Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Bonjour de France!

As some of you know I've been pretty underwhelmed by the food we've been eating so far in France. I know that a lot of the boringness of the food is because there are two young, picky eaters in the house, but I don't want to let my newly discovered baking and cooking skills to get rusty!

Last weekend Hélène was telling me how she had bought those prunes, but never ate them and they were going bad, so she was probably going to have to bake something with them. She didn't sound very excited so I offered to make something with them.

I found this perfectly simple recipe: Plum Tart.

And we even had everything to make it!


[Maizena=cornstarch, in the bowl are the yellow plums, the box with the spout is the poudre sucre (sugar), then there is the flour, lemons, and my make-shift zester.]

The crust was essentially a shortbread cookie, which is one of my favorite cookies!


She didn't have a zester, so I had to use a normal cheese grater to zest the lemon. That's why there is a specific picture just for the zest...I was quite proud that I managed to make zest. :)

I thought it turned out pretty darn cute.


Then I had some time during the day (as I always do), so I decided to make Pane Siciliano, my and Josh's favorite bread from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. One of the reasons it's our favorite is because it makes an AMAZING pizza crust!


(Note: If anyone wants the recipe, I have it conveniently scanned onto my computer, so I could email it to you!)

We made pizza with it last Friday and though neither of the boys really like pizza Hélène and I were perfectly happy eating it all ourselves! Sadly I forgot to take a picture though...

Also, one day last week for lunch I made myself some hash browns...


And even though I didn't take a picture of our pizzas, I did make a calzone with the pizza dough on Monday. It was delicious!

So, even though our dinners aren't very exciting, I still try to make some fun food. And I am thinking that maybe tomorrow the boys and I will make a cake...We'll see how that goes...