winosandfoodies

Petits Pois A La Francais Recipe

There are a variety of recipes for this dish. Some cook the dish in a combination of butter and water, some add cream and a stock cube.I do neither. My recipe is influenced by a recipe in the wonderful Art of Eating by MFK Fisher.

I'm happy to use frozen peas, the one vegetable I keep in my freezer all year round. So versatile is that little packet of frozen peas.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup frozen peas, defrosted to room temperature
• 1 small onion, sliced
•  a couple of iceberg lettuce leaves, shredded
• a good knob of butter
• salt and pepper

METHOD

• In a heavy bottamed pan ( I use a Dutch oven) melt half the butter and soften onions without browning.
• Add peas and the remainder of the butter. Stir, turn heat to low, cover pot with lid. Cook until peas are tender, about 5 minutes.
• Remove lid, add lettuce, stir and cook briefly.
• Season with salt and pepper and serve. This will serve two as  an entre or four as a vegetable side to a main course.

Sopa de Ajo Recipe

 

Okay so this isn't the prettiest soup...but it packs a powerful punch.....and my house now smells (some would say reeks) of garlic. I've been wanting to make a garlic soup  since I fell in love with it in  Spain.  When Soup Chick posted a recipe recently  it seemed like the perfect time.  Then MeleCotte announced her Cooking to Combat Cancer event, and garlic being a cancer fighting food, it all fell into place.

SOPA DE AJO (Garlic Soup, serves 2)

• 6 - 8 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 1 teaspoon hot paprika
• 4 cups vegetable broth, heated
• 2 eggs
• 2 slices crusty, day old bread torn into chunks

METHOD

• Place oil in medium pan over gentle heat. Fry garlic until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Do not let garlic brown.
• Add hot paprika and heated broth. Cover and simmer gently for 5 minutes. Taste and add salt if needed.
• Remove lid. Break eggs into soup and gently cook through.
• Place bread in bowl cover with soup and top with egg and serve.

 

Lemon Apples and Tulips by Henri Fantin Latour

Henri Fantin-Latour    a French artist and lithographer, he was mostly known for his flower paintings and group portraits.

Citron,pommes et tulipes is displayed at  The Hermitage, St Peterburg Russia.

A number of his paintings are currently on show at the Bowes Museum  at  Barnard Castle, County Durham in England.

Previous art recreated

Renoir

Chardin

Thiebaud