Just good friends, good food, good laughs...

Hello dear Peeps! I think Maria Sharapova had it right when she (apparently) said:

I don't need a fancy party to be happy. Just good friends, good food, and good laughs. I'm happy. I'm satisfied. I'm content.

I hope everything is well with you. We are eating well, and using the slow cooker quite a lot too. We went out for Mr FD's birthday to L'Hotel de la Poste, just round the corner. We wzent with our friends, Alison and Gerome. 

It was good to have lots of time to chat and enjoy good food together - although I drank enough wine to give me cramp that night! I'm starting to think two glasses might be my limit - or maybe it's the colour...I did have both red and white - and fizzy! - wine so I'm not sure what is the culprit yet! I shall start keeping records to find out.

I had tarte aux poireaux (leek tart) to begin, followed by a filet mignon du porc en brochette. Both were very enjoyable. Of course, the cheese trolley and the dessert trolley are always good at La Poste, although I'm usually too full to take full advantage of either! Mr FD was disappointed as the Paris-Brest that had been there at the beginning of the evening had all disappeared by the time we got to the dessert! 

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The fruit salad that I chose was good - but just a fruit salad! - but the tarte banane-speculoos was quite tasty.

Our food for the rest of this week has been less fancy! Planned for next week we have...

SUNDAY: Brazilian pork stew - although I won't be making the corn dumplings as Mr FD doesn't like corn. Instead I'll make ordinary dumplings/ cobbler topping, and I'll have an ear of sweet corn on the side! 

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MONDAY: OO-er. This is where I'm thrown back into the world of work rather precipitously with 8 hours of lessons at a new company. Still...think of the money! Mr FD is on charge of prepping dinner - meatballs (in the freezer), tomato & vegetable sauce, rice. Not very arduous for him, methinks.

TUESDAY: Lentil-and-sweet-potato shepherds pie. This was planned a couple of weeks back, using some delicious lamb-y gravy left over from a slow cooker lamb stew, but for whatever reason (I think it was a slightly dodgy stomach!) it didn't happen, so the gravy went in the freezer. It will happen today.

WEDNESDAY: Left over pork stew from Sunday. I'm dancing tonight so Mr FD is in charge of reheating this. We'll have it with crusty bread. 

THURSDAY: My Thursday routine has changed a bit. I have a lesson in Roanne at 17h15 so Mr Fd has agreed to come down with me and do the shopping while I'm teaching. This means that I'm going to use the slow cooker so dinner will be ready when we get home. So tonight we're having Spinach and three cheese canneloni. (Not quite but nearly the recipe I'm using)

FRIDAY: Braised Asian Style beef ribs - again another not-quite-but-nearly the recipe! This is another slow cooker recipe. Served with broccoli and rice.

 

 

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SATURDAY: A sort of sweet potato/peppers/onion/mushroom/chorizo hash with egg. All made up.

We went plum picking yesterday, but sadly it wasn't too successful. The plum trees belong to  friends of ours who has a holiday home near here. They have left and gone home, but said we could pick the plums. Unfortunately due to the dry summer although there were loads of plums they were a bit hard , small and wrinkled (a bit like me! ) We picked about a kilo, but they didn't look too hopeful for jam making - particularly as I didn't fancy cutting open and de-stoning all these teeny plums. 

Finally I decided to go for a jelly type jam, so I cooked the plums without destoning them, and then I sacrificed a pair of tights to use to let the juice drip out. Here is our juice dripping going on:

Because the tights went so very stretchy and long desperate measures were needed and we suspended the tights from the ladder:

I suspect if I'd left it overnight we'd've got even more juice out, but it was a bit in-the-way, so I squeezed it as much as I could and then used what we had. It made 4 and a half jars though so that's not too bad!

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Again I thank you all for your comments, and I'm grateful that you read and comment on this blog. Especially on yesterday's post about the refugee crisis: please though, don't just comment. Do something too! Fishcake Random is knitting scarfs and hats - I'm not sure mine would be appreciated if I did that! I can't even knit a square without it becoming a trapezium!! 

TRISH: I hope you enjoyed the squash dhansak as much as we did! I made Jamie Oliver's easy garlic butter flatbreads to go with it. Lush!

JAN: Thank you for Mr FD's birthday wishes...Our local restaurants are good - but then, when we were in the UK we ate in some amazing Gastro pubs. Our French friends were very impressed by the food in pubs, especially by those in the Cotswolds that we visited, including The Churchill Arms

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and The Fox

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SANDRA: I know that both my MiL and my mum don't bother cooking much for themselves, finding it too much of a faff, although mum  does like cooking for us when we come. (so she says!!) I imagine that cooking for one does get a little tedious at times... But I do recommend the vegetable bake. It was delicious and SO simple in the slow cooker! I used a jar of arrabiata sauce to give it added piquancy - we like our food a little spicy!

I bought mum a number of products from this company Look What We Found  which she really liked. She said the food was really tasty and so easy. Maybe there's something similar in the States.

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POMPOM: You're welcome any time! Just let me know so I can get some extra bread!

 

And finally... Cat, sun and wine! It only needs some bread and cheese to be perfect!

Well, maybe some chocolate too!