Food and family

We're looking forward to a gastronomic weekend with my brother, sister and mum in Lyon next weekend. It's mum's 85th birthday and this is our present to her...

Here is a pic of mum and I on our recent trip to the UK. We went for a walk in the fields around her home - she was thrilled to find that there were egrets in the little flood lakes (known as "flashes") just behind the house.

Mr FD and I have booked into the same hotel as J., M. and mum, and we are planning to go to these restaurants (I have to book them today):

L'Est:

which is one of the Paul Bocuse brasseries. It has a little train running around the restaurant - how fun is that?! You can see it just to the left of the door in this photo:

and Le Musée, one of the traditional Lyonnaise "bouchons"

This review makes it sound quite appealing: Un café, un musée? Les deux, mon général! Ce vrai bouchon comme avant, avec  ses banquettes de moleskine, son bar en cuivre et bois, ses murs de crépi, sa fresque « monastique » de 1935, joue les monuments bonhomme. Il plait aisément à tous avec sa jolie mine de rade populaire, propret, soigné à l’envi. Luc Minaire, qui fut boulanger à Saint-Cyr au Mont d’Or, anime la maison avec une vraie gentillesse, tandis qu’un jeune chef, formé à l’Oustau de Baumanière, a repris les recettes d’antan le adjoignant quelques nouveautés.
On aime la simplicité du lieu, la soupe de tripes, le saucisson brioché, les pieds et museau en salade, les rognons sauce madère ou la blanquette du veau, témoignant tous d’une franchise sans faille. On achève avec une tarte citron meringuée, des œufs en neige aux pralines ou une salade d’agrumes, non sans avoir sacrifié à la cérémonie des beaujolais en pot signés Pierre Ferraud et Louis Tête.

We will, of course, be doing some sight seeing too, but the eating regime wil be out of the window next week! We will be enjoying good food without guilt!

Yesterday we had a roast dinner, instead of the planned meal, as I bought a short date chicken for less than half price on Friday. So we had it with roast potatoes, oven-baked cabbage, carrots and steamed green beans last night. Mr FD has requested cold chicken and chips this evening, so we'll probably have that with some coleslaw, tomatoes and some green bean salad. 

The carcass is already boiling away to make stock for soup, which will be my fast day lunch tomorrow...and we'll finish off the meat on Monday. So this week's menus look like this:

TODAY: Cold chicken; chips and salads

MONDAY (semi fasting): Vegetable & chicken stir fry with a few noodles.

TUESDAY: Fish & leek pie - a version of this, from the Woman 500 calorie diet recipe book - fewer leeks, more fish and lemon-and-garlic breadcrumb topping. But I couldn't get smoked haddock this week, so it's an unsmoked fish pie, with extra leeks and plain breadcrumb topping (well, go on then, maybe a bit of cheese!)

WEDNESDAY: Spinach & cheese soufflé omelette - postponed from Saturday (recipe on last week's post) - with potato wedges & salad.

THURSDAY (semi fasting): Lentil dhal, veggie curry and a smidgeon of rice. The dhal is from the freezer, but is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's recipe - which is, no doubt, like most people's recipe!

Then on Friday it's off to Lyon, pausing to pick Mr FD up on the way from his work. The others are arriving at midday-ish, but we'll leave them to do as they wish on Friday afternoon, and we'll arrive about 6.00 at the hotel. 

We'll get back to St Just on Sunday evening...I have a pizza in the freezer if we should want it, but we may be still quite stuffed from the weekend!!

Thank you again for your comments - Trish: did you try the omelette? Was it nice?
Pompom: another funny Lolcat for you (the contented cat looks a little like our lovely boy-cat, George!)
And June, I've contacted the person at Woman magazine, so you might be lucky! I'll let you know!!

And finally...because it made me smile:

(I do hope there's no pieces missing!!)

OK, off to finish the soup & go to the recycling!