Wilson the Piggy, Baba au Rhum and Cannelés!!!

I know, this post might shock some of you, but then, this is life in the French Countryside!

Photo taken by Virginie of the Boudin I gave her

A couple of years ago after having moved to the countryside from Paris, I went for the first time to the 'Journée du Cochon' - Pig slaughtering day! This means that with a friend or two, you buy a pig from a farmer and he feeds and raises it for a whole year and when winter comes, it is time to do the slaughtering. Not for the faint hearted but then, being a pucker 'Boeremeisie', am certainly not that 'faint hearted! This is a dying tradition here in France as with all the Europeen sanitary rules and regulations, this happens less and less.

Early morning you go to the farmer's home, the piggy gets killed and bled (to make the 'Boudin Noire' - black pudding) and it then gets cut up by the butcher. At the end of the day there's terrines, and black pudding and andouillette (kind of a tripe sausage), and numerous cuts of meat ready for your freezer.  

The tradition is that one shares the black pudding (normally you have quite a couple of meters) with friends and family and so last Friday night we had a 'Soirée Cochon' with friends! After a Lentil and Coconut soup, we had the first terrine made from Wilson and then we had the black pudding with sautéed apples and a celeriac purée. Our friends from Paris, Samuel and Noel made the dessert which was the most délicious 'Baba au Rhum' - Rum Baba -  that has soaked in rum for 2 days and in stead of whipped cream, Noel made a 'Crème Chibouste (Crème Chiboust is a crème pâtissière (pastry cream) lightened with whipped cream or stiffly beaten egg whites) !

The history of 'Rum Baba  - thank you once again Wikipedia!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_baba

Our evening ended in the early hours of the morning, and everyone agreed, Wilson, bless his soul, gave us all tremendous pleasure!

Also on Friday, the batter for the' Cannelé bordelais' was mixed and left for 24 hours to be baked late yesterday!! A delicious treat we took to friends where we went for dinner on Saturday night! 

I found the perfect recipe for Cannelés on the following website for you! 
http://www.cuisine-french.com/cgi/mdc/l/en/recettes/canneles_ill.html

For : 20 cannelés Time : 1 h 45 Difficulty :  medium    Ingredients for Cannelés 2 : 1 liter of milk 2 vanilla pods 500 g of icing sugar 4 whole eggs 4 egg yolks 200 g of flour 100 g of butter 30 ml of rum

Technical stages for Cannelés 2 :

	1 Prepare all ingredients.
	2 Bring the milk to a boil, add the vanilla pods split in two.
	3 Infuse and let cool.
	4 Cream the icing sugar with the eggs and the egg yolks.
	5 Add the sifted flour and the milk...
	6 ...cold melted butter...
	7 ...and the rum.
	8 Mix well.
	9 Pour this mixture...
	10 ...in cannelés Elastomoule cannelés mold.
	11 Bake at 180°C or 356°F...
	12 ...for about 1h10.
	13 At the end of cooking let cool slightly before unmoulding. To turn over the mould and to withdraw cannelés by giving a light pressure on the bottom of the silicone mould.

What they did not say in this almost perfect recipe, is that according to Noël, it is much better if you leave the batter for 24 hours before baking AND for the first 10 minutes of baking, the heat of your oven must be very high(240°) so that it caramalise the cannelés!.


Life is about sharing
Bisous
Lynn

Promises suite...

Allready it is a couple of mornings that I am waking up in our new bedroom! YES!! After 7 and a half years of tinkering away, making nice rooms for the guest, we at long last have moved into our bedroom! There's pics to show - but that will be another chapter! Just had to share this with you quick! And what is more, I can sit in bed and work on my computer!!!! So you might get posts a bit more often! But then around 16 posts in just over a month is not too bad a start n'est pas?

So I thought that I shall give you my favourite bobotie recipe base - step by step today! 

INGREDIENTS:

2 Onions

Oil or butter (I use a mixture of the 2)

1kg minced meat (mutton, beef or leftovers of your sunday roast)

(I replace the meat with white fish eg hake as we eat very little meat!)

Couple of slices of old bread

250 ml milk

2 eggs

15 ml curry powder

22,5 ml sugar

10 ml salt

2,5 ml pepper

7'5 ml tumeric

30 ml vinegar or juice of one lemon

Almond slivers

125ml dried raisins

Lemon or Bay leaves to decorate

45 ml Chutney

METHOD:

Preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F)

Peal onions, chop small and fry in hot oil till a little brown, add curry and meat (or fish) and continue until everything is almost cooked.

In a seperate dish, mix the bread in 125ml of milk and when thoroughly soaked, add the rest of the ingredients except 1 egg, and the leaves.

Place in an ovendish and bake for about 40 to 45 minutes.

About 20 minutes before the end, mix the rest of the milk with egg and pour over the mixture.

Serve with rice and chutney.

This is the very traditional way of doing Bobotie. (As can be found in the 'Bible' of South African Cook books, Cook and Enjoy by S.J.A. de Villiers - Cook and Enjoy celebrated it's 50th Bday in 2001 - since 1951, more than half a million copies was sold)

You can imagine that it is rather difficult for me to stick to recipes, so I normally do my Bobotie portion size in silicone molds. With the leftover mixture, I do little bite size boboties for our 'apéritif'.

And when I am left with still more, I roll the mixture in Philo sheets (almost like thick cigares) and then make Bobotie springrolls!

Once again let that imagination flow-who need to stay on the highway? Go off that beaten track to discover life's surprises!! Go for it!

Life is about sharing

Bisous

Lynn

tales of a year gone by

A couple of years ago I started a kind of twice yearly newsletter to fill in our friends and family on what we're up to here Aux Jardins des Thevenets, timmering away at our old lady , slowly but surely getting her back to her former splendour. With our Bed and Breakfast that took off at a fast rate, this fell a bit by the wayside! So I thought this is quite a good idea, and way ,to share with all as I am rather motivated with this blog business! (All your fault Pam!!)

2009 - where shall I start??

In January I organised a small trip to Venise to celebrate O's 50th birthday and it was GLORIOUS! Venise in the winter, misty, mysterious, cosy - so many things! We stayed in a divine newly renovated palace 'Ruzzini Palace Hotel' on the Campo Santa Maria Formosa. Thanks to some friends we had the wonderful chance to go to a concert at La Fenice! and of course then there's the incredible Rialto market!! (But that will be another post as I am busy working on a Market one for you all!)

O did a small website with some of our pics of this marvelous trip! -

http://www.chaulieu.net/LOVenise/Site/LOvenise.html

I have been a very lucky and privileged girl this year - 3 of my friends from school days came to visit in March! Ilse, all the way from Bahrain, Lynette and Toni from South Africa. We've known each other for more than 33 years. First we had a wonderful time together in Paris and then we came down to our campagne. Visiting, eating and drinking away merrily!

The girls on top of the Puy de Dôme, a volcanic mountain here in the Auvergne

In April, well we had to start work and earn money with our rooms and thanks to a beautiful article we had in a Dutch Glossy, we had more than 30 weeks filled up with delicious Dutch guests! Dank uw wel!!

O also attacked the outside of the Pigeonnier in all earnest and thanks to 2 friends from the village, Jean-Yves and Philippe, did a beautiful job on the lime plastering!

It was open to the public during the patrimonial weekend we normally have once a year here in France and O had an article in our local newspaper!

http://www.lamontagne.fr/editions_locales/vichy/meme_plus_peur_du_vertige_pour_rendre_un_pigeonnier_au_patrimoine@CARGNjFdJSsHExsGBRU-.html

Then the next couple of months just wooshed past in such a flash of activity and cooking and lovely guests and great moments and and and that I have a kind of blank and too much to write about.

But it bought us to the end of the summer when we took off a couple of days to go and chill on the lovely little island off the west coast of France, Ile d'Yeu! (http://www.ile-yeu.fr/) Great fish and long bicycle rides and just doing nothing but eating and reading and relaxing.

Thus we were ready and prepared for the fall where we had our first group with PAM!! 

The Gypsy Chef!

I allready did a post on that and you can go and have a look at 'Pam and the Groovy Gang' and have a peek at her Blog as well  - http://thegypsychef.blogspot.com/ (all her fault if I stared blogging!!)

And more guests and then a well deserved break in South Africa for me whilst Olivier stayed at here Aux Jardins des Thevenets (without guests)

And of course a year cannot just fly past with all just being hunkey dorey n'est pas? (Or as the french loves saying ': La vie n'est pas un long fleuve tranquille' - Life is not a long tranquil river)          Last photo of Fluffy
One of the sad moments of this year was the departure to cat paradise of our wonderful Fluffy who has been a fantastic companion for over 9 years! He will always be my number one fluffpot! So regal and beautiful!!

And now we're just tinkering along, doing some repairs and Olivier is welding and sawing like a master craftsman on his Eiffel-like structure that will be the base of the bathroom and staircase in the Dove House!
Watch this space for more!!!

So in a nutshell I gave you a bit of an overview of 2009. 
Thank you to all of you for the support and love and encouragement. Without you, our task will just seem even more daunting.


Life is about sharing and here's to sharing lots more with you in 2010!
Bisous
Lynn

Promises!!!!

Sometimes modern technology can certainly do it's tricks!! 

I wrote a nice intro for my promises post and when I looked again, all whiped out! So here goes again!

I know - I know - I've made some promises of recipes in some of the posts last year! One of my new year's resolutions is to take more pics and give you more recipes!! PROMISE!!

So watch this space for posts after this festive season when all is gray and dull and the twinkly lights of Xmas becomes a vague souvenir!

 

Our New Year's eve table here Aux Jardins des Thevenets

But all I actually want to say today (apart from making promises) is that I hope you all have a wonderful 2010

and that your weirdest, wildest whishes will come true!

As I said on my Facebook Page :

May we all slide with our hot bums over the butter of life!

Life is about sharing!!

Bisous

Lynn