We had salmon

 It was absolutely delicious.  

A coco bean (tiny white beans) puree with a few coco beans for texture.  A tomato chutney from a Jun Tanaka recipe.  It's rich and sweet and sour.  And that crispy crispy salmon, cooked until the skin is like glass but the flesh stays moist.  Yum. Yum Yum.

And the sunflowers are out just under our section.  

Dad's date scones

Dad's date scones are famous in our family.  He takes them very VERY seriously.  He uses self rising flour so they are a bit tricky to make in France because they don't do self rising flour here and the flour and butter are different.  He is very careful to use a fairy light touch.  Very little handling.  The butter (lots of it) is carefully rubbed in and mixed only JUST until they come together.  Honestly, a fresh dad made date scone with butter jam and sometimes cream is pretty much heaven.  He was making them yesterday in Whitianga.  The hint of lemon zest he adds is very delicious. He's a real sweetie is my dad.  

And the final clean up.  Very cute.

Calamari on the BBQ

 Andy's sorted out a great way to cook over charcoal, not using too much charcoal and keeping all the flavours in.  He puts a small pan of charcoal in our fire pit, puts a grill bar over it and uses an old pot to cover it so all the lovely smokey flavour stays in while whatever is cooking cooks.  He was using an old set of oven gloves to check the cooking of whatever but decided to make a lifting device so he can easily pull it on or off.  He was out tinkering in the old house, I didn't know (or care) what he was up to and about 15 mins later he came out with this nifty thing.  He only uses stuff we have leftover.  

Anyway last night was calamari.  We get these really thick calamari pieces here and we slice them finely almost to the bottom so that when you eat it, you cut it just a bit and it's almost like pappardelle.  It's such a lovely way to cook (and to eat) these thick calamari steaks.  And on the bbq, they take on that gorgeous caramelised flavour you only get from charcoal.  Calamari, when cooked properly, tastes like scallop.  It's really really delicious.  

Calamari, cooked this way tastes really really SCRUM!!

The cool device Andy made to lift the pot on and off the bbq

We served it simply with a white bean, roasted tomato, fresh tomato, basil  salad with a little vinaigrette, 

 lemon juice and zest.  It was very very delicious.

  

My lemon curd recipe

OK.  So if you look up a lemon curd recipe it has multiple steps.  Mine is so so so easy.  I don't even use lemon juice or zest I just use citric acid.  

For one Dijon mustard jar size (maybe a normal to small jam jar in NZ (?).

4 whole eggs in a stab blender with around 140gms sugar, around 1.5 tsps of salt, around a dessert spoon of citric acid and blend.

Pop it in a small saucepan and stir with a spatula (never a whisk as recipes might say, the whisk creates air bubbles so you cannot see what is going on and you can't get into the corners).  In fact this is the same as making custard or ice cream.  Never ever use a whisk.  The only one time I've split a custard is the first time I made ice cream and I followed the instructions of using a whisk.  Big mistake.

Stir with the spatula until thickened.  No need to use a water bath.  As soon as it's thickened pop in 50gms of soft butter and stir until it's melted.  Moderate the temperature by taking it off the heat.  Every single time this simple recipe turns into a glossy smooth super tangy lemon curd, no lumps, no straining, no mucking about.  Salt is a key ingredient though.  Don't forget salt when baking sweet. Give it a taste.  If it needs more of anything put it in (of course!).

My cake recipe

A common sight, eggs on the window sill when we come home

 I think my little Nana would be proud of me for this one.  It's such a super easy recipe and to feed the neighbour giving me his eggs.....  yep, I just know Nana would love this one.

3 eggs and 150gms of sugar.

Whisk until thick and milky in colour. To this, add one 125ml pottle of greek yoghurt then the same amount (pottle) of colza (rapeseed) oil or another plain vegetable oil and whisk. BTW, don't use sunflower oil, it has a strange flavour when baked.   

Separately mix 250 gms of flour, one sachet of backing powder, a tablespoon of citric acid (my fav) and a good teaspoon of salt.  Mix that together, then fold though these dry ingredients into the the wet.

Shove it into a pre lined cake tin and job done.  It works every time.

I pop some cherries on the top sometimes, or I do a chocolate variation (210 gms of flour, 50 gms of cocoa (never EVER forget salt when baking).  

I can literally knock this cake up in 15 minutes.  Including lining the cake tin.  And it is always moist and delicious.  And it's cheap because it uses no butter and no flaffing around with lemon rind, juice etc.....

I think citric acid is a completely underrated and under used ingredient.  I do a very mean lemon curd using just citric acid, no lemons.  And again, super duper simple.  A separate blog.  When I can, I cut corners when cooking.

St Galmier

 It's a beautiful town in the Auvergne Rhone Alpes.  Quite different to other places in France.  It has an almost Italian look about it.  

          The road where our air bnb was located was full of very large semi Italian styled homes.

       If you ever get the opportunity to try hay syrup, jump at it.  It is DELICIOUS.  Indescribably so in 

       fact.  This was served with thick yoghurt as part of a tasting dessert at the charming little restaurant

       Carre Buffet, in Saint Galmier.  It is made with hay, sugar and lemon juice.  That's all.  Yum.

              The gorgeous very very VERY good wee young dog (American Shepherd Juanitz thinks) 

               at our bnb.  He was just a youngster and still puppyish but oh so good.  This is taken while 

               we are eating and he never came near but he just looked at us with his big hungry eyes.  

                             I bought a whole heap of tomatoes, they were so fresh and cheap.

                           And made a very very delicious pasta dish with some of them and basil 

                           from the air bnb garden which I served with a green bean (again from 

                           their garden) tomato and basil salad.  I brought some aged mimolette 

                           which is one of the tastiest cheeses on the planet (it HAS to be aged).

Kitchen gadgets

 I'm not big on kitchen gadgets at all.  My trusty kitchen aid which I finally had to replace about a year ago because my 15 year old one finally gave up the ghost (it gets a fair old workout does my kitchen aid), a good set of knives, a stab blender, a decent mandolin is about all I need.  But there is one utensil I find absolutely indispensable.  I watch a lot of masterchef Auz and UK and the number of times I've yelled at the screen because they bring out their sharp knives to unmould pannacottas, parfaits, souffles, little cakes etc etc is so frustrating.  All they need is a wee flexible spatula.  Juanitz bought me this many years ago and to be honest when I first got it I thought... well that it was a slightly odd gift!  Until I started to use it.  

Lilies

They really have to be my favourite of flowers and having them in the garden is such an honour.  The smell!!!! Sitting outside and smelling the gentle waft of lily scenting the air is rather awesome.

Sunflowers

 Our valley is completely planted out with sunflowers.  The shape of the valley around the chateau is beautiful anyway, a big sweeping curve and this year we are blessed with a sea of yellow.  Soon, when the sunflowers below our house come out we will have a yellow lake below us to look at from our seats.

You can see them peeping through the trees along the chateau road.  It's really so pretty.  It makes our walks and my runs rather scenic to say the least!