Friday 30 July 2010

summer home cooking

I just love making those stuffed tomatoes and peppers. They are the ultimate summer comfort food, if there ever was such a thing. Back home in France, every family has their own recipe, and evryone's is different.
My own recipe is my grand-mother's, although I have had to alter it a bit, for lack of not finding "rillettes" as easily as I'd like over here.
The stuffing itself is quite fun to make, but a bit time-consuming, so I always make a very big batch of the dish, and freeze half for another time.
If you're having friends around and want something different, or if you're not into BBQs, then this is definitely the dish for you!

This is for six huge tomatoes and three peppers.

First step - prepare the vegetables
* Cut a "hat" off the tomatoes, keep it for later. The bigger the tomatoes, the better!
* With a spoon, delicately empty the inside of your tomatoes and keep the flesh and juice in a bowl.
* Leave your tomatoes upside down to drain - you don't want too much juice.
* Halve peppers lengthwise and take out the seeds.

Second step - the stuffing
 Basically, just mix all the following ingredients together, and season with salt and pepper. Depending on your taste, you can even blend the whole mix together, but I prefer it to be a bit coarser, so I just mix mine by hand.

* sausage meat - about 500 g.
* creme fraiche - three or four big spoonfuls
* three eggs, whole
* a big bunch of parsley, chopped finely
* three cloves of garlic, chopped finely
* flesh of the tomatoes, chopped up (I try and avoid the seeds)
* stale bread (soaked in the juice of the tomatoes)

Finally, stuff your tomatoes and peppers with the (moist but not runny) mix, adda little hazelnut of butter on every vegetable, put the hats back on the tomatoes, and put in the pre-heated oven at 190 for about an hour, or until golden. Bon appetit!


Let me know how yours turn out!

Thursday 29 July 2010

My blog is ONE!

Today is my first blog-birthday!

Exactly one year since I decided to join the marvellous world of blogging actively. I have been an avid reader of many of your works for a long time, though, and cannot cease to be amazed at what goes on everyday out there! The inspiration in terms of cooking, sewing, and life projects are awesome1
To celebrate, I have concocted a new banner (well, it's mostly thanks to Shabbyblogs). I am sooo rubbish with all IT tools, though, it's taken me about an hour (no kidding) to work out how to format it and size it perfectly...such a loser!
Anyway, I'm really happy to have been around for the last 12 months, and am super grateful for all the nice comments from everyone around the world, and for having a few followers, it's a bizzarre but oh-so cool feeling.

Talking of projects earlier, I am working really hard on the wedding favours for December (not my wedding, sadly) , and will be showing them soon - patience! It is quite hard to pitch it right, I think. I have tried the inevitable Martha for some inspiration, and absolutely adore what she does. Here's what she has on her site at the moment...isn't it just lovely?
Well, let's just hope the future bride nad groom like the favous I am preparing at the moment!








Tuesday 27 July 2010

patchwork baskets

Going away is nice. You experience new things, meet new people and have wonderful chats whilst sharing a few drinks. But nothing beats coming home when you've been gone for a while. All in all, I have been away from home an awful lot over the last couple of months, and I am really enjoying finding my marks again, lazing around, and making good use of my kitchen.
Last weekend I made a gorgeous raspberry trifle using Delia's cheat recipe and it turned out beautifully! I am also planning to make some stuffed tomatoes, a typical French summer dish with sausage meat. I'll let you have the recipe when I get round to it.
In the meatime, I want to show you my very first patchwork experience - a basket I made with Atina Alga's precious guidance during the holidays. It is made using Pink Penguin's free tutorial. Available here.





Atina'a tools for cutting patchwork quares are simply amazing and I still cannot believe how much easier it was to cut pieces of fabric. I never really thought about getting anything like this, but I can really see how useful it can be...something to think about!

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