Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving! Need for a simple and last minute recipe for apple pie?

OK, this is my grand mother's.

Make a dough with 1 1/2 cup of flour, 1/3 cup of butter, 2 tablespoon of granulated sugar, 2 tablespoon of sour cream, my little secret. Mix everything together until it has the shape of a bowl, and put the dough in the fridge for an hour. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin and put it in a baking dish on a parchment paper. You can also us a ready to use dough(I like the Pillsbury one - pie crust).

Cut the apples in slices and spread them on the dough with each slice recovering partly the previous one. Then spread on the apples 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar and small slices of butter.
Bake for 30 to 35 min in a pre-heated oven to 400F.

Guess what : the smell in my apartment is great, and the pies will be ready to celebrate Thanksgiving in my son's class tomorrow! Happy thanksgiving!

Monday, November 22, 2010

Shiny soup for grey and cold weather

You know I love lentils. Here is a recipe of my friend Françoise who leaves in Poland. She enjoys there, as in Boston, very cold weather and has become the world champion of soups.
The lentils and tomato soup is one of my favorite.

You need one onion, lentils, a can of diced tomatoes, curry powder and a can of coconut milk.

Dice the onion and fry it until translucent, add 1 cup of lentils, salt, 2 teaspoons of curry and the diced tomatoes, and cold water of course. Cook for 1/2 hour and blend it with the coconut milk. Delicious!!

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Now, direct comments and recipes from Paris...


It's been a long time since my last post. Actually, my life has changed again a little bit and we moved back to Paris. A nice apartment right in the center, a very good cheese shop, butcher shop and of course, a bakery just around the corner. It was very difficult to leave Boston but nice, in a way, to go back to Paris.

Well, I unpacked my cooking equipment and utensils recently and went back to my passion. Last thing I tried, was a duck confit gratin. Whaouh! This was just so French just served with a green salad or steamed broccolis.
It's quite simple as soon as you find duck confit. Remove the flesh from the bones and cook it in a frying pan with diced shallots and 1/2 teaspoon of ginger powder for 10 min until it's a bit caramelized.
Slice potatoes, cook them in milk for 10 min.
Then spread the duck confit at the bottom of a gratin dish, then put the potatoe slices shaped like petals or rose windows. Bake in the oven at 350F for 30 min until slightly brown.
Welcome to France and more precisely to Périgord in the south west, The area of the duck confit.