This is my first official entry, the last one was just an introduction to the nameless blog; there is an actual recipe involved here.
This weekend has been really laid back; we got back to Paris yesterday, and decided to rest from our vacation. In France people usually take a couple of weeks off (some even the whole month) in august. Paris can get very hot in the summer, and there aren’t that many places equipped with air conditioner, so people go to the beaches or to the country and rest, kids have their summer breaks too. This year was strange because we had no summer in Paris, it never got hot, and it rained most of the time, compared to the 35 C (around 90 F) in the evening last year.
For our vacation, we went to London to visit some friends and to Bretagne (west of France) to visit my aunt, with an eight hour layover on Paris in between, during which we unpacked from one trip and packed for the other, now that I think of it, we packed everything backwards, London was sunny and beautiful, and we where expecting rain, and Bretagne was, well, just wet.
Since we had been away for most of the week I really felt like staying home, so Ed (the self professed guinea pig) went to the supermarket and I stayed home to get a head start on the cleaning, this is when I decided to defrost the freezer (which took two days).
Note:
This is not an advisable thing to do right before your husband comes home from the market. Luckily as I mentioned before, our fridge is tiny so we don’t buy that many groceries. But I had been putting it off for so long.
So this weekend was all about saving the perishables, I poached all the chicken and baked a very French yogurt cake. Since I used only part of the chicken stock for a pasta sauce yesterday, today I still had a good two cups left; I decided to make a lentil soup.
I simmered the stock with about a cup of lentilles du puy, added a sliced carrot, let it boil for a bit, and topped with sautéed zucchini and voilà, a delicious quick dinner, the zucchini gives it lovely sweet flavor and the carrots give the creamy soup a little bit of a crunch, I also added half a chicken breast at the end, but the best part was dipping some crusty bread in it! I had it with some baguette left over from breakfast, yum. Ed had a ‘French-American’ hot dog on the side, (French=the bread, American= relish and onions), his very own version of soup and sandwich.
This weekend has been really laid back; we got back to Paris yesterday, and decided to rest from our vacation. In France people usually take a couple of weeks off (some even the whole month) in august. Paris can get very hot in the summer, and there aren’t that many places equipped with air conditioner, so people go to the beaches or to the country and rest, kids have their summer breaks too. This year was strange because we had no summer in Paris, it never got hot, and it rained most of the time, compared to the 35 C (around 90 F) in the evening last year.
For our vacation, we went to London to visit some friends and to Bretagne (west of France) to visit my aunt, with an eight hour layover on Paris in between, during which we unpacked from one trip and packed for the other, now that I think of it, we packed everything backwards, London was sunny and beautiful, and we where expecting rain, and Bretagne was, well, just wet.
Since we had been away for most of the week I really felt like staying home, so Ed (the self professed guinea pig) went to the supermarket and I stayed home to get a head start on the cleaning, this is when I decided to defrost the freezer (which took two days).
Note:
This is not an advisable thing to do right before your husband comes home from the market. Luckily as I mentioned before, our fridge is tiny so we don’t buy that many groceries. But I had been putting it off for so long.
So this weekend was all about saving the perishables, I poached all the chicken and baked a very French yogurt cake. Since I used only part of the chicken stock for a pasta sauce yesterday, today I still had a good two cups left; I decided to make a lentil soup.
I simmered the stock with about a cup of lentilles du puy, added a sliced carrot, let it boil for a bit, and topped with sautéed zucchini and voilà, a delicious quick dinner, the zucchini gives it lovely sweet flavor and the carrots give the creamy soup a little bit of a crunch, I also added half a chicken breast at the end, but the best part was dipping some crusty bread in it! I had it with some baguette left over from breakfast, yum. Ed had a ‘French-American’ hot dog on the side, (French=the bread, American= relish and onions), his very own version of soup and sandwich.
R E C I P E
2 cups chicken stock
1 small bouillon cube
1 bay leaf
1 cup of lentils
1 small carrot
1 pinch of chili pepper
½ poached chicken breast
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small zucchini
In a small pot, bring the chicken stock, bouillon cube and bay leaf to a boil.
Once it’s boiling add the lentils. Stir.
When it boils again. Lower temperature. Cover. About 20’. Until the lentils are soft.
* what I did to make it thicker, was mush it a little bit with the bottom of a coffee mug before adding the carrots.
Slice the carrot. Thinly. Add to soup.
Add chili pepper. Cook. About 10’
Add the sliced poached chicken breast. Cook just enough to warm (if you boil it, it gets hard and chewy). About 2’.
Slice the zucchini. Heat a small pan. Add Olive oil.
Sautee zucchini. Don’t salt, it’s perfect when sweet on top of the soup.
Serve the soup in bowls. Top with zucchini. Dip some crusty bread in it.
Print Page
2 cups chicken stock
1 small bouillon cube
1 bay leaf
1 cup of lentils
1 small carrot
1 pinch of chili pepper
½ poached chicken breast
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small zucchini
In a small pot, bring the chicken stock, bouillon cube and bay leaf to a boil.
Once it’s boiling add the lentils. Stir.
When it boils again. Lower temperature. Cover. About 20’. Until the lentils are soft.
* what I did to make it thicker, was mush it a little bit with the bottom of a coffee mug before adding the carrots.
Slice the carrot. Thinly. Add to soup.
Add chili pepper. Cook. About 10’
Add the sliced poached chicken breast. Cook just enough to warm (if you boil it, it gets hard and chewy). About 2’.
Slice the zucchini. Heat a small pan. Add Olive oil.
Sautee zucchini. Don’t salt, it’s perfect when sweet on top of the soup.
Serve the soup in bowls. Top with zucchini. Dip some crusty bread in it.
Print Page
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