Galettes de pommes de terres accompagnées d'une compote pommes-oignons nappée d'une sauce au vin et au miel

It has been quite a while. I have been a bit busy and althought eating was not stopped, creativity was put a little on hold and when it managed to emerge, I did not have the time to record it. The meal here was an improvisation, once again, and I suppose was quite costly since it required a fair amount of wine.

Cut onions and make them fry slowly in a pot. Cut 5 apples in bits and add them with the onions once they look cooked.
In the meanwhile, grate 6 potatoes and mix with some grated cheese. Pour 2 eggs in a bowl, add salt, pepper, paprika and herbs. Mix well.
Now take some of the potato-cheese mixture and make little cakes out of them (5 cm in diameter). Pour into the ball with the egg solution. Take the liquid out and make sure the galette is kind of solid. Store them in a plate. Once they are all done, cook them in a little oil in a covered pan. Do not forget to cook both sides.

The sauce. In a bowl, mix honey, wine, crême fraîche, ginger, paprika, salt and pepper. In a pot, melt some butter, Add some cornflower and mix well. Then add the mixture just prepared. And mix well. When it looks thick, add milk. Mix thoroughly. If it is too liquid, wait longer. You must boil the sauce one, to help the spice reveal themselves and to help the cornflower to thicken the sauce.

When evertyhing is ready, serve the galettes, add the compote and the sauce on top of it.
A good addition is to add ham bits in the pan with the galettes as they finish cooking.

Gratin de pâtes avec une sauce paprika-miel

Something terrible had befallen the house. No more money on Saturday in the common pot. Forced then to live on the fridge's reserves. So, there is no need to say that this meal was indeed cheap and I would put it around £2.

Cut 8 shallots in bits. Fry them gently in a pan.
Boil some water for pasta.
Cut 2 tomatoes in bits and wait for the shallots to have nice colours before adding them in the pan.
Put the pasta in the pot and switch on an oven. It must be put on grill.

Aside, take two spoons of crême fraîche and mix it in a bowl with some milk, two teaspoons of honey, some piments d'espelette, and paprika. Salt pepper. Had some cornflour. Mix and pour in a small pot. Warm gently and keep mixing it and when it has boiled once, add the shallots and tomatoes in it. It should be a bit thick. Add a little bit of grated cheese in it.

Wait for the pasta to finish cooking and the sauce to finish. Pour the pasta in a oven-resistant dish, pour on top the sauce and add as much grated cheese as you like on top.


Put in the oven and wait for the cheese to get coloured.

Riz nappé d'une sauce au miel - curry, servi avec pommes et oignons sautés.

I was finishing a novel on my bed instead of working when the thought of the two and a half apples left from Sunday's tarte aux pommes came to my mind. What could I do with them. Well onions and apples go well together, with lardons it could not be bad so that was the start.

Then I got a crazy idea about a honey and curry sauce and extending my thoughts I could see myself very well putting leeks and the 2 tomatoes left in the fridge with it. Rice seemed a normal choice to accompany it.

So there we were with again a weird association that did not cost that much. Leek and lardons were the two most expensive items. In overall, the dish cost round about £2.50.

Put water to boil

Cut one onion in fine bits and let it fry very slowly with some butter in a pan. Cut leeks (I had about 200g of them) in two in their length and cut in small half-circles. Add in another pan, with some sunflower oil (no olive oil).
Cut two apples in cubes and add with the onions once they start getting some colour. Put a little bit of salt
By now the water is boiling, add white rice in (brown would not do).
Cut two tomatoes, remove the liquidy bits with the seeds in and add with the leek once it looks cooked. Add salt and pepper.

In a bowl, while everything cooks gently, mix 100g of crême fraîche (for those who think I am using too much of it, I use a low fat one). Add milk , a teaspoon of cornflower and 2 table spoons of honey. Mix well. Add curry and some espelle chillis, salt, pepper. Mix and verse in a pot to warm it up.

Once the sauce as boiled once, cut the fire under it and add the leek and tomatoes in it.

Cook lardons in the leek pan. Once cooked to your taste, add to the sauce.

Serve the rice. Put the apples and onions on one side and verse the sauce half on the rice, half on an empty space of the plate.

Ready !

Tarte aux Pommes

That was the dessert after the main dish prepared in the earlier note.

Take a kilogram of apples and but them in small bits. In a large pot, put some butter and melt it. Add the apples (fire should be small). Add 2 spoons of honey, a little bit of cinnamon and some espelette chili (that is my personnal touch) and a little bit of rum. If you have vanilla-ed sugar (preparation is described in next note) please do. Adding a pear or two is a good idea.

Let cook for about half an hout, slowly, mixing from time to time with the pot almost fully covered.
The mixture, a compote (or apple sauce) should be kind of liquid. If too many bits are remaining, squash them.

In a pie pan, put some dough (we'll learn later how to do one), do little holes in it with a fork and put it in a pre heated oven at 200*C. When you see that it starts to get a bit hard. Add the compote, spead it over the dough but not higher than the side.
Cut two more apples in thin layer and add them in circles over the top.

Put back in the oven until the apples look cooked.

Caramiel au Miel

Invented in Uni Hall's Bfloor pantry in Jan-2006

ingredients: 20g butter, honey, fresh cream

Melt the butter in a little pot. Add as much honey as you want (2 soup spoons is quite good) and boil. When it boils the mixture will rise, let it rise for a while then take the pot of the fire and wait it comes back to liquid form, then boil a second time and cool a second. Now add the fresh cream (half a litte pot for thhe amount of honey discussed here). Mix well until homogenous. Then boil again and cool again until the colour is a light brown a bit thick (not too much though).

Salade Chinoise composée à la vinaigrette Nahiz

A big salade can feed quite well a few people, be very good, tasty, spicy and good for the line. The price for that one is kind of ridiculous. I suppose, it cost around £1, maybe £1.50. Again, this is a recipe invented on the spot. The vinaigrette has a base recipe, but all the flavouring was decided from what the lettuce tasted like and what I was going to have in it.

Cut the chinese lettuce and wash it. Dry it.
In salad bowl, put one dessert spoon of vinegar, a teaspoon of mustard, salt, pepper, Espelette chilis (red dry chilis), ground ginger, oregano, curry and 2 teaspoons of honey.
Mix well.

Then had two dessert spoons of olive oil and mix very well to create an emulsion (a very interesting metastable state of matter, could do a physics lecture with a simple vinaigrette. (Aaaah, Gibbs free energy).

Cut some cheese in little cubes, add some bits of ham, an avocado cut in bits and a boiled egg per person.
Add the chinese lettuce (it has a taste of its own, very good with ginger-chili-curry-honey).

Mix, it is ready.