For Jane: Lazy Afternoon with Classic Macarons

 

Here goes your favorite sweets, Jane. Let's spend an afternoon with these four macarons and two cups of caramel latté. Which one is your favorite?

Craving for Sweets

With so many things in front of me at the moment, the dossier for the business school, piles of doodle that should be realized into pieces of jewelries, and mountains of articles to read, my body decided to, again, falling sick on me. Grr! I don't care right now, let me dream, let me think about colors, and let me share what my tongue would rather be with right now...

taking a peek of what's inside. Fresh warm macaron, yumm!

Le Bastringue

Last weekend it was a super beau weather... After my french class, he picked me up and we ate at the restaurant at the corner of Riquet et Quai de la Seine at the 19th arrondissement.  I never been here before.  But it was actually me who convinced him to try this place.  Because everytime I pass this resto, there're always pack of people, and you can see what they eat because the tables and chairs are everywhere at the pathway..

Both of us ordered Dorage.  But what excite me was the side dish, baked cauliflower and cheese. 

Il a pris charlotte fraise pour le dessert, et un verre de mousse chocolat pour moi!

Waiting for the professional photographer to finish his job so we can eat the food

We'll comeback next week!

Beef Ravioli in Tomato Sauce and Crème Brûlée

It was a lazy afternoon and I didn't feel like cooking anything serious, I just bought a ready made beef ravioli and thought that it would be just enough to have a portion of that for lunch. Little did we know, we went way out of proportion.  Along with the 500g of the pasta, I made the sauce with four kinds of onions and a can of peeled tomato.

The detail ingredient goes:

1 red onion

1 yellow onion 

2 shallots

3 cloves of garlic

1 can of pelled tomato

Salt, Pepper

3 tbsp of Olive Oil 

And cheese as much as you like

Heat up the pan, add olive oil, add the onions until it is somehow transparent, then add the shallots, and last the garlic.  Keep it moving, and add the tomato, add salt pepper.  Boil the ravioli depends on the package direction.  And serve with cheese.  Depends on your country, you can add almost any sprinkled cheese.  I think in US you use cheddar cheese a lot, and here in France we use emmental more often.  The point is just to have a hint of cheese.  

For the healthiness sake, I serve these with a simple green salad: any kinds of lettuce and fresh tomato.  The sauce? honey, dijon mustard, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper.  The measurement is as free as your imagination. 

Well well, the lunch, unfortunately, don't stop there.  We decided to close the meal with something sweet --this is what I mean when I said goes out of proportion..

Thought that this pack of 4 ready-made crème brûlée would feed our desire

With Moulinex A 154.51 INOX toaster we made a real good crème brûlée.  I follow the direction from the packet step by step.  Firstly, take off the top foil, sprinkle them with a dash of sugar.  Secondly, heat up the broiler (for my case: the toaster) Thirdly, tilt the toaster over and place it on top of the crème brûlée container like this below:

wait for 20 minutes, and.. 

a beautiful crème brûlée with perfect crispy caramelized sugar on top has been born

Err, not too long anyway.. *burp* now let's take a nap!

Caramelized Apple

Evolution of this post, I tried to modify the filling of my crêpe.  Instead of the Frozen Banana, I tried to make a caramelized apple.

2 apples --deskinned and sliced

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

Heat up a pan, melt the butter, bring the fire to medium, add the apples, let it cook for couple of minutes.  Dash in the sugar, keep them moving, and add in the cinnamon.  Make sure that the apple are tenderly cooked.  You can add the sugar and the cinnamon depend on how you like it. 

I used the red apple. You can try it with the green apple, it might bring up the flavor more but perhaps it would take longer to cook since it has different texture.  This is the filling for my crêpe this morning, but I think this can also be a filling to a pie.  Or if you love apple, and don't mind to gain weight, you can eat this alone for your breakfast.. no I am kidding. 

Banana Bread with Bread Maker Machine

When I was studying at the university, my breakfast, almost if there was a morning class, were a piece of banana bread and a Starbucks bottled frappuccino vanilla that I bought in a little cafe in front of my building.  I had a thought about wanting to eat it for like two weeks, so I decided to browse the recipe and make one for myself. Here is the recipe, 

1 1/2 cup of banana --smashed

1/3 cup of butter --melted

1 cup of sugar --you can reduce it to three-forth if you don't want it to be too sweet

1 egg --beaten

1 tsp vanilla 

4g or half sachet of levure chimique --I think this also replace the baking soda 

1 pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups of flour

Mix the banana and the butter.  Add the sugar, egg, vanilla, baking soda, and salt and slowly fold in the flour.  After all sorta mixed nicely, you put into the bread maker machine, or machine à pain, choose the method "cook" or "bake" or if yours is like mine, choose the method number 12, "cuire". Let it bake for an hour, and that's it! 

Crêpes for Sunday Breakfast..

Yesterday I stumbled upon a crêpe recipe here at allrecipes.com and thought that it is simple enough for my limited kitchen tools. The only things needed is a measuring cup and a whisk. I find that a simple measure cup with the level of quantity on the wall of the glass is better. That way you get to keep only one cup instead of series of spoons in different sizes. Again, they are:

1 cup of flour --I used farine de blé simply because it is easier to find it here in France, surtout parce-que c'est pour le gâteau; but if you're in the US, you use All Purpose Flour, and if you're in Indonesia you can buy it at the wet, or dry, market it is just simply tepung terigu.

1/8 cup of sugar 

1 cup of liquid milk --if you live in Indonesia, perhaps most of the milk is not liquid, so you can definitely mix them with water before you mix into the whole ingredient, pour le Français, je préfér le lait entier, mais, evidemment, le demi-écrémé est pas mal. For the Americans, you can use half half or whole milk the thicker the better for the tongue, not for the hips tho.

2 eggs

3 tbsp melted butter --oui, micro-ondes pendant quelque seconds.

1 tsp vanilla 

Mix all of them with a whisk just so it is easier to blend. I bought mine here at Habitat.  This store has somewhat classy yet fashionable home collection.  If you're en France, stop by and amuse yourself with a couple of dreams in there. or maybe buy some that are on sale. It works for me.  Anyway, back to the crêpe.  A tip, though, I plunge the butter at the very end after every ingredients are mixed. And instead of a quarter cup of sugar, I change to one-eight, while half of them are the vanilla-scented sugar. But seriously, I think it isn't a problem.

Here goes my home-made crêpe. They were a bit thick, in fact, but definitely you can make it as thin as you like. By the way the recipe goes for 8 pieces.

A couple of days before, I frozed sliced of two whole bananas. As you can see above the photo, it tastes like an ice cream.  It melts fast though, even if during the winter, I think.

In no preferable order: la crème fraîche (fresh cream), frozen slices of banana, and nutella.  Go ahead and place them vertically in the middle of peripheric, that way you can fold in both side and then just eat them with your hands.

This is how it taste in your mouth, sweet hazelnut chocolate, milky, and  ice-cold banana all closed with a warm fresh crêpe with a hint of vanilla smell.

 miam miam.. c'etait bon! from that day until today I've made them twice already.  Try it!

Penne, Grilled Chicken and Sautee Zucchini

I am not sure if cooking is easy for everybody, not for me. But last night it was quite a happy ending, I think, allow me to share one of my victory to you.  Amongst all of the pasta, penne is my favorite.  Not sure it is because they are easier to eat with a spoon or just because the name sounds cute to my ears.  I like mine al dente, so I subtract the minutes suggested by the instruction manual by one or two.  

  

yaay it works.. yummo!

Along with it, chicken breast marinated with olive oil, soy sauce, herb de provences, pepper, and super thin slices of the skin of kaffir lime. Pressure-cook for thirty minutes and faire sautee afterward to get a touch of brown.

it supposed to be moist on the inside and crispy on the outside. 

Here is the juice extracted from the pressure-cooker where, together with a full cream, I dunk the steak before I eat it. 

And lastly, for the complement: Sauté de Courgettes Express.  They are zucchini, olive oil, garlic, and red vinegar.

A bowl of cereal for the petit déjeuner, For a Change!

Usually a pair of bread or croissant or brioche with either nutella, fruit jam, or butter with sugar sprinkle on top (my favorite! reminds me of my childhood), with a cup of coffee or tea, and a morning news is one good breakfast for me.. but today I do something for a change,

A Power Cereal!

I bought my cereal at Lidl, I love doing groceries at this store because the quality of the store brand is just as good. Along with

cube-cut apple, 

a banana, and

scissored prunes.  Yeah, the fruit is good for your health... 

with the yogurt and the milk, 

and finish... 

can't you tell that I love it.. 

I am so satisfied with this irregular activity, and definitely will do something more creative, not sure if it will be healthier tho..