There is the traditional gratin Dauphinois (from the Dauphiné region) where the potatoes are cooked in milk, then placed in the oven with butter (NO cheese) the real gratin Dauphinois has no cheese! Even though most people add cheese, the purists will scream and pull their hair when hearing a gratin Dauphinois recipe with cheese, then you have to remove the “dauphinois” in front of the “gratin” to be accurate. I tend to be lenient as far as cuisine is concerned but I really don’t like to give a inaccurate name to a recipe. It’s like people calling me Cynthia instead of Silvia (which they often do).

Then you have less traditional gratins like this one, very delicious but with Roquefort cheese and other additions of vegetables such as mushrooms, etc… This is a one meal dish and perfect with a green salad but I would not call it a light dish due to the potato-cheese content. It should probably be listed on the category “comfort food” to use the American terminology, even though I don’t like the idea that food can be comforting, I would prefer to use the word “simple” instead. I would call a friend “comforting” but not food. Eating too much heavy food, does not leave me comforted, rather the opposite.

You need to slice the potatoes very thin with a mandoline otherwise it takes a little too long to cook them especially if you are using a large dish instead of small individual ramequins. You could also avoid the pre-cooking process of the potatoes, then the cooking time needs to be increased at low temperature. When pre-cooking the potatoes in milk, make sure not to overcook them, and you need a kind that will remain firm, otherwise the potatoes will break and become mushy.

Ingredients for 4

• 2 large potatoes OR 14.10 oz (400 g) of potatoes, sliced thin
• 2 zucchini, sliced thin
• 4 tbs Roquefort cheese, crumbled
• 2 tbs crème fraîche
• 2 tbs Greek yogurt
• about 2 cups milk
• thyme
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Add potatoes in a pot and pour enough milk to cover the potatoes, let cook for about 5 minutes but still need to be firm. Add zucchini and cook for another 3 minutes. Remove from stove and drain. Place potatoes/zucchini in a deep dish and add salt and pepper.

In a bowl combine Roquefort cheese, yogurt and cream, thyme. Adjust with salt and pepper. Roquefort is somehow salty, taste the mixture before add extra salt.

In ramequins place some potatoes/zucchini, then add 1 tbs of Roquefort/cream mixture, proceed with another layer of potatoes and top with Roquefort mixture.

Cook in a pre-heated oven at 375F for about 20-25 minutes or until golden brown and potatoes cooked all the way through.

My downstair neighbor John who happens also to take care of the building, came to show me a cookbook a friend of his offered him, and he wanted me to take a look at it, see if I knew the chef who was French (originally from Brittany) Josephine Araldo. She moved to San Francisco in 1924 and was famous long before Julia Childs was a household name. She owned a restaurant in San Francisco where she was also the chef until she died in 1989. So I looked through the book and I loved it, it’s called “From a Breton Garden“, and Josephine had a lot of recipes that are unknown and that you will not find in any other cookbooks.  Some traditional and less traditional recipes from Brittany, many of them come from her grandma and are quite amazing.

A lot of French cuisine cookbooks are the same with often the same traditional recipes, such as onion soup, boeuf bourguignon, sole meunière, etc…twisted around. I got a gift certificate for my birthday at Borders, and honestly I spent over an hour in the cookbook section and was unable to find something I really really liked. I have tons of cookbooks, I don’t care about traditional French, Italian or Asian cookbook, I am looking for something new and different, with beautiful pictures. If anyone has some suggestions, I will be happy to check them out.

Well, I promised John I would make something from the book and share it with him…so after reading almost all the recipes, I realized I didn’t have all the ingredients I needed. But since I like to keep my promise, I needed to come up with something. I was thinking about those tartlets for a long time and decided to go ahead with them. I was a little disappointed and didn’t want John to be disappointed either that I didn’t make anything from Jospehine’s book. Next time.

I made those tartlets for some of my parties and were always successful. They’re very easy to make, even the dough can be made in a blink of an eye. The crust has a nice golden color due to the wholewheat and almond meal, and the filling has no cream like regular tarts or quiches so it is quite light. I wanted to balance the fat content since roquefort and walnut are somehow fattening ingredients but there is just a little bit of cheese and nuts, so nothing to worry about too much.

Other blue cheeses such as Stilton would work as well.

Ingredients for 6 tartlets

For the crust

• 3.52 oz (or 100 g) wholewheat flour
• 2.8 oz (or 80 g) white flour
• 1.7 oz (or 50 g) kamut flour
• 3 tbs almond meal
• 2.23 fl oz (or 70 ml) olive oil
• water
• a pinch of salt

For the tartlets filling

• 1 1/2 large yellow onions, sliced crosswise
• 6 large tbs roquefort cheese (stilton could work), crumbled
• 3 tbs walnuts, chopped
• 1 tbs balsamic vinegar
• 3 eggs
• 2 tbs parsley, chopped
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tbs olive oil
• salt and pepper

Preparation

For the crust

In a mixing container, combine all the flours together and almond meal. Add olive oil, progressively and salt, then add enough water to make a nice smooth dough. You will see that if water is not enough, the dough will be crumbly.

For the filling

In a non stick pan, heat olive oil, then add onions, salt and pepper. Cook onions stirring in high heat to brown them, then decrease heat at low temperature, cover with a lid and let onions become soft, almost like an onion fondue. Add balsamic vinegar at the end and mix well.

Roll the dough and place in tartlet molds (preferably non-stick molds). Place one layer of onions on top of dough. Add roquefort cheese on top, and walnuts.

In a mixing bowl beat eggs with milk, parsley, salt and pepper. Pour on top of your tartlets.

Cook in a pre-heated oven at 375 for about 20-3-minutes or until the crust is cooked and the top golden brown.

Unmold and serve hot with an endive salad.

I was listening to Yves Montand’s classic song “les Feuilles Mortes” translated by “Autumn Leaves” but it literally means “Dead Leaves” and it never fails, I get tears in my eyes…that song makes me shiver. And yes, automne (fall) is coming…and I felt this soup really is a nice representation of fall, with its yellow and green colors.

Originally I bought this squash to stuff with a goat cheese mousse…it did not make it. I tried to resist for days to not cut it. It was too beautiful to cut and would have been such a great dish if I could have stuck to my plans…but no, I wanted a soup, and the only thing that was left to turn into a soup was this baby. So here. Morale of the story, don’t be too rigid, sometimes you can change plans.

I never get tired of soups, they can be blended, in chunks, cold, whatever, I love them…besides when they’re as healthy as this one, I love them even better, because I do watch roughly my calories intake and my weight. They say French women don’t get fat, well the bad news is, they do get fat, if they eat a lot…They do not have a particular nor wonderful metabolism (and the truth is that I am not even French, I just pretend, because I am just a confused woman).

So my question is why not eat delicious gourmet dishes that are most of all a bundle of health and nutrition (hope my English makes sense). The pancetta is optional, I love its crunchiness on top of the soup though.

The yogurt touch at the end is somehow a substitute to crème fraîche. In France we usually add 1 tbs crème fraîche in any velouté to make it even more velvety (velouté). Yogurt works perfectly fine here, let’s make it light, fat does not necessarily mean flavor anyway. Now do I sound like those “freaks” who watch every little bite they eat and do not enjoy anything always counting calories and talking about non-fat? Please say no, because I am really not, if you know me.

The roquefort tartine is a nice addition to the soup, they really make a pleasant combination of flavors, but you need good walnut bread to truly enjoy the roquefort. Obviously you don’t need to have a tartine to enjoy the soup, but the combination is something to absolutely try. Melting roquefort on walnut bread is a real treat.

I got a little frustrated with my camera today, obviously I am no photographer, I could not shoot anything despite the great light I had coming from the bay window, everything turned out awful, just two shots out of 30 came out just ok and not even great. Too bad you cannot see the white dash of yogurt in the middle of the bowl because of the angle. I have no idea why some days where light is great I get terrible shots and days where it’s all grey, I get decent bright pictures. Is there a little demon in my Canon? Could be. Maybe taking one class or two where I bought this camera would not hurt.

Ingredients for 4

For the soup

• 1 leek
• 6 large sunburst squash
• 1 onion
• 3 tbs fresh oregano, chopped
• 1 tbs olive oil
• vegetable broth
• 4 tbs plain yogurt
• 4 slices of pancetta (optional)
• salt and pepper

For the roquefort tartine

• 4 tbs Roquefort cheese (or any blue cheese)
• 4 slices walnut bread
• pepper

Preparation

Wash leek and cut it in medium size chunks. Wahs squash and cut in quarters. In a large pot, heat olive oil, add onion and let it cook until it becomes transparent. Add 1 1/2 tbs oregano, cook for a few minutes, then add squash and leeks. Cook for another 10 minutes at medium heat, stirring. Add broth. I never measure broth. I add enough so that it covers the quantity of vegetables and that is the perfect quantity for a veloute. Add salt. COver with a lid and cook at medium heat until the vegetables are soft and cooked, about 30 minutes.

Blend using a hand blender or mixer.

In a small bowl, add yogurt and the remaining chopped oregano

In a non-stick pan, cook pancetta until it gets crunchy.

Cut roquefort in slices and place on top of bread. Broil until the cheese has melted.

Serve soup in bowls, adding a tbs of yogurt/oregano mixture in the middle of the bowl and top with a slice of pancetta. Serve with roquefort tartine on the side.

Crumbles are quite trendy in France right now, I think anything with an anglo-saxon name is… Last time I was there, I noticed a few American items such as muffins, crumbles, brownies, cookies, (not to mention hamburgers au MacDo, that’s the way the French call McDonalds), but let’s just forget about McDo for now. Funny how McDonlads are all over France but never really made it to Italy that much and I’m really glad about that.

I was reading an article on Le Monde the other day and it seems like there is a new trend in France and real need for gourmet and organic fast food items that are going to compete with McDonalds and I am so glad that they want to change the traditional fast food concept into a better and more nutritious way of eating. Hopefully soon, you could eat sur le pouce (on the thumb) when you don’t have time to eat and still enjoy healthy and tasty food. Many chains are opening with famous chefs being involved in the food preparation. Let’s see what happens on that end…

We have seen the combination of pear and blue cheese before in many recipes….but I really like it and it’s been very popular anytime I served it, so even if this combo is not a top creation, it’s quick and delicious. I used to make tarts with gorgonzola and pear, salads, etc…so why not a crumble? If you don’t like the sweet twist of the pear, you can use spinach, greens, potatoes, etc… It’s a perfect little appetizer, that goes wonderfully with a simple frisée salad on the side.

I used individual ramequins, you can use a larger dish, individual ramequins make a nicer presentation but it’s not necessary. If you are using an indivdual ramequin, half pear would be enough, if not count one pear per person.

This is very easy but more so quick to prepare, so if you have unexpected guests, it would be perfect, you can put it together in less than 10 minutes and enjoy your evening. Now you might not have roquefort cheese waiting for you in the fridge, but any blue cheese would work. I used the British stilton before and it worked fine.

Ingredients for 4

• 4 pears, peeled and sliced
• 4.2 oz (or 120 g) roquefort cheese, cubed
• black pepper

For the crumble topping

• 4 tbs wholewheat flour
• 5 tbs plain bread crumbs
• 1 1/2 tbs hazelnuts, chopped (or pistachios)
• 1 egg
• 2 oz (or 50 g) butter
• a little salt and pepper

Preparation

Place pear slices in a deep dish or ramequins. Add roquefort on top and add pepper.

For the crumble topping, beat egg. In a mixing bowl, add flour, bread crumbs, hazelnuts, egg, soft butter. Mix well.

Place crumble topping on the roquefort and cook for about 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with additional chopped hazelnuts. Serve hot.