Apple Polenta Cakes

This weekend I did a little cooking--I made duck confit legs (again!) and experimented with trying to recreate a desert that I had recently.  I am blessed with a very discerning sense of taste in that if I try something even just one time I can recreate it almost exactly, with few exceptions.  I hesitate to tell you where and when I had this 'desert'--in fact the way it was served to me I wasn't exactly sure if it was a side dish or desert, but what mattered was that it was so, so yummy and I wanted to have it again....so having a vague idea of how to make it, and based on the idea that it was a traditional French creation, maybe southern France-ish....and it had to be really simple, I nonetheless scoured the internet looking for a recipe just to confirm my hunch.  But alas either I had no idea how to call it or it was not at all French or common--I never did find a recipe.  So I just went on instinct and viola!  It turned out exactly how I remembered it--just as simple, sweet and comforting!  I jazzed up the idea by making it in pretty molds and garnished it with Anise and confiture de pommes....but pretty much--this is it!

Apple Polenta Cakes

• 1 cup Polenta (instant/5 minute polenta is the easiest to use)
• 4 cups apple juice
• 1/4 cup honey or 1/4 cup sugar (optional)
• 4 tsp. cinnamon
• canola oil for forms

In a large sauce pan bring apple juice, honey/sugar to a low boil.  Slowly add polenta while stirring.  Reduce heat and as it thickens stir in cinnamon and cook for an additional 5 minutes just below boiling. Brush pan or forms with oil and pour in thickened polenta.  Let cool about 10 minutes and then refridgerate until serving. Polenta will easily come out of forms or can be sliced in any shape and served cold topped with fresh fruit or warm with maple syrup or honey.

So simple it's almost embarrassing.  My boys love it and I have to admit I made a large quantity so I served it for breakfast this past weekend with some warm maple syrup pooled around it on a plate.  Then on Sunday morning I was reading a fave blog from a chere amie--Aidan of 'Conjugating Irregular Verbs' and she posted the most amazing pork recipe--Honeyed Spiced Pork Stew and I think these little polenta cakes would be a fab desert to finish off the meal!  So simple or not--just perfectly yummy!

Have fun with it!  ......if you really bug me I might even share with you where I had it--you wouldn't believe it--and maybe better kept a petit secret!  

Bon Appetit!

French Sunday

'Petite-Fille' has been sleeping more than usual today.  Poor little monkey.  She had a lovely bath this morning, fell into a deep sleep after a long night of gassy-wakefulness, then right after lunch she puked-up all over herself, our bed and most of her Daddy's clothing.....so now she is sleeping that off and I find myself with more quiet moments while the garcons are downstairs on the computer(s)--imagine that! and I am wishing for a double-double-tall-non-fat-latte---s'il vous plait! and some moments to try to clean out the old 'drafts' box---thus an attempt to unclog my brain as well!

A few days ago I started to write about the concept of having 'French Sundays'.....

It seemed like a good idea, when I first thought of it...in fact I was patting myself on the back and kind of applauding my own creativity....Every Sunday, for the entire day, the family (yes! even 'Petite-Fille') would only speak French!  Fun, huh?!  We could spend the day tossing around simple phrases coached and gently corrected by 'French Guy' and as a family we could increase our knowledge and comfort level with the native tongue of the lovely culture we live in.....

I think there might be a little misconception about our desire to speak French fluently in our family.  We want to, but it seems it is not as easy as just living here, and it is not as easy as just asking 'French guy' to always speak French to the femme, garcons and 'Petite-Fille'....I could list all of the efforts thus far; college courses, private lessons, audio tapes and more recently MP3 downloads, on-line courses, French family and friends, all French speaking schools for the garcons... so alas, 'French Sunday' was a natural progression, non?

I have a French word-of-the-day app. on my desktop--I added it on my Google page and I have no idea how the random words are selected each day--but let's just say random doesn't sum up the odd choices that sometimes pop-up--for example, today the word-of-the-day (or phrase as it were) is:

la boucherie chevaline (f)---the horse butcher

Seriously! Now that is just plain bizarre!  Am I really supposed to practice that one all day?! Use it in a sentence? I don't get it!

I have two lap-tops--one is my old P-I-N-K Dell Inspiron 1525--it is six years old, and the 'French guy' bought it for me (and chose the color!)  My other one is a very small HP Mini--it came "free" (!?) when I purchased my Blackberry...it was a freebie for signing my life away in a cell-phone contract to Verizon....so I actually think I am still paying for it 2 years later--even though in France we don't have Verizon but those small-print contracts manage to get you to commit to life-long love and dedication and give up your first born in exchange for a little thing they like to call 'service'.......anyway---another rant for another time and place.

So the little computer--the Mini, had a petite probleme shortly after we arrived in France and needed to have a new hard-drive put in and was luckily still under warranty and the French computer geek, uh I mean computer technician--was able to access the warranty very creatively even though we are in France and so little Mini got all fixed up....well except for one small thing!  Mini came back with a French brain!!!

C'est vrai!  I booted up the little ordinateur and viola!  Everything is in French!  Ai!  But of course!  When the computer tech replaced the hard-drive he also had to re-install all of the operating system software and of course it would be the French versions!  Let's just say it was a little bit traumatic for moi!  Like sending your child away and when child comes back it speaks only a foreign langauge!  Okay--not quite like that.

So here I am--I have to make the humiliating confession that 'French Sunday' was a failure.  'French guy' was not game, garcons were not game....It was just me and 'Petite Fille'--baby-talking in French all day, just by ourselves....I plan on trying it again this Sunday though.

Si dans un premier temps vous ne réussissez pas..... we shall see!

Miss-this/wish-list....

There she goes again--making lists. Could only mean one thing; the innate need to organize something in order to stave off insanity has triumphed once again.  This time not a 'must do' list which vary between practical and irrational, but rather one of those 'now-now-you-just-get-it-all-out-and-you-will-feel-much-better' lists.  (Actually those two concepts do over-lap on occasion.)

So here it is:

Double non-fat latte, sushi-counter sushi, Mexican food, girls night out, small talk, driving, Costco organic peanut butter, maple syrup, clumping cat litter, window screens, small talk w/a stranger, answering the phone, texting, helping out at school, running, TV, radio, martinis, the library, having friends over for dinner, the bookstore, going to a movie, ferries, the city, take out food, losing track of time...

This is not a to-do list obviously--it's a miss-this/wish -list. (just try saying that ten times fast!)

Lists naturally tally up in my head when I become overwhelmed. It's the domino effect--one thing leads to another and they could go on and on until it goes from one thing that I could easily process and work though to a long string of things that robs my normal peace of mind.


Losing track of time for example--I really do miss that. It happens when you run into someone randomly and find yourself lost in a chat and suddenly 30 minutes to an hour have passed....or when you are so involved in a project that makes time just slip away...or reading a book that you can't put down...


The 'Petite Fille'  among other things, challenges that notion right now.  She is now 5 weeks old and I find myself driven by schedules of feeds and naps. Not even one single, teensy-tiny complaint here....I love it....but it does make living on the fly--  très impossible!  Her two brothers; 7 and 12 add to that challenge--juggling their needs and schedules and might as well throw in the 'French guy'--keeping him on task makes life a bit schedule oriented....so no, no losing track of time for me.....for now.

When you find yourself in a new place after any length of time you naturally start to think about how it compares to other places; in what you have, what you can do and of course what you don't or can't have any more.  I am getting better at not fixating on these things.

I posted the list above as my status on Facebook.  One comment that came back was from a Francophile friend of mine who in turn listed everything France has to offer--which was good.  I like those reminders.

I just found the word for 'miss' in French--Manquer.  This word popped up on my web homepage as French-word-of-the-day , ironically on the same day that I was drafting this post.  A handy word I thought.  A small word with several diverse meanings;
.....absence, need, waiting, crisis, magic, default, disability, deficit, scarcity, blandness, shortage, deprivation, rarity, empty.......


So the lists will continue for a bit longer I think and until then--my attempt to use this new French word....

here goes:

J' aime la France, mais...Me manquer les choses, que j'ai l'habitude d'avoir, le personnes que je savais et les lieux, que je suis allé......

C'est tout. Bonne journée mes amis!

Sugar and Spice and.....

It's Monday--Oh! Is it ever!  After a fairly good weekend, not exciting but good, I am being hit with Monday in full force.  It's ugly, it's bad and it's going to take extraordinary efforts to fix.  First there is Petite-Fille's older brother (my middle guy). Poor kiddo has been overcome with a scurge of head lice--eeeewww, yeck.  Just putting it in words makes it worse than it is--but doesn't it make you feel all itchy and crawly?  It's apparently been an issue for les enfants at school for a while now--so annoying.

Okay..not enough?  Fleas!  The pets have fleas, which apparently we were latent in noticing because now they all have them at infestation levels and it will take all out war to get rid of them...bedding washed, areas vacuumed and treated, pets trimmed and bathed...and I include cats in this category so you can imagine what kind of fun that will be!

Both of these things are somewhat normal when you have kids and pets--but for me they bring out my transient OCD tendancies--I treat, clean and wash everything in sight.  I become a hand-washing drill sergeant with all those around me which has nothing to do with la puce or le poux (but is never a bad idea anyway!)

"More !" you say?  Still not enough? Well just moments ago les chats went dumpster-diving in the kitchen and pulled out last night's chicken-bones to make a fête pour deux! (three if you count the dog patiently waiting under the table for her portion.) So I was just down on my hands and knees cleaning up that mess.

So what's a girl to do!?  I need to turn this day around and très rapide!  One meager attempt--I just polished off a very large banana slathered in Nutella........mmmm..mmm.mm!

Earlier this morning I had my respectable breakfast of whole wheat toast and poached eggs---so there!  And besides--bananas are good for you, n'est-ce pas?

Now that I have totally put you off--the only thing I can come up with is to post a recipe....I am baking in order to change the path of my Monday--something sweet, spiced and wonderful....

Happy Monday!  Hope yours is off to a better start than mine!

_______________________________

Orange Spice Bread

• 3 cups flour (I use a 1/2 and 1/2 white and whole wheat mixed together
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 3 tsp. baking powder
• 3 tsp 'spice mix' (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 tbs butter
• 1/2 cup honey
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbs orange zest
• Orange Marmalade

Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Whisk together melted butter, honey, eggs milk and vanilla and combine with dry ingredients.  Stir or beat until blended. fold in orange zest.  Fill loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes.

Serve with orange marmalade, cream cheese or butter--as you like!

Monsieur Proust

I know, I know.....I need to do it!  I have hit critical mass...use it or lose it...write now or forever hold your peace....I could blame it all on 'Petite Fille' and yes, she is a big part of it both in time management challenges and sleep-deprived-brain-cell-depletion.  That, or I am actually testing how much can rattle around in my mind before it involuntarily comes surging out my finger-tips, hits the key board and onto the screen. (Oh yes! and speaking of typing--my 'O' key is sticky--c'est une probleme--can I blame that too? ooooooooo OOOOOO ooooooo!)

I will be honest with you for a moment--I do have some ramblings in the old 'draft' box, but they are unfinished...one actually talks about my propensity towards 'to-do' lists and blogging is on there--bien sur!

I missed a fun blogging thing yesterday--a questionnaire thing-y.  I love questionnaires!  I am a die-hard fan of the Proust Questionnaire (originally a concept by French author Marcel Proust)--(I always flip to the back of Vanity Fair and read the last page before anything else--no matter who is on the cover!) So I was thrilled to find a similar blogfest exercise yesterday hosted by a co-blogger, Nicole. (http://nicoleducleroir.blogspot.com). This list of questions is a-la-James Lipton of Inside the Actor's Studio.  So I was thinking this is just the thing to tickle the old brain cells and help me get back into the blogging saddle.  Mais non!  I missed it...the deadline to enter came and went...so here I am today--feeling sheepish and uninspired, forcing the hand on my old Dell lap-top with it's sticky 'O' key...nothing to say with my brain full of thoughts......

Should I do it anyway?!  Oui? Non?  I think I should.....yes, okay I will!  And YOU should to!  Go ahead! Have at it!  ................But me first!

What is your favorite word? Tenacity-Tenacity means to stick with something even when the going gets tough. Never give up. Never surrender, the ability of matter to overcome great strength or force....
My proudest (yet most humbling) moments have been when someone has called me 'tenacious'.
What is your least favorite word?
Deadline--you get it--enough said.
What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
A place, a memory, a feeling that I am home....
What turns you off?
Dishonesty....bleck....eeeww....yuck.....boo....hiss.......
What is your favorite curse word?
I have one in mind--it's pretty tame.  But you see I grew up in one of those households that if you cursed you would get your mouth washed out with soap--ask my brother what that's like.  My mom reads this blog.  I am not taking any chances.
What sound or noise do you love?
'Gazouiller'--that's the French word for the sound of 'Petite-Fille' when she is trying to figure out how to talk at 5 weeks old--that one is easy!
What sound or noise do you hate?
The sound of someone speaking negatively, judging or disrespecting another person.  (Also the sound of that little piece of gravel that keeps getting stuck under our front door and scrapes across the ceramic tiles when you open it!)okay--maybe it's a tie then!
What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Pediatric Neurology...seriously.
What profession would you not like to do?
Probably anything to to do with mass-production of anything.
If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
"See!? I told you that you could handle it!"

Okay--now it's your turn!

Bon chance mes amis!