Date I made these recipes:
July 24, 2016 – the end of the Tour
de France
Paul Bocuse in Your
Kitchen – An Introduction to Classic French Cooking by Paul Bocuse;
translated, adapted, and with editors' notes by Philip and Mary Hyman
Published by:
Pantheon Books
© 1982
Purchased at Bloomington
Crime Prevention Association (BCPA) Sale 2016
Recipe: Bayaldi – p. 280 (similar to Ratatouille but
layered like a casserole)
The Culinary Cyclist
– A Cookbook and Companion for the Good Life by Anna Brones
(vegetarian/Gluten-free)
Published by: Taking
the Lane / Elly Blue Publishing
©2013
Purchased at Kona Bay Books, Kona ,
Hawaii
Recipe: Tapenade – p. 66
You Can Do Anything
With Crepes – as Appetizers, Main Courses, Desserts by Virginia Pasley and
Jane Green
Published by Simon and Schuster
© 1970
Purchased at Etsy
Recipe: Cocoa Crepes
– p. 34
Well folks, today the three-week-long Tour de France (bicycle
competition) ended – "enfin" (French for "finally") - and
as is usual and customary, we are celebrating our return to normalcy (plus the
return of the remote to me) with French food.
This celebration also let's me sneak in a nod to Bastille Day (July 14th)
which I missed as I was busy with other things...like maybe watching the Tour?
Even though I am not the bicyclist my husband is (well, true
confession: I don't bicycle at all), I
enjoy watching the Tour as they often ride through parts of France and Spain that we have visited. This year, the guys were all back on Mount
Ventoux and I have the most hilarious memories of a car trip up that mountain
with my friend and travel companion on that trip, Susan, and my French friend's
grandparents who drove us around France for the day.
Quick backstory: In
the summer of 1988, my French friend, Edith (pronounced Ay-Deet) and her French
step-grandmother, Marcelle, stopped to visit me while on a cross-country trip
through the United States . My friend, Susan, who spoke fluent French,
spent a lot of time with us, and at the end of their trip, they invited me and
Susan to visit in the fall. Well, bien
sur (of course) right? You should know that although I minored in Spanish in
college, I also learned some French and spoke it pretty well. That said, it pays to have someone fluent
along for the ride and so – Susan! This
is especially true in Provence
where Edith lives as the Provencal accent takes some getting used to.
And so, the ride. Edit
charged her grandparents with keeping me and Susan occupied one day when she
had to work and so that is how we ended up sightseeing on Mount Ventoux Mount Ventoux
Now since I believe I repeat this story every Tour, I'll spare
you the details (especially since we still have no idea how this happened)
except to say that when grand-pere rounded a wicked corner, Susan somehow,
inexplicably ended up practically on top of me with her feet stuck under the
front passenger seat. (And no, she was not wearing her seatbelt thus, the
problem.) Grand-pere had to pull over he
(and we) was laughing so hard. I have
often said that the entire trip to Paris and
then Provence could have been dubbed "Lucy
and Ethel go to France ." That should tell you something. (PS—after that hilarious ride, we went back
to the grandparents' house for a midday meal with wine. Lots and lots of wine. I don't know what it says about me that I
went glass for glass with grand-pere, who kept filling up my glass with quite
the challenging twinkle in his eye, but there it is.)
And so every year like clockwork, I evaluate my French
cookbooks, pull a few off the shelf, select the recipes and get to work. Those books not selected go back on the shelf
until next year's Tour is upon us. So
let's talk about the books I used this year.
Book number one – Paul
Bocuse In Your Kitchen – is the second Paul Bocuse book I've used. I made "Soup au Pistou" (similar to
Minestrone) for last year's Tour from Bocuse's Regional French Cooking and it
was delicious. This year, I had another
hankering for vegetables and so made Bayaldi,
a Turkish dish that is similar to the
famous Provencal dish, Ratatouille in that it uses some of the same vegetables;
this dish is layered with zucchini, eggplant, onions and tomatoes. Although Swiss cheese can be added on top, I
went with Bocuse's alternative, olive oil, as a topping. My only issue with this dish and it is minor,
is that I ended up making 3x the spice mixture called for in this recipe as his
amounts did not make enough. Well, at
least not in my humble and decidedly non-French opinion.
I liked this cookbook because it offered a wide range of fun
French dishes, some of which were better suited to fall or winter, but others
perfect for spring and summer. The
instructions, which were translated from French, were not too bad although I
had a few "moments" with these instructions just because they were
kind of clunky—very similar to how I speak French!
While the French cookbook had a great range of recipes, I
was somewhat challenged to find something I liked in the tiny tome, The Culinary Cyclist. The book focuses mainly on vegetarian and
gluten-free dishes and while there is nothing wrong with that, I was just not
into buying a few ingredients that I would never use again just to make a few
dishes. As an example, the recipe for
"Dutch Apple Pie with Cardamom" requires sorghum flour, rice flour,
almond meal and xanthan gum so I ruled that out. Some recipes were more doable but didn't
float my boat, such as "The Perfect quinoa Picnic Salad with Mustard
Citrus Vinaigrette." And for the
longest time, "Gluten Free Olive Oil and Polenta Cake" was in the
running until I just decided it was too boring and went instead with the Tapenade recipe two pages over.
This recipe would have been a hit with me had it not tasted
so salty but Andy thought it was fine.
In terms of degree of difficulty in making it, it was a piece of cake so
that was good. And tapenade (a popular
dish in the French region, Provence )
paired well with the Bayaldi so that was also tres bon (good).
As to the salt, the only salt added was just a teaspoon of
sea salt, making me wonder if I should have rinsed the black olives before
using them? The instructions don't say so
but as we all know, instructions can be sneaky.
Plus, my palate may also be more salt sensitive than yours or than
Andy's.
As to the last dish, Cocoa
Crepes, nothing but nothing says "French" like crepes. But like anything, these things are best when
made well. And it's not like I botched
them per se but they were not the best looking things I ever made, unlike the
crepes I made back in 1988 when Edith and Marcelle came to visit. It was the summer of the drought and the poor
ladies just about in my un-air-conditioned kitchen but they were determined
that I should learn how to make crepes and so I learned. At that time, I had the right size pan –
5" is ideal – so that helped. Their
crepes, of course, were perfect, but I did my part and got a few that weren't
too bad looking. And this was tres bon.
(Good)
This time around though, the only skillet/ crepe pan I had
was about 7 inches. A 7" pan is
just fine for making my own manicotti shells (so easy) but manicotti shells are
generally bigger and thicker and so this size skillet works for me. Crepes
though, are best really thin and benefit from a smaller pan (unless you have a
large just-for-crepes-pan in your kitchen battery which I don't) and though I
tried my best to pour just enough batter to coat the bottom, they were a little
large in the middle so the first one I made didn't quite set right. The second one I made (the one Andy ate)
though, was much better.
And wouldn't you know, we just happened to have a can of
Redi Whip in the fridge so we used that as a topping. If I had chocolate syrup, I might have really
gone to town. Next time.
By the way, some of you might remember this restaurant, The
Magic Pan, where you could get crepes of all shapes, sizes and fillings, from
sweet to savory. I first went to one in
1976 in New York City
and thought it was an awesome idea. And
when I moved to Minneapolis
and found out there was one downtown I was practically giddy. It's the littlest things...
Please note though, that I made half the recipe and ended up
with just enough batter for two large crepes.
The entire recipe is supposed to make 18-24 which I think is just a tiny
exaggeration but oh well.
So this concludes my "Vive la France , Vive la
Tour" post. Bon Appétit!
Bayaldi – Serves 4-6 –
from Paul Bocuse In Your Kitchen
4 medium zucchini weighing about 1 ½ pounds total
2 small eggplants, weighing about 1 ¼ pounds total
1 ½ pounds tomatoes
½ pound onions
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
1 teaspoon thyme leaves
½ bay leaf, crushed
Salt, pepper
Butter (for the dish)
1 ½ cup grated Swiss cheese (see author Note)
5 tablespoons butter (total) broken into pieces (or olive
oil – see author Note)
Note: If preferred,
the cheese can be omitted and ½ cup of olive oil used instead of butter. In this case, pour all of the oil over the
surface of the vegetables before putting them in the oven.
Preheat the oven to 425F.
Wash the vegetables and wipe them dry, then cut them into
slices about ½ inch thick (if using a large eggplant rather than 2 smaller ones,
cut it in half lengthwise before slicing).
Keep all the vegetables separate from each other.
Butter a large baking dish (preferably earthenware or enameled
cast iron). Cover the bottom of the dish
with the onions, then make a layer of zucchini and sprinkle with a little of
the garlic, thyme, and bay leaf, salt and pepper. Next, make a layer of eggplant, and lastly, a
layer of tomato, seasoning each layer as you did the zucchini. (Ann's Note: You should probably double, if not triple,
the seasoning mixture as it makes very little in the first place and you will
run out.)
Dot the surface with half the butter (Ann's Note: or, as the author said, 1/3 cup of olive oil), then
place in the oven for 30 minutes. At the
end of this time, sprinkle with the cheese (Ann's
Note: I omitted the cheese), dot
with the remaining butter, and bake 20 to 30 minutes more or until golden brown
on top. (If the vegetables dry out
during the first 30 minutes' baking, cover them with aluminum foil; remove the
foil for only the last 10 minutes of the baking time.)
Serving suggestions:
Serve with roast or boiled meat. Ann's Note: I cooked some rice and used the vegetables as
a topping.
Author's Note:
Instead of making layers as described here, you can simply make parallel
lines of overlapping vegetables and bake them in individual baking dishes
rather than in one large one.
Ann's Final Note: The only butter I used was to butter the
baking dish. Once I layered all the
vegetables, I poured the 1/3 cup olive oil over the surface and baked it and it
was fine. I also covered the baking dish
with foil as directed. Finally, as I
said above, you'll need to triple the spice mixture or you won't have enough
for all the layers (three in all).
Tapenade – Serving
size not given (about 2 cups?) – from The
Culinary Cyclist
1 6-ounce can of organic black olives
½ of a roasted pepper, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ cup almonds
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon rosemary or Herbes de Provence
½ teaspoon black pepper
Mix all the ingredients in food process until well
blended. Store in an airtight container
in refrigerator until serving.
Ann's Note: Although it does not say to do this, I
recommend rinsing the black olives just in case they are in a salt brine. (I must confess I didn't even look but I
found the dish a tad salty.) You might
also want to start with a quarter teaspoon of sea salt, adding more as needed.
Cocoa Crepes – makes
18-24 crepes – from You Can Do Anything
with Crepes
2 eggs
½ cup flour
2 tablespoons cocoa
¼ cup sugar
1 cup milk with a little cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon butter, melted and cooled
Put all ingredients into a blender and blend for about 30
seconds at half speed. Or mix eggs and
flour by hand or in a mixer adding cocoa and sugar and then milk gradually,
beating all the time. Add vanilla and
the cooled, melted butter and beat once more.
Led stand covered and hour or two.
Heat a small skillet or crepe pan – about 5 inches in
diameter, brush with butter and when butter bubbles up, pour about a tablespoon
and a half of crepe batter into pan, swirling so batter covers the pan. Cook for about 1 minute, check for browning
and watch carefully – both the cocoa and the sugar cause crepes to burn easily. Turn crepe over and cook for about a half minute
on the other side. Turn out on paper
towels.
This recipe will make from 18-24 crepes depending on the
size of the pan and amount of batter used for each crepe. These freeze well. Ann's
Note: I used a larger pan but given
that I halved the recipe, I only got 2 large crepes out of the deal. Turns out that was perfect for our two-person
household but if you want more, make the full recipe.
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