Red Lentil Soup
24 Feb 2012 2 Comments
in Meals, Recipes, Soup Tags: lunch, meal, recipe, soup, student meals, vegetarian, veggie
Unfortunately red lentils are incredibly difficult to find in France, but not in the UK so you have no excuses for not making this rather nice and very healthy soup! Having a clear-out of my drafts section, as can be seen from my flatmates-of-last-year’s bowl and spoon…
Updates and Stuff
18 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in Life en France Tags: ERASMUS, france, life, Strasbourg, study abroad, year abroad
Not really been up to too much recently… been a sensible girl and followed the Doctor’s no-energetic-activities orders, which fortunately coincided with the most prolonged and coldest cold period I have ever experienced: about -10 to -15 minus some more wind chill minus some extra cold wind chill for being on a bike, for two weeks. It’s picked up now and is positively balmy at about 0oC.
Still, I’ve managed to fit in a couple of things other than just sitting in my room and watching 21 Jump Street, the late-80s police drama with Johnny Depp, which has been the latest gem from the library. In the series and a half I’ve so far watched, we’ve had covered AIDS, racism, maltreatment in psyc wards, drug dealing (very instructively, they showed you how to snort cocaine), drink-driving, gay-bashing, Johnny dealing with his mother moving in with someone that she wasn’t married to… it’s a mix between watching for the kick of seeing 80s styles and attitudes, and actually watching it on its own merits, but it’s very good in any case!
But back to the subject in hand… in the IRL journal I skipped a couple of pages I’d written in French because I’m pretentious like that*, not much happened in them but I did note the wonderful British care pack sent by Gillian. Percy Pigs and a French book about Robbie Burns came just at the right time as I was really starting to feel a bit lonely and cut off from the Scottish world!
*well kinda. But my brain is a confused place to be just now with the language mix… “chais pas” (= je ne sais pas = dunno) is just easier to say!
Cooking with Alcohol
06 Feb 2012 3 Comments
in Life en France, Meals, Recipes, Vegetarian Tags: apple, cider, cream, experiments, lentils, mushroom, pasta, recipe, recipes, stroganoff, student meal, student meals, tomato, vegan, vegetables, vegetarian, wine
France has changed me. For one thing, it’s brought me around to cheese. There, I’ve said it. I no longer categorically avoid the yellow and smelly stuff, but definitely appreciate a nice brie (particularly if melted over a toasted baguette and drizzled with honey and walnuts: delish!), or even some grated emmental over a chilli (the nearest France gets to cheddar). I’m even partial to some mushrooms when cooked nicely (see below). The most pertinent-to-this-blog change in my eating behaviours, however, is in my new propensity for adding a nice slosh of wine or cider to my dishes, which is something with which I’d never really experimented before. Which is all well and good when you can pop into the nearest Simply market and have your choice of white, red, or rosé for 1€, but I’m not sure how this is going to translate to my student meals repertoire upon my return to Ecosse. Still, it’s surprising how much of a difference in terms of depth of flavour it really does make to a dish, so I think I’ll be tempted to have some classy wine-in-a-box kept aside.
The below 3 recipes are just some ideas I was throwing around, which you can use as set out or adapt to suite whatever you’ve got around: Tomato Sauce, Mushroom Stroganoff, and Lentil and Apple Stew.
Caramelised Onions
03 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in Meals, Recipes, Vegetarian Tags: meal, recipe, recipes, side, snack, vegan, vegetarian
Further in my quest for something new and tasty (see: bean-burgers), I thought I’d take the extravagant step of caramelising some onions. It tasted really good, but took quite a while – in terms of stovetime rather than effort. Recommended with a baguette, and with or without some steak alongside!
The quantity’s pretty subjective, with the below being probably enough for a 1-person sandwich topping, or for 2 people having it with some meat. Double or triple if you want and it’ll keep for at least a few days.
