Apricot Compot with Semolina Porridge

Buying great looking apricots does not protect you from disapointment. They were sour and hard. 

But I was leaving for a trip the next day and I did not want to throw them in the organic waste. Fruits that are unripe and hard can be transformed when they are cooked and made in a compot.

I used apple juice and vanilla sugar and cut the apricots in bite size chunks. They needed more than 10 minutes to soften. 

A semolina pudding or porridge goes well with all kinds of stewed fruits. That was the solution to my food problem.

Recipe for 2:

500 ml whole milk

1 tsp butter

6 tbsp soft wheat semolina

Pinch of salt

1 1/2 tbsp sugar

1 egg

1/2 lemon zest and juice 

COMPOT:

6 apricots

2 tbsp vanilla sugar

200 ml apple juice

Destone the apricots and cook the fruits first. They should cool down.

Heat up the milk with butter, salt and sugar to a boil, whisk in the semolina and continue whisking until the porridge thickened. Reduce the heat while it boils.

Take the pot of the heat and break an egg in and whisk. Then add zest and juice from the lemon. Stir in the apricots.

Paysanne Pizza meets Flammkuchen

Food served at a racetrack can be a challenge sometimes. But I am in France in Alsace and they are known for good food.

A long morning of driving fast in circles makes hungry and pizza sounded good to me. I was here on this track last year and still remember the good quality pizza I ate then.

A bacon and onion topping on a pizza is here called "farmer's wife" style pizza.  But these ingredients can be found on most Flammkuche in the Alsace region.

The bottom of the pizza was very thin and crispy like the Flammkuchen.

But it was a tomato sauce base with the toppings and some additional cheese on top.

The Flammkuchen comes with a white creme fraiche base and no cheese on top.

All things considered I will call it a Pizza.

Yogurt Peach Cake with Coffee

After a 285 km drive South I needed a time to breeth and relax. A cup of coffee and a slice of some cake helps.

I needed to get groceries for my stay at an AirB&B and the supermarket came with a bakery up front.

It was pretty busy, because the next day was a church holiday. Many people bought cakes anf bread.

It took a while to get my coffee. But that gave me enough time to decide what kind of cake I wanted.

A light yohurt mousse on a thin chocolate spongecake base with peach slices. 

Lemon flavoured Milk Ice Cream

I was not so sure what to expect when I took the KOMET dessert package out of storage. 

The picture on the front showed a lovely cup of ice crem scoops and a dessert bowl. The powder package was good for two versions.

But I wanted ice cream.

The preparation was pretty easy. Just mix 250 ml of fridge cold whole milk with the powder for 3 minutes on high speed and you get a foamy and creamy bright yellow dessert.

I filled it in two containers to freeze it for 4 hours minimum.

The remaining cream I licked out of the bowl. Good as a mousse too.

Air Fryer crispy filled Pasta on Salad

Cheese topped Swabian Maultaschen (filled pasta) made crispy in the air fryer.

A large bowl of lettuce, tomatoes, bell peppers and cucumber as the filler for the dish.

The dressing is Greek yogurt based, with fresh herbs from my balcony, mustard and the usual parts of any good salad dressing.

Prepare the pasta in the air fryer first. It needs 10 minutes at 180 C cut in 1,5 cm slices, sprayed with oil and sprinkled with Parmesan. Let them sit not on top of each other, but in a single layer. I air fryed them in two batches.

Dressing:

5 tsp Greek yogurt

2 tsp grapeseed oil

2 tsp lemon juice

2 tsp mild white balsamic vinegar

1 tsp agave syrup

Lemon salt, pepper

Chopped parsley, oregano, lovage, basil

Houmous aux Carottes

The newest GOURMAND magazine issue, this time Sans Viande, has lots of nice vegetarian recipes.

This is the first one I found. It is a little different approche to prepare a hummus, but the carrot as the main ingredient does not mush smoothly when it is raw. And using canned carrots is a no go for me and in any kind of French kitchen.

The carrots needed a time in some olive oil in a hot pan with some seasonimg and after 5 minutes with a bit of water to steam and get a bit softer. Let them cool down before mixing them with the other ingredients of the hummus.  You can use the remaining liquid from the carrots and add it to the blender. 

Ingredients:

2 carrots

3 tbsp olive oil

75 ml water

130 g canned chickpeas

3 tsp tahini

1 lemon juiced

Fresh parsley

Sesame seeds

Salt, pepper, piment d" Espelette

Serve with in olive oil toasted bread

One Pot Spaghetti with French Tatare Cheese Spread

My last grocery haul in France brought me a couple of different cheeses. The spead with garlic and herbs called Tatare is very well known. I knew I wanted to use it for a pasta sauce.

A punnet of crunchy and sweet cherry tomatoes needed to go. They went together with my last big spring onion and a couple of garlic cloves in a very wide pan with olive oil. I seasoned everything with salt, pepper and Herbes de Provence and waited just a couple of minutes for the halved tomatoes to get a bit soft. 

Then the uncooked spaghetti went in. Stirred around in the pan for bit until the veg stock went on top. I reduced the heat and covered the pan to cook. Exact timing depends on the cooking time of your pasta, but swirl them around in th pan a couple of times and check the liquid. 

I has a baby romaine lettuce and chopped it up, but feel free to baby spinach instead. The lettuce went in short before the spaghetti were done together with the cheese and some Ayvar for flavour and color. Fresh basil came last.

Ingredients: 

225 g spaghetti

150 g cherry tomatoes

1 large spring onion

4 garlic cloves

3 tbsp olive oil

Salt, pepper, herbes de Provence

450 ml veg stock from homemade paste

175 g Tatare cheese spread

3 tsp Ayvar

Basil