This French Apple Flan straight from the buffet section of the A-Z of Cooking is délicieux! I know what you’re thinking. Two pastry dishes in two weeks? Why, it’s almost like you’re practicing for something.
Nudge nudge, wink, wink, say no more.
French Apple Flan
Truth is, I made this before I knew anything about Pieathalon 2…which is not only a reality but I have purchased my ingredients and will be baking on the weekend.
But back to the French Apple Flan. I was actually a bit wary about making a second pastry dish from the A-Z of Cooking because, lets face it, I was not overly impressed with the pastry from the Date Crunchies.
But, the buffet section left a LOT to be desired. There was an Egg Mousse. But there is also an Egg Mousse in Salads for All Seasons, which quite frankly reads better. Then there is a Cold Loin of Pork Orientale….except I don’t eat pork. There is the trout of nightmares:
And there is the French Apple Flan:
French Apple Flan
So, despite that picture not being overly appealing, this was kind of a no-brainer.
And let me say right now, I can’t imagine any of the other dishes being this good because this was AWESOME. The pastry was crisp and light and delicious, the filling was lovely – and again not too sweet. There was only a 50g of sugar for a kilo of apples. The butter and the lemon and the wine hummed along quietly in the background without taking over. The filling really just tastes of apples. But nicer. Like supercharged apples. But really, please, despite what the recipe says use butter not that horrible other stuff.
French Apple Flan 8
A friend of mine recently made some gorgeous apple roses that she found here and they kind of inspired my topping.
French Apple Flan 9
I also used a blackberry jam for my glaze because that’s what I had and smoke em if you got ’em is how I roll. It made my glaze quite dark but I kind of liked that ombre effect it created.
French Apple Flan
And again, the French Apple Flan was just lovely. And it was totally delicious on it’s own but if you really want to ramp it up, try it, slightly warm with some dulce de leche ice cream. And then just float away on a little cloud because you will seriously think you have died and gone to heaven.
French Apple Flan
So, good.
In my mind this is an apple tart. So much so that I had to keep going back when writing and changing the word tart to flan. I am not precisely sure of the difference between a tart and a flan although some albeit rather lazy research leads me to think a flan contains a custard filling. Which this doesn’t.
So it’s a tart right?
Whatever you call it. it’s super delicious and made from things you already probably have in your house or can get pretty easily. I promise you will not regret making this…so go on, do it now!
Breakfasts and Brunches start the “B” section of the A-Z of Cooking. I chose a smoked salmon and egg combo called Nova Scotia Eggs which was, not surprisingly, delicious. You’d have to go a long way to go wrong with those ingredients.
Nova Scotia Eggs 1
Having said that, the recipe did it’s best to bamboozle me. Coat the eggs in mayonnaise it says. It actually had me questioning the word “coat”. Because to cover the eggs completely, which would be the normal translation, seems like a LOT of mayo. Then again it also calls for 8 tablespoon of mayonnaise to cover 4 eggs. I’ll say it again. That’s a shit ton of mayo.
Nova Scotia Eggs – Recipe
Who knows, maybe Canadians really, really like mayo. Although having said that, I have no idea if the Nova Scotia eggs have any actual connection to Canada.
I also feel that unless I get something off my chest, I will probably never get to find out. You see, I am carrying a deep dark secret in relation to Canada. Well, in relation to two Canadians specifically but I get the feeling they are very community spirited. Do ill by two of them and the whole country takes against you. Anyhow, I feel that until I publicly right this wrong, I may never be welcome in the land where pines and maples grow, great prairies spread and Lordly rivers flow!
It happened like this.
A few years ago we holidayed on the Amalfi Coast. Whilst we were there we did a half day tour of Pompeii. The problem was that we booked ourselves onto a triple language tour. This meant that for each point of interest the tour guide stopped and spoke about it in Italian, English and Russian. Then there was time for questions. Of which the Italians and Russians had plenty. And she would duly translate the answers into the other two languages. Kudos to the tour guide for being fluent in three languages when sometimes I feel like I struggle with just one, but it meant the going was SLOW. So slow that, had there been glaciers in the vicinity, we could have watched them moving and marvelled at their speed compared to our progess through Pompeii.
An hour in, and we weren’t even inside the walls. He was starting to get antsy. “Come on, this is crap, we’re never going to see anything at this rate. And don’t you know about it?”
I may have slightly bigged up my knowledge of Pompeii. I had studied it in art class in high school for what seemed like an eternity however, high school was OMG, 20 years ago.
Excuse me while I have a minor major flip out about that.
OK. I’m back. I’m centred and TWENTY YEARS?
Holy Crap.
Nova Scotia Eggs3
Back to Pompeii…anything to blank out the horror….During the next few Russian and Italian sessions we started a muttered debate. He wanted to leave the group and strike out on our own, armed with our purchased tour book and my…ahem…vast knowledge. I was equally adamant that we had paid for a guided tour and dammit, a guided tour we would have.
“Are you guys thinking about ditching this ?” Our conversation was interrupted by a whisper coming from a guy standing beside us. (We were all being very quiet so as not to disrupt the relentless Italian / Russian chatter).
“Yes” Him.
“No” Me.
“Cos we are too”. They were a Canadian couple on honeymoon and after a few more murmered exchanges we decided to very quietly leave the group and explore on our own.
“And we don’t need a guide. Taryn knows all about it.”
Why is there never a bottomless volcanic crater around when you need to push someone into one?
Nova Scotia Eggs4
In retrospect, it was the best thing to do. The four of us covered an amazing amount of ground and had a great time doing it. They had a different book to us so we were all sharing what we had and we all got on really well. Then we reached a point where apparently, back in the day, you could look across and see the cave of the oracle of Cumae. And something in my brain clicked.
“You know that in the days before Vesuvius erupted the Oracle of Cumae told them to get out of Pompeii. Twice. But the people were so hedonistic and so consumed by their material possessions that they refused to go”. All of a sudden, I was Simon Schama. I knew all about the Oracle and the prophecies and I was not afraid to tell the world. The lovely Canadian couple were quite impressed. They even took notes. And He was impressed. Dammit, I was impressing myself. Who knew I paid that much attention in art history classes?
Nova Scotia Eggs5
Much later in the day, when we were on the bus back to where we were staying in Positano, he asked if he could see the guidebooks. I handed them over and he started pouring over them with an intensity I have rarely seen.
“Whatcha looking for?”
“All that stuff about the Oracle…did you read that in here?”
“I dunno.Maybe…or maybe in the book at the hotel. Or maybe from memory. Why are you so interested?”
“I want to see if they say if that’s where they got the idea for the episode of Doctor Who”
Oh. OH.
“The w…w…what?”
“You know, the episode of Doctor Who where they go to Pompeii. And the oracle tells the people to leave. Twice”.
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
Nova Scotia Eggs5
Except I kinda, sorta, maybe did. So, lovely Canadian honeymoon couple from Pompeii, whose names I have completely forgotten specifically and people of Canada in general. I’m really sorry. I have a very, very bad feeling that instead of telling you some amazing actual factual history, that I may have just given you the summary of the plot line of an episode of Doctor Who.
In terms of accuracy, it might have been better if I’d just sung that Bastille song to you.
Feel free to update the Canadian Wikipedia entry on Pompeii any day now folks.
And enjoy the Nova Scotia eggs, they are delicious. I made them for you!
And please let me in if I ever come visit, I really want to try some poutine.
Have a great week!
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Part Two of A in The A-Z of Cooking concerns itself with one of the best meals of the day, the after school snack.
I chose to make the Date Crunchies purely on the basis that I had every single ingredient already in my pantry.
That never happens!
Date Crunchies2
But first, two intros to After School Snacks. The original from The A-Z of Cooking
“Welcome home your hungry young scholars with something nourishing to tide them over until suppertime”
May have pleased mothers but set children all over the world weeping. They didn’t want something nourishing, they wanted something chockful of sugar with maybe a bit of artificial colouring thrown in.
Not so my After School Snacks Haiku:
Hungry After School?
Dates and Oats Make Good Crunchies
Yummy for your tum.
Did I miss a career in marketing or what?
And…we’re done with the poetry. Trust me. There will be no sonnets to breakfast food, no odes to the buffet. Unless you really like them. In which case get ready for a whole heap of limericks and haikus because that’s about my limit.
Date Crunchies – The Good
These are kinda sorta almost healthy with the sweetness coming from dates and honey instead of sugar, and the use of oats and wholemeal flour.
Dates, honey and cinnamon are a combination that works amazingly well together. And the little bit of lemon made the it even better!
I think I probably like them more now than I would have as a child when I would have wanted something sweeter.
Apparently they worked well with a glass of milk. This is on hearsay only. I have never liked milk and even the thought of drinking a full glass of it makes me want to gag.
Working the dough was the best arm workout I have had in a long time. I’m pretty sure I’ve staved off bingo wings for at least another year just by that alone.
Date Crunchies 4
Date Crunchies – The Bad
The the quantities in the recipe seemed wrong. I needed a lot more water to soften the dates and a pinch of cinnamon is no good to anyone. You need at least 1/4 teaspoon.
More than this though that pasty was way too short. I was lovely and light but you just had to look at it the wrong way and it crumbled. It needed an egg or something else to bind it together a bit more.
Date Crunchie
Date Crunchies – The Ugly
Let’s also address the other elephant in the room when in comes to this recipe. In some places in Australia, “date” is a colloquial expression for one’s…well…anus. So a date crunchie is probably not something that should be even remotely appetizing. As for these? They were better than that. Just not by much.
In all honesty, they were perfectly acceptable. They were average. There was nothing fundamentally hideous about them. Truth be told, it’s taken me ages to write this post simply because I find it really hard to describe food that’s just….meh….
WouId I have wanted these as an afternoon snack when I was a child?
Hell no.
But I was a weird only child with a working mother. She didn’t have time to bake and I had an idea that anything homemade was bound to be inferior to something that could be bought from a shop. I was far happier with a perfectly formed store-bought Tim Tam than anything homemade and vaguely hippyish.
Now? That date filling was rather nice…but you know what? I think I’d still prefer a TimTam. I may make the Date Crunchie dough again just so I never have to do another tricep dip in my life.
Date Crunchies – not an epic fail, not even a fail, just not much of a pass… And with that, we’re done with the A’s.
Next time we venture into The A-Z of Cooking we’re heading to Canada for B..B..Breakfast.
The selection for March and April over at The Cookbook Guru was The Food Of Morocco by Paula Wolfert which really fits in with my explorations into Middle Eastern Food via Persiana and MENA.
First, the book is ENORMOUS!!!! If you dropped this on your foot, you would be in serious danger of breaking a toe. Or two. It was really quite difficult to choose the recipes to try, there were so many and so many that sounded delicious.
Second, it is beautiful – not just the recipes, the photography, the writing, everything about it is lovely. I would love to have this in my own collection as it is so well curated and contains so much of interest but sadly, it is quite expensive so, at the moment is just on the wishlist!
I have been sick for nearly a week now so I have left my run here a little late. Thankfully the anti-biotics have started to kick in and hopefully I can get this post out whilst it is still April somewhere in the world.
I have made four things from this book and whilst I would have loved to have a post for each, for the sake of brevity, I’m putting them all together so I can get something out before Christmas!!! I have also not included any recipes as that would have taken even more time but, if you like the look of anything let me know and I can send ’em through!
THE FOOD OF MOROCCO // BRIK WITH TUNA, CAPERS AND EGGS
I was not familiar with the brik, (pronounced breek) which is a Moroccan snack consisting of a very thin pastry called warqa wrapped around various fillings, one of which is this delicious but to me, uncommon, combination of tuna and egg.
Not surprisingly there was no warqa pastry at the local supermarket and because I was running so late on this, I could not shop for it so I used the much more readily available filo pastry for my briks. You can apparently also use spring roll wrappers, or if really brave, make your own warqa pastry.
So first up you saute up some onions, then add your tuna, capers, parsley and some parmesan cheese. And yup, this mix just on it’s own tastes AMAZING. I’m surprised there was any left to make the briks. Personally, I blame the hosts of reality tv cooking shows for constantly telling people to taste their food during cooking!
Then you make place the tuna mix on the pastry but make a little hole to hold the eggs. I don’t think it matters if it spills over a little like mine did.
Tuna Brik
Then you quickly seal this up and drop it into some hot oil to fry up – the idea being you want your pastry crispy and your egg still a little bit runny.
So, did I cook the perfect runny egg brik?
Sadly, no. My egg was cooked through. 🙁
This was not all bad though, it certainly made it easier to take the remainder for lunch the next day. And OMG, so tasty. I’ll definitely be trying this again and trying to nail that runny egg.
Tuna Brik
THE FOOD OF MOROCCO //POTATO TAGINE WITH OLIVES AND HARISSA
This tasted as good as it looks. And one for my vegan friends!!! The colours are so beautiful and the flavours blend together beautifully!
Potato Tagine With Olives and Harissa
THE FOOD OF MOROCCO // THE BIRD THAT FLEW AWAY
This a lovely chickpea dish with a delightful name. Paula Wolfert explains that is it a “plat de pauvre” (a dish for the poor) that is made when you can’t afford to buy a chicken. It’s so good I think I would eat it regardless of whether I had a chicken or not!
The Bird That Flew Away2
THE FOOD OF MOROCCO INSPIRED // ARTICHOKE SALAD WITH ORANGE, LEAFY GREENS AND DATES.
A Spanish restaurant I am very fond of does a salad with oranges, artichokes and dates which is To. Die. For. In order to recreate it’s flavour, I used Paula Wolfert’s Orange, Leafy Green and Date Salad and added artichokes and some lemon and olive oil in the dressing. I think it worked really well and I loved the hint of orange flower water. It was not exactly my restaurant salad but it was pretty close. And look at how pretty it is!
Artichoke, Orange, Leafy Green and Date Salad
This was an amazing book and I am so glad that The Cookbook Guru drew it to my attention. The next few months we will be cooking from a book by a true legend of Australian Cooking, Margaret Fulton. I can’t wait. And I promise to be a bit more timely!
One of my new year’s resolutions this year was to take my lunch to work a lot more. I had lots of reasons for this – it’s a LOT cheaper, it meant I could control ingredients and portion sizes, it can often be healthier and there’s much less wastage both in food and packaging. There’s no real downside.
Except. The monotony. By about mid February I felt like I was cornering the market in tins of tuna – tuna green salad, tuna pasta salad, tuna potato salad, tuna and couscous had become my go to and frankly it was becoming a bit of a bore. I was maxxed out on the tuna and feeling my motivation starting to wane.
Enter “Bring Your Lunch” by Califia Suntree.
Bring Your Lunch
And can I just say…awesome name, Califia Suntree.
And awesome book.
In the interests of full disclosure and all the blah blah, I did not pay for this book, I got it free off net galley but I would hope that you all know me well enough by now to know that if I truly dislike something, I’ll let you know.
The Book
The first few chapters of the book are the facts, man. Why you should take your lunch, what you need, planning tips etc. This section is very thorough. Or so I assume from the number of pages devoted to it.
To be honest, I didn’t actually read all of them because I wanted to get my hands on the recipes. Plus, I felt I was already motivated to bring my own lunch didn’t need to be pitched on the reasons why. However, it is very nicely illustrated and if you need to be convinced, or feel your motivation flagging at any time, take the time to read these pages.
My favourite picture in this section was the lunch horoscope. It really helped to refine what recipes would best fit your lifestyle,not just your tastebuds! Which is so important, I’m not the person who is going to be spending any time in the morning making lunch so it’s important for me to know which are the good “night owl” recipes.
This could have been carried even further by attaching the relevant symbols to the recipe. That would have been amazing!!!
The Food
The food sections of the book are broken down into various sections, starting with
Last Minute Lunches – Salads
The Kale Agrodolce is not only just a good idea for lunches but it has pretty much become my go-to salad at the moment. I’m loving the sweet-sour of the agrodolce. Having said that, that name made me giggle though. Anyone of a certain age in Australia would like me probably associate an Agrodolce as the mutant lovechild between a foul-mouthed puppet host of a children’s cartoon show from the ’80’s….
And Joe Dolce, a singer who made his fortune by playing to the casual racism of the average Australian;
Thankfully, it’s actually a lovely sweet-sour blend of sultanas soaked in balsamic vinegar. Add some toasted pine nuts, some kale et voila. Here it is with some of the Potato and Mushroom Tarts from Valli Little’s Slow. This was one of the best lunches I have had in ages!!!
Kale Agrodolce
Another super salad from this section was the Fennel and Spinach Salad with Figs and Blue Cheese. I don’t have a photo of this . Largely because every time I made it I was far too busy shoving all that tasty goodness into my mouth to take photos. Just believe me when I say it is one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten. But don’t take my word for it. I feel bad I didn’t have a photo for you, so here is the recipe:
Who knew egg and prawns would go together do well? And tarragon pretty much makes everything taste good. I had this both as a traditional sandwich and wrapped in a lettuce leaf and it was delicious both ways.
Leftover Leitmotifs
Waste not, want not. Make all your food count by creatively using leftovers to make delicious bring your own lunch meals. I made:
Nasi Goreng
Great way to use random veg – I had cabbage, mushrooms, onion, carrot, corn, spring onions, snow peas, broccoli….I think that was all and some chicken breast. I also threw in some prawns. So tasty!!!
Nasi Goreng
And who doesn’t love Chicken Noodle Soup? The Parmesan Cheese and Lemon in this Lemony Chicken Noodle Soup makes it particularly tasty.
Lemony Chicken Noodle Soup
Other delicious sounding recipes in this section include:
Chinese Chicken Salad
Pork Tacos with Pinepapple Salsa
Beef Stroganoff
Ceviche with Mango and Basil
The Freezer Is Your Friend
Mini Lasagnas are my friend. Bake these vegetarian delights in muffin trays and pop in the freezer for future use.
Hardy Green Mini Lasagnas
And how gorgeous do these look, particularly when topped with a lovely cherry tomato compote?
Hardy Green Mini Lasagnas With Cherry Tomato Compote
Ditch The Vending Machine
Chickpea Nuts
Delicious to snack on. So simple to make.
You can indulge your sweet tooth with
Chilli & Cherry Brownie Bites
Gingery Pecan Cranberry Granola Bars
Califia even provides advice on how to Tart Up Your Tuna, so there is absolutely never any reason to get stuck in a rut even with this staple lunch ingredient.
Tart Up Your Tuna – Califia Suntree
I really liked this book and can see it becoming a go to for lunch (and more).
My only criticism, is that whilst I love the drawings as featured above, I would have liked some photos of the food, sometimes it is just nice to see if you have “got it right”. But that is probably more about my insecurities than any fault of the book.
At the time of writing Bring Your Lunch is selling at around $4 which is absolute bargain. I would pay that just for the salad recipes let alone all the rest. Why don’t you buy it and start bringing it too?
And there is the French Apple Flan:
