Old-fashioned chicken soup and dumplings

From Daily Galette by Murielle Helgeson

February 16, 2009

Menu du jour:
Chicken soup and dumplings
Coeur fondant tout chocolat (individual chocolate cakes)

Just before Christmas, my friend Christine invited us for dinner. It was the day of the big snow storm. She cooked a wonderful chicken soup with dumplings. My parents were visiting us from France and never had this kind of soup before. They loved it! The French are not really good at cooking soups. As far as I know, at least in my family and around, your choice is: a traditional onion soup or a generic vegetable soup (always too thin...). Dumplings are unknown. When I had to translate american recipes for a French website, I had a hard time to find a French word for dumplings.
I was a bit nervous to cook it for the first time, as it is not in my culinary culture. And of course, I had guests tonight!
My friend Christine moved to Spain a couple of weeks ago. I should have called her yesterday to ask for her recipe, but I am not that organized. So I decided to go with a wholefood website recipe (http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/recipe.php?recipeId=388) and I don’t regret it. The dumplings were great, light but tasty, with cormeal, wholewheat flour and regular flour. The silly thing is that I read the recipe too quickly and I just realized 5 minutes ago that it was called chicken and dumplings and not chicken soup and dumplings. It is probably why I had to add a little bit more water...

Friday

From Daily Galette by Murielle Helgeson

February 13, 2009

Menu du soir:
Farfalle with smoked salmon and spinach
Salad

As far as pasta goes, I never follow a recipe.
My parents’ best friends are Italian, from Emilia Romagna (like Marcella Hazan). I always spent one month with them in the summer. Maria’s mother, Pepina, would always cook passatelli the day of our arrival. And Bruno would take us to “Da Max” gelateria, for our first ice-cream of the summer (in France we don’t really eat ice-cream). Those were the days...
So, part of my cooking education started in Italy. Before I could cook anything else, I had a pretty good sense of how to make pasta sauce.

2/3 pound farfalle
1 shallot
3 oz fresh spinach
3 oz smoked salmon
3 tbsp sour cream
salt and pepper

The thing that I like with this sauce is that it’s done in about 10 minutes. Of course, I would never never cook it for my Italian friends. I would be too scared of their judgement. And I know anyway that they believe that the French can’t cook pasta.

Thursday

From Daily Galette by Murielle Helgeson

February 12, 2009

Menu du soir:
Cauliflower cream
Leftovers (braised pork)

I went grocery shopping a week ago and we are still eating pretty well. I am not that fond of cauliflower, but it is the season. And my kids love soups, any kind of soup as long as it is not too hot.
When I was a kid, my mother would cook cauliflower pretty often, once every other week I believe, always in a “gratin” with her great béchamel and a generous layer of gruyère. So here’s, maman, something else to do with a cauliflower:

1 onion
1 glove of garlic
1 head of cauliflower, cut in florets, oven roasted (for about 30 minutes) with a little bit of olive oil
2 potatoes, diced
4 cups of vegetable or chicken stock
2 tbsp of sour cream
salt and pepper
1/2 tsp ground cumin

Heat 1 tbsp of olive, add onion and garlic and cook for a couple of minutes.
Add the potato, salt and pepper and cook for another 5 minutes.
Pour the stock, salt, pepper and cumin. Bring to a boil.
Add the cauliflower and simmer for about 20 minutes.
Puree with a stand mixer, with cream.

I ate mine with chopped coriander. My kids preferred grated cheddar on top.

Wednesday

From Daily Galette by Murielle Helgeson

February 11, 2009

Menu du soir:
Leftovers (chili con carne or shrimp curry)
Crème brûlée

Yes, we did it. We managed to eat leftovers!
I just made a dessert tonight, because it felt awkward not to spend any time in the kitchen. But the result was not memorable. I realized however that, since I moved here, I had never cooked a “crème brûlée”. Thinking about it, I remembered that when I tried to make “crème brûlée” in England, I obtained the same slightly curdled substance. So, could it be the cream (I use crème fleurette in France)?

Tuesday

From Daily Galette by Murielle Helgeson

February 10, 2009

Menu du soir:
Braised pork in honeyed milk
Roasted potatoes and turnips
Steamed broccoli

My husband was laid off a couple of months ago. As I am only working part time, it means that our budget is pretty limited. But we love food and the situation would be even more depressing if we could not enjoy nice meals anymore.
I’ve always been pretty cautious about money. So I am not completely changing my habits about grocery shopping. I must admit unfortunately that I’ve been buying fewer organic products: right now I choose the 2.99 Trader Joes regular gallon of milk over the 5.49 organic one.
For grocery shopping, I try to follow a few practical rules: I want it to last about a week; I don’t want to go in more that 2 stores and I try to spend between 100 and 140 dollars.
So back to my menu: this week, I bought this big piece of pork, pork butt to be precise. Even if I translated recipes from english into french for allrecipes website, I am still not completely familiar with meat names. OK for pork butt, I don’t need a picture. But in french, I always have an immediate association with one of those old-fashioned french recipes, like “jarret de porc aux lentilles”. Anyway, when I decided to cook it, I realized that a 5 pounds of fatty pork was maybe not a great idea. Yes, we need lefovers, as there are more of us eating lunch at home these days. Yes, 5 dollars is a good price. But only if the result gives us satisfaction. So I looked quickly at my cooking books and between Marcella’s “arrosto di maiale al latte” and Tyler Florence’s “veal braised in milk and honey”, I made up my own braised pork butt and it was delicious, melt in the mouth and more! I had to stop my son after a second helping, advicing him that his stomach would not take a third one.

1 piece of pork butt (4-5 pounds)
About 1/2 gallon of milk
2 tbsp of honey
1 carrot
4 gloves of garlic, pealed
a few sage leaves
a couple of rosemary sprigs
salt and pepper

First, brown the pork on all sides in a large heavy pot. Then pour the milk, the
honey, salt and pepper. Add the carrot, garlic gloves, rosemary and sage.
Cover and cook at low temperature (300/350F) in your oven, for about 3 hours.
You can reduce the cooking broth a little bit and use it as a sauce.

It was really good with roasted potatoes and turnips. Next time, I might try it with baked apples.

Monday

From Daily Galette by Murielle Helgeson

February 9, 2009

Menu du soir:
Red shrimp, sweet potato and mango curry (adapted from Nigella Express)
Rice

I often say that the only store that I would really miss when/if I move back to France is Trader Joe. Tonight’s dinner was almost exclusively coooked with its products, in about 30 minutes: frozen shrimp, cubed mango, coconut milk, coriander, cashew nuts, lime, organic basmati rice. OK, some ingredients are frozen. But it is a zero mess, super fast, really tasty curry anyway!

2 scallions chopped
1 lb shrimp
1 lb sweet potatoes cubed
2 cups mango cubes
14 oz coconut milk
1 tbsp red curry paste
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 lime juice

Fry the scallions in a little bit of oil, add the curry paste and stir for 1 min.
Add the coconut milk and fish sauce and bring to a boil.
Add the cubes of sweet potato and cook, at medium/low temp. for about 20min.
Add lime juice, shrimp and mango, and bring back to boil. Then simmer for a couple of minutes.
Top with fresh coriander and cashew nuts.

You can add more curry paste if you like it hot. But for my kids, I try not to make it too spicy, otherwise they complain. Sometimes I use chicken instead of shrimp and I add butternut squash and carrots. I love to make a large batch, as it makes great leftovers. Well, it is always hard in my family to have leftovers, but it is another story...

Menu du jour

From Daily Galette by Murielle Helgeson

February 8, 2009

I feel lazy tonight. Someday soon, I will explain why I am writing on this blog. Well, I can start quickly:
- My mother, who lives in France, always wants some new ideas and recipes. I regularly tell her all the new things that I cook and she keeps asking for recipes. But I am lazy and I very rarely take the time to give her the ingredients and measures...
- My dear friend, Christine, just moved to Spain. We share a love for cooking. I want to keep this connection with her, tell her what the menu is today and eventually create something with her.
- I never cook a separate menu for my kids (George-6, Julia-3) and it is so convenient! Our family menus could give ideas to buzy moms who don’t want to cook twice the same evening. Of course, my kids are half French and ate raw milk Camembert very early. But it’s worth trying.
Well, I really need to go and watch “desperate housewives”.

Au menu ce soir:
- Chili con carne (Black beans, red kidney beans and steak), inspired from this BBC recipe
- Blue cheese and spinach salad
- Tarte au citron