xc and the photo of the day 3

I've already posted about my oh so awesome banana cake and since we had a stock of mushy bananas at home, G asked if I can make them into banana cakes. And as I am a sucker for anything that has anything to do with baking, I made one. It was just the right time too since we went to A's place to spend the afternoon in the warm summer sun and a post of banana bread was just what was needed to end the afternoon.

xc and the risotto napoletana

Whenever I'd make "saing" some rice in our trusty old casserole, G would always complain saying I'm not cooking it right. He'd rather have those instant 5 minute rice in plastic bags dunked in boiling water that end up looking like little pasta pieces than for me to cook rice the traditional way.

And whenever I'd cook rice the traditional way he'd always put butter and pepper on it (the horror!!) or suggest I put some tomato sauce in it just so it would have some taste (more horror!!). I never liked and understood the appeal of Star rice, so these suggestions always come to me as a shock.

So I decided that risotto would be the perfect rice fix for me and I found the easiest risotto recipe ever...and I'm sharing it with you guys!

What you need:
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 1 finely chopped large onion
- 1 1/2 cups of arborio rice
- 425 g diced tomatoes
- 3 cups of water
- 100 g spicy salami or chopped chorizo
- 1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes
- 1/2 cup pitted black olives
- 1 tsp dried chili pepper flakes
- 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

What you'll do:
- Heat oil in a large pan and add onion, cooking until soft
- Add rice and stir until fully coated in oil
- Add canned tomatoes and water and bring to a boil. Simmer covered for 15 minutes. Stir once or twice
- Remove from heat and let stand, still covered, for 10 minutes
- Stir in remaining ingredients and serve immediately

I garnished mine with fresh basil leave.

Easy peasy. Ain't it pretty?

Now it's your turn.

ps. G loved it to bits and didn't complain about having rice for dinner...which was a first.



peace & luv,
xc

xc and the Nth I'm back post

If I had a euro for every "I'm back" post, I'd be rich. This is the Nth I'm back post but I know it's not going to be the last.

I wanted my blog to have a theme...photo blog? food blog? a no theme blog? And I've been racking my brains finding that theme that I never had the time nor the motivation to actually continue blogging. It's such a hassle to download photos, post process and upload them that I stop at taking the photo part.

It's also hard looking for interesting topics to blog about...or maybe there are lots of interesting topics but I don't find them interesting...or I'm just plain too lazy or brain fried to write a decent paragraph describing that interesting topic and end up babbling about something else (like now).

Also, I haven't had time to use my laptop the past few weeks. G's laptop crashed, like really crashed and won't start anymore so he's been using, sometimes hogging, mine.

Anyhoos, this is an I'm back post so let's cut the long rambling story short: I'm back.

Things I'll be posting in the next few days:

- 3 new food experiments (which were all successes)
- 2 more weekend getaways
- a couple more rambling thoughts here and there.

But first I have to pry my laptop out of G's hands!! Or just put a password on it, that should work too.


Ad taleur!


peace, love & lotsa motivation,
xc

xc and what to do with leftovers

What do you do with leftover knackis and puff pastry?
Why, Pigs in a Blanket of course!!

This is also great as party finger food and everyone loves them.


What you need:

- Sausages, cut into small pieces
- 1 roll of puff pastry cut into strips

You don't need a wizard to assemble these. Roll sausages in the strips of puff pastry. Put them on a baking sheet. Brush them with an egg yolk-milk mixture if you want the tops to be nice and golden. But they're good plain anyway.

Serve hot and with a bit of mustard on the side.

Yummy!!!

xc and the 2 week recap - sort of

I have been too busy to blog lately. Well, busy/lazy. It's apero season and we've been out almost every night. Work has been quite hectic too.

I got G a really cool and practical gift for his birthday and I'm envious. Now he doesn't have to wait for the bus (oh, wait, that never happens!) to go to work or walk the 20 minutes from the train station to work (which, most often that not, happens!). We took turns riding it from the store to the apartment and it was just sweet to see him all excited to try it out. Although my heart skipped a beat whenever a car would pass him on the street...

I also had (finally!!) my medical exam which is mandatory before getting my residence card. Apparently the French government wants to make sure that foreigners don't bring in the plague. I also had to take a civics seminar to "learn" more about how the government works, what our rights are, etc. I was surprised that I actually liked the seminars. They were very interesting and I met different people from all over the world. It was like I was back in school again, except this time I was the cool girl. If the people from the prefecture do their jobs right, I should be getting the card in about a month. But so far, they have never been good in keeping dates.

Last Saturday, we went to visit Vernon and Giverny and Claude Monet's house there. We wanted to rent bikes but they were ridiculously expensive that we ended up just walking from Vernon to Giverny (5 kms) which wasn't bad at all. We passed by the hike path, saw lots of flowers and beautiful gardens and it was assez sympa as the French would say. Spent the whole day under the sun. G obviously ended up pink as a shrimp and I didn't even darken up a shade. I'll try to blog about that trip when I'm not too busy/lazy anymore.

Tomorrow we will drive up to Britanny to visit the in-laws and spend some time on the beach. It doesn't compare to our beaches back home but well, beggars can't be choosers. It's also the Fete de la Musique this weekend and there are a lot of concerts scheduled in Paris. But the beach is the beach, and besides, there will be concerts in St. Malo as well. My bag is packed, camera almost charged. I can't wait to get out of this city.

This has been one hell of a long week.

I can't believe tomorrow is still a work day. Gah!
And now, a break, for some quality time with the husband.



peace, love & anti-burnout pills,
xc