1796 Foods

809. Crepes Suzette

I MAY have kind of forgotten about this picture until like, 5 seconds ago. This was taken at the Cardiff Harbour Festival which was in oh, July maybe. I actually had a pretty great day so I have no excuse for forgetting about it! The Harbour Festival is a sort of food festival, but also has boat displays and activities for kids. Luckily, it was held on just about the only day of nice weather we’ve had in Cardiff for the whole entire year.

As my lunch, I got a crepe suzette from Creperie Sophie, who now have a cafe in one of the Cardiff arcades. Suzette is a crepe cooked with a little marmalade and orange liqueur. It gives a lovely adult quality to what is often a relatively basic dessert or snack dish.

810. Piccalilli

The festival also had plenty of the traditional food festival type stalls selling jams, chutneys, and the like. I took the opportunity to try piccalilli at one of them, as I knew full well that as a pickle I was pretty unlikely to enjoy it. In these cases I always like to take advantage of free samples! Even though this was a lovely homemade version made with cider vinegar, as i suspected I didn’t enjoy it!

811. Elderflower Wine

Elderflower wine I did enjoy very much though! I always enjoy trying different fruit and floral wines, and elderflower is one of my very favourite flavours. If you’ve never tried elderflower cordial I suggest you go out and get yourself some this very minute as it is beyond delicious.

811 down, 985 to go

795. Soupe a l’Oignon

A couple of weeks back I did a grocery order online. I requested 2 onions. Somehow, I think that may have translated to 2 kilos of onions or something as I got delivered 11. There are only 2 of us here; 11 onions would last us a rather long time. I therefore decided that some French onion soup was in order. I used 3 or 4 whole onions to make this one big bowl of soup. I also cooked them for over an hour before I put anything else into the soup. It was totally worth it. The onions got all sweet and soft and brown and delicious. I topped the soup with a big crouton made with a slice of toast that I cut a circle out of, topped with cheese and popped under the grill. Yum.

796. Cognac

I used a little cognac in the soup to give it a nice depth of flavour. I also had a sip or two whilst I was making it. Cognac has that lovely warm feeling as it goes down, and it tastes like Christmas. I actually went on tours of a couple of cognac distilleries on holiday as a teenager and they just smelled like Christmas cake., which was rather lovely.

796 down, 1000 to go

787. Oeufs Florentine

I will have mentioned here before (because well, I mention it to everybody all the time), that Eggs Benedict is hands down the undisputably best breakfast/brunch dish. Huevos Rancheros give them a good run for their money, but I’m fairly certain that Benedict will never ever lose the crown in my book.

Eggs Florentine therefore had a pretty hard task of convincing me to try them, because lets face it, spinach is never going to beat bacon or ham in any contest. I decided they needed to be tried though, so I knocked myself up a bowl and tucked in. It was perfectly pleasant, the spinach was quite tasty with the eggs, cream and cheese, but I can’t see myself switching my egg allegiance any time soon.

It did give me the idea for a triple-threat Huevos Florentine Benedict though - crispy tortilla + poached eggs + bacon + spinach + beans + salsa + cheese + hollandaise = a billion calories but a very happy Laura. Perhaps I shall have to make it and let you know how it goes!

787 down, 1009 to go

781. Beaujolais

This is all the ingredients I used for a recent chilli. I rarely follow recipes, and I like to try out different things, so even for a regular meal like chilli I tend to alter the ingredients a little each time. I do tend to use Clamato pretty much every time now as I’m ever-so-slightly obsessed with it, and truthfully it does add great flavour - a bit of sweetness, a bit of saltiness, and a slightly richer taste to the tomato. On this occasion I decided to add a little red wine and I had beaujolais. I don’t often drink a lot of French wine, I generally prefer new world or Italian, but this was nice and worked well both in the food and in the accompanying glass.

781 down, 1015 to go

751. Oeufs Mornay

Anything mornay basically means that it’s in a cheese sauce, so oeufs mornay is hard-boiled eggs in a cheese sauce. When I was younger my mum would often make a meal called bubbling eggs mornay which was pretty much exactly that but with a layer of mashed potatoes on the bottom. It was always one of my favourites and it’s a meal I’ve carried on making regularly since leaving home. My flatmate Pie doesn’t like it that much, so I don’t get to eat it all that often any more, although that’s probably a good thing because of the calories!

751 down, 1045 to go

750. Tarte Tatin

I finished off the French meal with a classic tarte tatin. Any kind of apple and pastry dessert is good, and tarte tatin has the added bonus of being all caramelized and gooey. I’m not usually a big fan of vanilla ice cream, but with the tart it was a delicious combination.

750 down, 1046 to go

749. Boeuf Bourguignon

I carried on the French meal with boeuf bourguignon. The French are pretty great at making stews - boeuf bourguignon and coq au vin are easily two of the best. The rich red wine gravy with tender, falling-apart meat, bacon, mushrooms and onions is a heavenly combination. This one was made even better because it was served with gratin dauphinois, which are clearly one of the best types of potatoes. Yum.

749 down, 1047 to go

748. Pastis

When I got my new job, my dad took me out for dinner to celebrate. We went to Cafe Rouge so I thought it would be a great opportunity to catch up on a few French classics from the list. I started out with a glass of pastis, which is an aniseed liqueur which you drink with ice water (like ouzo). I remember that my parents always used to get it when we went on day trips to France when I was younger, and I’ve always loved it as I’m a huge fan of anything that is aniseed or liquorice flavoured. It was a lovely aperitif for the meal.

748 down, 1048 to go

744. Sauternes

For Pie’s birthday, my main gift to him was a Lego X-Fighter, but I also got him a couple of smaller gifts including this bottle of Sauternes. I never used to be a fan of dessert wines but they have been growing on me more and more over the years. This Sauternes had a lovely honey flavour.

744 down, 1052 to go

723. Quiche Lorraine

Little story for you. When I was in high school, one day we had to make a quiche. It wasn’t a quiche lorraine, it was a vegetable quiche of some sort. I got all the bits ready, put all the ingredients in the pastry case and put it in the oven. Some time later I realised I had forgotten to add the cheese and my quiche was just a bland eggy, vegetably mess. Long story short it tasted like crap and I haven’t made a quiche since. I probably should though, as ditzy as I can be I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t make the same stupid mistake again. I think.

Anyway, this quiche was therefore bought from the store. I got the ‘finest’ type range as standard supermarket brand quiche is usually rubbish. This was not rubbish; it was tasty and crispy, and they had not forgotten the cheese.

723 down, 1073 to go