Eating up and eating out

That just about sums up our week as far as food goes – well, almost …

Monday we were shopping with friends in Biarritz and had lunch out. We find if we eat a main meal at lunchtime then we only need a light snack in the evening and usually cheese is the default option. Though maybe a slice of lemon polenta cake and ricotta cream might have crept in too!

We had some chicken leftover from the coq au vin and John had the great idea to take the meat from the bones and chop it with a sharp knife into fine dice and then mix it with some of the leftover sauce of the coq au vin to give a kind of ‘chicken bolognese’ which we ate with some wide pasta. It sounds rather bizarre but it worked and tasted fabulous.

salmon Wellington

Wednesday we were doing a bit of testing for a St Valentines pot-luck dinner we are hosting this coming Thursday. We are cooking the main course and as we have a non-meat eater we decided on salmon en croute but to make it a bit special we are going to try to create individual salmon Wellingtons and we were experimenting with different fillings to go with the salmon. The result will be revealed after the 14th!

We met friends for an aperatif Thursday evening and needed a quickly prepared meal when we got in. A stir fry of a piece of pork and various vegetables we needed to use flavoured with ginger, garlic and sweet chilli sauce made an easy supper.

The venue for the drink is an interesting window on french life. We refer to it as ‘the garage’ – it is in fact a petrol filling station on the edge of town and the office where you pay for your petrol has a bar. It’s been owned and run by the same family for at least two generations which probably explains this throwback to a different time. And of course since smoking is not allowed by law in bars any longer if you are a smoker then you must step outside and smoke – on the petrol forecourt! You think we are joking? No we are not. Only in France and it’s one of the many reasons we love you. Please don’t ever change.

Friday evening we were invited to a french friend’s home for an aperitif but it was postponed as workmen had turned up at the beginning of the week to replace all of her windows and heating system and neither she nor her home were in a state to entertain, so we joined friends at a local bar that serves English fish and chips on a Friday evening. For lunch a frittata used up more vegetables and eggs that had sat in the fridge longer than we liked and we livened it up with some spicy chorizo we had bought on our recent trip to Spain. A salad garnish cleared out the remnants of salad too.

baked potato beans and cheese – yum!

Strange how your mood is affected by the weather? Last week continued pretty wet which has mostly been the story this year. But it is very mild too so the garden is already rushing into new growth and we haven’t been able to get out to start the Spring tidy-up which is quite frustrating. We are hoping we don’t get a sudden hard frost to kill it all off as we did February last year.  The veg patch needs turning over and fertilizing but it is just too wet – the whole garden is like a giant sponge oozing water. So we potter around indoors and seek comfort food which yesterday included this baked potato with beans and cheese – not classy or haute cuisine we know and definitely not on our low GI diet plan but sometimes it’s just what you need and you can’t resist can you?

We were at friends for dinner last night and are again tonight to celebrate Chinese New Year. In one week we’ve managed to completely blow the New Year’s resolution out of the water!