I took out my running shoes today from a box they had been sitting snuggly in for 7 years. I hate running, but since cycling is banned, the swimming pool closed and walking more than 100m up is also out of the question, the boy is running out of options (pardon the pun..) I considered …
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I love making bread with yeast in, really I do.. but sometimes I feel I’m spending the entire day making sure it has risen to just the right point and I get little else done! Kulcha naan is one of our favourite breads partly because of its simplicity but also because it is so light …
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We are all crying out for some serious comfort food right now and Dahl Makhani is the ulimate. For me I love it so much because I get to use the wonderful rich dairy of the region where we live in France with one of my favourite world cuisines. Our recipe is reasonably traditional, the …
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We first came across this delicious nutty spice mix in Australia where we used to eat it with fresh Turkish bread and lashings of local olive oil. For some reason or other I completely forgot about it when we moved to France until this week. Our chickens are giving us a very healthy supply of …
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We along with most of Europe are in total lockdown now. People are allowed out of the house only to go for a 1 hour walk (all other exercise is banned) or for essential food shopping. A walk has to be within 1km of the house and no more that 100m up or down! We …
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Most of Europe basked in sunshine throughout April which got the rhubarb growing much earlier than usual. 6 days after I spotted the first growth we had usable stems! Following on from my goal last summer not to waste a stick of rhubarb, here is the first rhubarb recipe of the season. What is a …
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A slice of cake is not my favourite naughty nibble but offer me a freshly baked, warm Madeleine with my cuppa and you won’t hear me say no. Perhaps it’s because they were first baked in the region of Lorraine! Really, they are a small cake but there is something about the light, warm centre …
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It’s cold here, really cold. I haven’t seen the outdoor thermometer go over -2 in over a week. The mornings are absolutely beautiful; the frost freezes all the bare branches of the trees turning them white so the whole valley looks like a winter wonderland. There is fresh snow on the ground from yesterday and …
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Basil for me is the smell of summer. I absolutely adore this wonderful aromatic herb and love to grow a number of plants so I can always cut it fresh to use, it makes a remarkable difference to both the taste and smell than using pre cut stems. Basil is mostly associated with Italian cooking …
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Neither of us are really jam eaters. In fact, the only time either of us eat jam is when we are staying at a hotel! We started making jam for the breakfast we serve at Chalet Cannelle in the first summer we lived in Chatel. It was July, and I remember it well as I …
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