Starting the weekend off the right way, with a Smarties-studded chocolate cake
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Starting the weekend off the right way, with a Smarties-studded chocolate cake
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I've already posted here about the traditional bake-off held during each US presidential election. This time around, I tried another recipe from Ann Romney: M&M cookies. Smarties cookies will have to do -- no plain M&Ms to be found (at least not easily) in Paris.
These cookies got the seal of approval from Bon Bon. My husband, who doesn't like peanut butter even liked them. I would've tried Michelle Obama's recipe for white and dark chocolate chip cookies, but again, no butter-flavored Crisco to be found in these parts.
Click here for the recipes (Update: Michelle Obama is the winner!)
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Now that the (French) elections are over, we can fully dedicate our nighttime TV-viewing to the Euro 2012 soccer tournament. Even Simon's getting into it, whereas whenever Des paroles et des actes came on the television, he would just leave the room...
Full disclosure: this photo was not taken during the Euro tournament, as "MAR" and "MIL" are not European countries. Though I'm fully incapable of telling you which teams these are, as I don't care much for soccer (ok, ok, "football")...
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As it's Valentine's Day, I thought I'd share these pictures taken last summer of love padlocks -- the urban equivalent of engraving your and your sweetheart's names on a tree trunk -- on a bridge near the Notre Dame cathedral.
This last picture makes me long for summer.
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Last month we went to Brussels to attend a Duran Duran concert, since they don't seem to want to come to Paris anymore (sniff sniff).
We've been to Brussels so many times already, so that when we do visit, we tend not to do much sightseeing. We did go to the city museum on the Grand Place, but other than that, we spent a lot of our time relaxing at cafés (above), taking long strolls and browsing some of our favorite stores.
Of course, I had to have my favorite carbonnades flamandes
No trip to Brussels is complete without some chocolate (yes, that's a chocolate orangutang)
Valentine's Day being around the corner, all the shops have their window displays up
Pierre Marcolini, above and below, in the quartier Sablon. We went into a few stores as well on the place du Grand Sablon, which reminds me of a real gem of a blog I found recently, Belgian Pearls. It's a great source of design inspiration.
The photo in this chocolate shop in the Galeries royales Saint-Hubert does not do it justice
Just slightly chicer than your typical supermarket aisle display
Of course I had to visit my all-time favorite cooking equipment store, the International Home of Cooking.
Good thing I live 3 hours away by car, or I'd probably be bringing home 600 euro surprises each month, like that hot pink pearl-finish KitchenAid mixer.
Not wanting to leave empty handed, I bought a top-notch potato masher and a cheese grater.
...is teatime in the days following Christmas...
...and watching your baby play with her new toys
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During a recent trip back to the states, Bon Bon got to be a flower girl for the first time...
...when my little sister got married.
We got to go "mini-pumpkin picking" and visit the orchards' adjoining country store.
Our trip went by way too quickly, but we had a great time at all of the wedding festivities and got to see a lot of our friends and family. Very much looking forward to the upcoming holiday season and everything it brings.
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Back in August we took a day trip to Rouen, a city in northern France located just a few hours outside of Paris. Rouen probably best known for its cathedral (depicted in several Monet paintings) and as being the place where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.
We spent most of our day strolling around the city, visiting the "Gros Horloge" (astronomical clock), the Rouen Cathedral (of course) and the Place du Vieux Marché, which is located on the site where Joan of Arc was burned.
Here are some pictures of our day:
The Gros Horloge from afar (below) and close up (opening photo)
Pedestrian shopping street (you can see the Gros Horloge & part of the cathedral in the background)
+ a couple of cute French kids with their afternoon "goûter" (snack)
Detail of the Rouen Cathedral
Place du Vieux Marché
One of the merchants at the market under the structure on the Place du Vieux Marché
Looking out over the city
Yet another recipe from Beatrice Ojakangas' The Great Scandinavian Baking Book, though this time it's savory. I was intrigued by the descriptions of these meat and vegetable-filled pasties found in this cookbook and on the internet, which explain that they were popular among mining communities (a complete meal conveniently "packaged" that miners took with them to eat for lunch). These freeze well and are great for those nights when you are short on time or simply don't know what to prepare for dinner. Make a salad while heating them up and, 20 minutes later, voila! dinner is served.
This dense, spiced cake has become a staple in our home. It's so simple to make and uses ingredients you probably already have in your pantry: flour, sugar, baking powder, dried spices, salt, eggs & cream. There's no butter to soften and no special order in which to combine ingredients -- you simply measure them, put them all in the same bowl and mix them together. I use a stand mixer, so from start to finish it takes me no more than 5 minutes to make the batter, pour it into a bund form pan and pop it in the oven.
The spice that the recipe calls for is one found in a lot of Swedish baked treats: cardamon. While I like cardamon, I tend to associate it more with savory foods -- our favorite Indian restaurant puts whole pods in its sauces, which I occasionally bite into by accident, and when I first tasted this cake I immediately thought of them. The second time I made it, I substitued cinnamon for the cardamon, which made for a delicious, lightly-spiced cake. The third time around, I used pumpkin pie spice (my husband's favorite).
Recipes for this cake abound on the internet. I used one from Beatrice Ojakangas' The Great Scandinavian Baking Book.
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