recognised for bringing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’. 

I love cooking.  I love watching cookery programmes and I love reading cookery books.  I also love feeding my family!  For me, love is all about preparing a home cooked meal, such as a Sunday roast and then sitting back and enjoying the pure contentment of everyone sitting round the table eating together.  Home is where the heart is and, for me, the heart of the home is in the kitchen.

This is something instilled in to me by my darling grandma.  The most amazing woman I have ever met.  Mother of four who was unexpectedly widowed at 36.  She took on three jobs to provide for her family and she looked after them, and in turn their spouses and her grandchildren and great grandchildren, until the moment we lost her 12 years ago at the age of 89.  Family was everything to this remarkable woman.  Something I truly hope I have inherited from her.

One of my earliest memories is my grandma taking me to work with her at the bakery in our village.  Forty three years (plus!) on I can still vividly remember the smell of the sugar coated pastry baking for the cream horns my grandma would spend her mornings deftly putting together.

My grandma would make everything from scratch.  From her soups and evening meals through to the lightest of sponges and then the most amazing jams and chutneys.  There was always something ‘simmering’ on the hob – whether a meat bone for a stock or a big pot of chutney, when the smell of vinegar would make your eyes water!

She taught me how to make some of these dishes and I, in turn, am handing these recipes on to my own children.  I plan to do this via a family recipe book.  Something I hope my children will then hand on to their own children to help keep the memory of this amazing woman alive through the generations.

I am incredibly lucky that all three of my children have inherited this love of food and cooking.  My eldest is very adventurous with his recipe choices.  I often find exotic spices and ingredients making their way into my kitchen cupboards after he has been home to visit.  My middle daughter is more traditional in her cooking and food choices – it is beef and game for her and she enjoys the former still moo-ing!  To complete the hat trick, my youngest likes to keep me on my toes and has been vegetarian for about 3 years, so we are always looking for new ways to make cauliflower exciting!

So, I am not overly sure where this blog is going to go at the moment…. I foresee much sharing of recipes as well as ‘Granny used to make’ kind of tips, and alongside this blog I fully intend (time permitting!) to write the family recipe book I have had in the ‘planning stages’ for a couple of years as well as another little project I have in the pipeline, but more about that at another stage.

So, I guess it is time to bite the bullet, press ‘Publish’ and actually see if this little folly of mine is of interest to anyone else. As I said above, time will tell…..