Natasha from Five Star Foodie kindly requested me if I could be one of her participants for a contest she is holding on her blog. I was of course extremely flattered but to be honest, most of the time, I tend to refuse those types of contests, because I am always concerned of not having the freedom to use what I want and obliged to use what I don’t want, resulting in a dish that is not really truthful to what I really enjoy.

I was very happily surprised when I received a nice little package from Marx Foods with a lot of delightful gourmet ingredients. Basically, the theme of this contest is to take a traditional dish, twist it around and make it un-traditional while incorporating some of the ingredients from Marx Foods.

After a lot of thoughts, I decided to go ahead and chose a very traditional and rustic French dish from Languedoc-Roussillon region called “cassoulet“, for the “connaisseurs” of French cuisine, this might not be unknown. It’s a white bean based dish cooked for hours, with a lot of different kinds of meats such as duck, goose, pork, etc…The beans are cooked for a very long time, resulting in unctuous beans melting in your mouth. In this “Cassoulet revisited“recipe, I used beans…dried porcini, black trumpets, chanterelles mushrooms and flor de sal, all coming from from Marx Foods.

I have to say that I prefer this vegetarian version (vegan) of the cassoulet than the traditional one which tends to be on the heavy side. The wild mushrooms add a rich and incredible woodsy flavor to this composition and will make carnivores forget that there is no meat in the dish. This is a very addictive meal, it’s hard to stop at the first bite, I almost ate the whole pot (and I am not talking about this tiny one on the picture) by myself.

Go check out Five Star Foodie for the recipe…and let us know what you think!

Lavender simply evokes Provence. Wherever I go, if I see lavender, that makes me think about the South of France but particularly about Provence, its wonderful lavender fields and cicadas singing. I adore Provence, its picturesque medieval villages, its natural light, wonderful cuisine and friendliness of its inhabitants…but most of all, the delicious sensation of the Provencal sun caressing your skin with a light breeze, making it pure heaven. I think that’s one thing I really miss about Mediterranean climate, being able to dress lightly until midnight without wearing any sweater sipping a Pastis…that is true happiness.

Does anyone know where the last picture has been shot? It’s a famous city in the South of France…

So to celebrate Provence, I wanted to make something combining summer and Southern fruits like peaches, apricots and lavender flavor; and this delightful yogurt has all of it in one bite.

Homemade yogurt can be made in many different ways, in a pressure cooker, in the oven, and of course in a yogurt maker, like I do. Well, it’s the easiest way to make them and the only way I know not to fail them, so why take the complicated route when you can take the easy one? There is definitely nothing better than homemade yogurts, nothing to compare with store bought yogurts, they can be creamy, thicker, depending on the time you leave them to incubate, and the amount of powdered milk you use. I have been substituting powder milk with evaporated milk and it works quite well.

Ingredients for 8 yogurts

- 4 cups milk
- 1 plain yogurt or 1 bag of lactic ferments
- 6 tbs evaporated milk
- 2 tbs unsweetened condensed milk
- 3 yellow well ripe peaches, peeled and cut in pieces
- 2 apricots, cut in pieces
- 2 tbs sugar + 2 for the milk
- 2 tbs lavender

Preparation

In a pan combine peaches, apricots and sugar and cook to obtain a thick mixture. Remove from heat and let it cool.

Boil milk with lavender, then remove from heat and let it cool to less than 45C. Drain to remove lavender flowers.

In a mixing container, mix yogurt with condensed milk, evaporated milk and sugar. Add gradually milk.

Divide the fruit compote in each jar, then pour carefully milk mixture. Place yogurt in yogurt maker and let it incubate for about 8 hours. Remove from yogurt maker, place lids on and place in the refrigerator for about 3 hours.

So did you find out where this is?

I haven’t made those for so long, I usually make them when we have a “crêpe party”, and those haven’t occurred in a while!

Basically, the traditional savory crêpes are made with buckwheat flour, the sweet ones can be made with white flour.

A buckwheat crêpe is called “galette bretonne“, the batter is a little different from a regular crêpe in the fact that there is water in the batter but no eggs. The traditional galette Bretonne (or also called Buckwheat crêpe, crêpe au sarrasin) is mainly stuffed with ham, eggs and cheese and it’s called “la complète“…now you can make it with whatever item you like if you want to make it less traditional. I like the traditional one, but I think those three ingredients are a little too heavy for me. Other alternatives could be spinach and mushrooms, eggs and mushrooms, tomato and mozzarella, goat cheese and spinach, etc…or whatever you think would work.

If you have been to Brittany or Paris you must have encounter that delicious treat. There are many crêperies Bretonnes in Paris close to Quartier Montparnasse. The first one I ate was at the Jocelyn crêperie, it was a double crêpe, unlike this one that is simple, a double crêpe is comprised of one crêpe at the bottom, filled with whatever you like, and one other crêpe on top of the filling, then folded and topped with salted butter. You better be hungry for that one, but it’s so good with some dry cider (cidre brut).

Sometimes, I have a crêpe party at home and the crêpes go flying around…then everyone gets so excited when we reach dessert, sweet crêpes with nutella, banana, ice cream and whipped cream. How can you refuse one of those? Vive les crêpes!!

You don’t need necessarly need a crêpe maker and a spreader to make crêpes, a non-stick pan works well too. You can make a 100% buckwheat flour batter if you like it more hearty, I like to use 1/2 white flour and 1/2 buckwheat flour.

Ingredients for about 6-8 (depending on the size of the pan)

For the galettes batter

• buckwheat flour
• white flour
• 1/4 l water
• 1/4 l milk
• salt
  

For the stuffing

• 3-4 tomatoes, sliced
• 2 onions, sliced
• 1 tbs capers, rinced
• 6-8 slices smoked salmon
• 1 tsp olive oil
• Fleur de sel
• pepper

For the tarragon sauce

• 1 shallot, diced
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 tsp fish fumet dehydrated
• water
• 3 tbs crème fraîche
• 2 tbs fresh tarragon, chopped
• salt and pepper

Preparation

For the batter

Mix flours together in a large mixing bowl. Add water while stirring, then milk, add salt and keep stirring to obtain a smooth consistency. Let it rest for about 2 hours.

Caramelize onions in 1 tsp olive oil. Grill tomatoes on a grill pan and set aside.

For the tarragon sauce

Heat olive oil in a pan, and brown shallots. Dissolve dehydrated fumet in 1/3 cup water. Add to the shallots, reduce a little then add cream. Reduce for a few more minutes and add tarragon, salt and pepper.

Cook galettes as you would for regular crêpes. Using a non-stick pan, spread some batter in the pan covering the whole surface (you need to butter the pan prior to making the galettes). Flip the galette and let it cook on the other side. Add caramelized onions, tomatoes, capers and salmon. remove the galette from the pan and bring borders on the inside. Top with tarragon sauce and serve hot.

Some days are a little more morose than others, and lately my mood has been affected by many things and partly by the San Francisco weather…I hate to talk about weather changes, because I think it is a little annoying to hear, and it sounds like “old bored people’s” discussions and if I look at last year posts around this time of year, it was the same thing…the fog rolling in. Everyone talks about the weather in this city because it changes so fast and every district or neighborhood has its own micro climate…and honestly when buying a house in the city you want to make sure you are not in a “fogged in” area, if you do, you better love wearing ski jackets in June. So when it rains, or you need a little quick fix to cheer you up, make palets, they’re easy to make and so delicious!

You might not be familiar with France and its beautiful and picturesque rainy North Western region : la Bretagne (Brittany), they have amazing seafood specialties and many others like this palet breton.

Palet breton is a dry cookie made with a pâte sablée and demi-sel butter. Brittay is famous for galettes bretonnes, palets and other buttery cookies (and crêpes of course). You can find so many brands of those delicious cookies in the supermarkets, so being far away from French supermarkets, I figured I better learn how to make them if I ever want to eat some.

Usually palet breton is about 1.5 com thick, so a little thicker than the ones I made. As any “dry cookie” they’re delicious and very enjoyable with a tea or coffee, or as a little snack. This time, I wanted to “dress them up”, turn them into a little bite as a dessert…and add some extra crunch to it, by adding pistachios.  if you don’t have butter demi-sel, use regular butter and add fleur de sel.

Ingredients for about 18 palets

for the palets

• 7 oz (or 200 g) flour
• 3.52 oz (or 100 g) butter demi-sel, cubed
• 2.82 oz (or 80 g) sugar
• 2 yolks
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2.11 oz (or 60 g raw pistachios, roughly chopped

for the mascarpone cream

• 7 tbs mascarpone
• 7 tbs fromage blanc
• sugar to taste

for the raspberry coulis

• 14 oz (or 400 g) raspberries
• 5.29 oz (or 150 g sugar) or more if the raspberries are not very sweet
• 1 tsp lemon juice

Preparation

In a mixing container, mix flour and baking powder. Add butter and mix carefully from the tips of your fingers incorporating it to the flour mixture. Separately mix yolks with sugar and vanilla extract and add to the flour.  Form a uniform ball. Spread with a rolling pin in a 1.5 cm sheet. Cut with a small cookie cutter or glass (the cookies are usually thick and small, about 5 cm diameter). Bake in a parchment paper or silpat for about 15 min at 360F. Let them cool.

For the mascarpone cream, just combine all ingredients together.

For the coulis, combine all ingredients in a blender. Filter coulis through a sieve to remove the seeds.

Place a generous amount of mascarpone cream on top of a palet. Add raspberries and top it with coulis and chopped pistachios.