Nectarine and Peach Salad

It's good to be connected.

...... and one day you will be chatting virtually with friends that you haven't seen for fifteen years or more. If you are lucky probably even exchanging photos and happy memories of your long lost childhood. Laughing ridiculously in front of your computer, alone. You keep abreast each other by twitting up or hanging out in FB.

The next thing you know things get even better in being connected, you discover new friends never in your wildest imagination will cross your path. And these reel friends become real. Your friendship with them gets deeper, for they are genuine people. Next thing you know, you meet up, have lunch. And things get even better, you chat, you laugh but you are no longer alone.

Here's a glimpse to that colorful afternoon spent with my blogging friends Haze, Makis and Cathy. I'll be sending some of this delectable Nectarine and Peach Salad over at charming Susan the Well Seasoned Cook our host for this week's Weekend Herb Blogging, that event created by Kalyn now in the hands of Haalo of Cook Almost Anything.

From top left to right, table set up, red wine by Makis, a slice of decadent chocolate cake, my wire whisk still unwashed, pile of left-over rosemary pork barbeque and what's left of my famous rice artichokes salad.

Express Peach and Nectarine Salad
Ingredients:
3 yellow peaches
3 yellow nectarines
about 250 g of mache salad
about15 pieces of cherry tomatoes
one small block of feta cheese

vinaigrette sauce
3 tablespoons of olive oil
some salt and pepper
2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar

Peel the nectarines and peaches. Cut them into bitesize pieces. In a salad bowl, toss the tomatoes, peaches, nectarine, feta and mache salad with the vinaigrette sauce.

Lentils & Feta Salad

BONEfully yours, Lentils & Feta Salad

The wonderful Susan is hosting a meaningful food event campaigning against Osteoporosis thru Beautiful Bones. She wants us to recall that women have high risk of developing osteoporosis and we should take precautions at all ages.

I believe that this is a worthy cause and so I concocted a high protein and calcium recipe. I am not really a dietitian but I know that lentils have high nutritional value and health benefits for their protein and fiber content. Cheese is very important too in providing the calcium that we need to have stronger bones that is if we have aversion for milk. Before I met my husband I used to hate drinking milk and eating cheeses (that probably explain my height J). As the saying goes, “when in France do as the French do”, I eat slowly, I savor each meal and most importantly I eat lots of cheese. I think there is no secret to a healthy long life but good diet, exercise, healthy living and lots of happy thoughts.


I am sending over this photo too to Click, my favorite monthly photo event spearheaded by Jai and Bee of Jugalbandi. This month's theme are beans & lentils.

Lentil & Feta Cheese Salad
2 to 3 endives washed and cut
Half a bunch of arugula
Half a pound of cooked beet thinly sliced
Half a cup of cooked lentils
Half a cup of feta cheese sliced thinly

Dressing:

2 tbsp of wine vinegar
1 tsp of Dijon mustard
4 tbsp of olive oil
Salt and pepper

Combine the mustard, vinegar, salt and pepper in a salad bowl. Add the oil and blend well with a wire whisk. Add the beets, endive,lentils, arugula and feta. Toss well and serve. Makes 4 servings.

Californian Citrus Couscous Salad,

My power pack high in Vitamin C,
California Citrus Couscous Salad

My husband and I, are a real team.

I love cooking, he loves eating. He looses things, I find them. He buys things in the kitchen, I break them (these are accidental of course). He loves to complain (he is French, I insist on that) while I love giving compliments to compensate :-). He is so good in numbers, good thing he is around to help me out. Like any other couple, I do the talking and he does the listening. And when things go wrong, he fumes with madness while I cast it out with laughter.

Men and women are really different but that's what completes us together isn't it?

Anyways, since yesterday was a French national holiday and with a beautiful sunny weather that we had, we could only think of driving to the aqua blue beach of Calanque and spend the afternoon there. As we often go to the same beach most of the time, we opted to try the other part of it we least explore. So normal driving routine scenario in our couple: he's behind the wheels and I am the co-pilot holding the map, giving the directions. After hours of driving (we should have arrived decades ago) I confessed that I mis-read the map and we were lost. I don't know why map is so unfathomable for me. He was about to get angry but then we saw this amazing field of coquelicot, beautiful and inviting. I told him, it was a detour so we could take a photograph. He smiled with my alibi. He pulled over, and we went out . Me, hubby and our 8 months old baby girl all together we savour the beauty of nature for a while.

As I prepare this fruity couscous salad in the kitchen, I thought that getting a GPS may not be that bad afterall.

Californian Citrus Couscous Salad

one and a half cup of Couscous
3/4 cup of Chicken broth
one Chicken breast
2 tsps of sesame seeds
2 Californian pink pomelos
2 California oranges
6 tbsps of olive oil
3 tbps of lemon juice
one red bell pepper diced in small cubes
one red onion diced in small cubes
one small cucumber (peeled and remove the seeds) cut in cubes
toasted almonds (chopped) (optional)
basil and mint sprigs

In a small pot bring chicken broth and 1/4 cup water to a boil. Add couscous, cover, and remove from heat. And let it stand for about 5 minutes. Fluff it with your hands. In a small pan, fry the chicken breast crusted with sesame seeds in 3 tbsps of olive oil until golden brown on both sides and set aside. In a small bowl, mix together the remaining olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper. Pour over couscous and toss. Stir in the red pepper, onions, cucumber, oranges and pomelos in the salad. Slice thinly the chicken breast and top it on the couscous. Chop the mint and basil sprigs.

The captivating field of coquelicot

If you love Kenzo, you know what is coquelicot

One last look ....

My sweet little angel...

To fellow Bloggers and to all Moms out there
Happy Mothers Day to all of us

Pear, goat-cheese & Macaroni Salad

Can you "pear" up with me?

"Cleanliness is next to godliness" I don't remember how many times my mom used this line to convince us when we were kids to help out with the household chores. We did'nt had a big house but already dividing it among three lazy daughters was always such a head-ache for her. Most of the time its her blackmailing strategy that proved to be more efficient in making us participate: "dirty house means no afternoon snack". For voracious kids that we were missing our afternoon snack was totally out of the question. Unfortunately none of us inherited her passion (obsession??) for maintaining the house clean. When I was a kid I never understood that.

Things are quite different now. Having my own household to keep clean, I don't really have much choice despite that I still abhor cleaning :-). Hubby and I agreed to do major cleaning of our house once a month. We normally do a draw lot who cleans what part of the house. With my magic technique I always end up winning always the easy part :-) This weekend, different from our normal cleaning routine hubby and I were on our "happy and excited mood". Guess why? Simply because in two weeks time we will be leaving for our one month vacation. We are really excited because it's been two years now that we haven't travelled yet, specially due to my pregnancy last year. As we were cleaning, I just realised that's what I should have done long time ago as a kid: I should have thought of good stuffs that I like to make me enjoy cleaning.

Anyways, hubby told me since we will be leaving in two weeks time we will refrain from doing our groceries. He wanted me to finish off all the stocks of food we have in the kitchen. I do love cooking but improvising recipes based on available ingredients on the kitchen is not really my forte. As I was busy pondering on hubby's words to me and as I look on our fridge I just thought how tough these 2 weeks would be for me.

Pear,goat-cheese & macaroni salad, don't ask me why.

Pear, goat-cheese & Macaroni Salad

100 g of cooked macaroni
1 log of goat cheese
2 pears peeled and cubed
50 g of grapes
75 g of raw ham cubed

for the dressing home-made mayonnaise
1 egg yolk
1 tsp of Dijon mustard
half a cup of olive oil
juice of a demi lemon
salt , pepper

Start by whisking the yolk in a bowl then add the mustard, salt, pepper and lemon juice. Continue whisking vigorously as you add up the oil. In a separate bowl mix all the ingredients of the salad: macaroni, raw ham, grapes and pear. Add the sauce and toss lightly.

Peek a boo...

Thai Express Salad and an Oscar award, well almost...

Colorful Verrine Thai Salad

One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating. ~Luciano Pavarotti and William Wright, Pavarotti, My Own Story

When people are dining at our place I always take an ample and careful contemplation on what menu to serve. I take meticulous preparation seeing to it that from entrée to main course and down to dessert will give my guests a pleasurable dining experience. And If the word culinary saddism exist I would proudly claim I am one. For I find extreme pleasure in cooking for other people . Seeing the satisfaction and smile on their faces is enough to make me happy.

Growing up as a teenager, I don't remember how many times I sacrified staying late at night to help my mom and aunties prepare food for big gathering at home, while my sisters and cousins are enjoying their beauty-rest for the big day. So when I received the phone call of my sister-in-law yesterday, telling me she's coming over with some of her friends a bit impromptu at my place, I totally panicked. For preparing express menu is not really my cup of tea. And when I'm harrassed like this, my brain stops from functioning.

As I was totally lost in my kitchen, my eye was caught by the cookbook of Cyril Lygnac, a gift I got last year for my birthday. Let me say he is like the Jamie Oliver of France, good looking, sexy and young chef that become popular through his "cooking tele-reality" show. Two minutes browsing was enough for me to settle for this entrée.

Captivating Express Thai Salad

for the salad
100 g of vermicelli noodles (glass noodles) 1 courgette 2 carrots 50 g of bean sprouts 150 g of shrimps (cooked and without shells)

for the sauce 1 small ginger 1 tsp of soy sauce 2 tbsp of sesame oil 1 tsp of sesame seeds 3 tbsps of lime juice 1 tsp of honey

Cook the vermicelli or glass noodles in a big casserole with water as you would cook a pasta noodle. Let it cook for five minutes only then drain it. Wash it with cold running water to avoid from sticking. Wash and peel the carrots and courgette. Cut them in julienne strips. In a bowl mix all the vegetables together with the vermicelli noodles and cooked shrimps. For the sauce mix together all the ingredients in a small bowl and add just before serving.

Messy bean sprouts....

I got it!

My sincerest gratitude to Happy Cook and Gloria for giving me this award. Getting an award from the two awesome food bloggers that I admire is already like winning an Oscar for me :-) Thanks again my dear friends. Now I need to give my own award. There's to many of you and choosing will be difficult. I'm awarding this "Nice Matter Award" to Oggi (I can do that), Susan (Well Seasoned Cook), Tigerfish (Teczsape), Big boys oven and Ronell (my french kitchen). These are all the bloggers I truly admire.

Cheers!!

For my french readers, the french version of this verrine recipe is here: http://www.lesfoodies.com/news/recette/salade-thai-express-cyril-lignac

Sweet & Salty love affair: Millefeuille of Mekong

Millefeuille of Mekong: Pan seared Scallops served over
layers of crispy rice wrapper and mango tartar salad
with tamarind vinaigrette

When my doctor announced to us the good news of my "pregnancy" (same time a year ago) I knew that there would be clashes of ideas between me and my hubby. For he is a man of science (there is always an explanation to everything) contrary to me that that has strong attachments to "wisdoms" of elder generation. Superstitions related to pregnancy are limitless after all its natural for mothers to do anything they think will ensure the birth of a healthy child. I remember I often hear such funny comments from my aunties like, "avoid looking at ugly people or it will make your baby ugly" or "not to eat chocolate if you do not want your baby to have a dark skin" . Well I'm sure you have heard a lot too. There is a widespread superstition on pregnancy in Philippines called "Paglilihi", a term that describes pregnant mom's strong desire to eat a certain food and that fathers should at all cost make it possible to ensure the birth of their dream child. Well, as my pregnancy progress I noticed that I had that very strong envies to eat "asian food", specially filipino food. My husband told me its normal (of course:-)) because i'm longing for my country that I have not visited for quite some time and it was absolutely nothing to do with my pregnancy. Anyway to cut the story short, I won. He gave in (maybe because he just does not want me to have early contractions) to my "food tantrums". So when we went back from our "shopping spree" in the closest Asian grocery in our city, this is how our living room looked like this.

Our tatami laden with Asian goodies.

We bought tons of noodles, asian condiments, asian vegetables and other hard to find ingredients like: tocino mix (sweet ham like curing powder), guava soupe mix (I love this), shrimp paste, tamarind paste, well the list is really endless. With all this, we concocted this sweet and salty entrée of pan seared Scallops served in layers of crispy fried crispy rice wrappers and mango tartar with tamarind and pomegrate sauce. My husband had the idea of the rice wrappers millefeuille but the stuffing is definitely mine! Hubby called this recipe the Millefeuille of Mekong.


Mango Tartar Salad
1 ripe mango, the seeds of half of a pomegranate, 2 tsps of lime juice, salt, pepper,2 tbsp of olive oil

In a bowl mix the lime juice with salt and pepper. Peel the mango, remove the seed and cut into small cubes. Put the mango and the pomegrate seeds in the bowl with the sauce and add up the olive oil. Put them in the fridge

Crispy Rice Wrappers
6 sheet of dried rice wrapper, 1 egg, 1 tsp of black sesame seeds, 1tsp of white sesame seeds, oil for frying

Dredge in the egg the rice wrapper then sprinkle it with black and white sesame seeds. Fry them one by one in a very hot casserole with oil. Cook each wrapper for about 3 seconds. Dry them in paper towel.
Tamarind and Pomegrenate Vinaigrette
1 tsp of tamarind paste, 3 tbsps of olive oil, 1 tsp of Nuoc Nam, 1 tsp of honey, 2 tbsps of pomegrenate seeds

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, set aside.

Pan seared Scallops
12 scallops, 10 g of butter, salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a pan , when it becomes hot add the scallops and fry each side for about 30 seconds. Put salt and pepper on the top
Assembling the Millefeuille
Start first with a layer of crispy rice wrapper followed with the mango tartar. You can alternate the layer with the mango tartar and a layer of beans sprout and baby spinach salad. Garnish the top layer with the scallops. Drizzle on the top the tamarind vinaigrette. Bon appetit!!

Ps. Hello blogging friends, you might have noticed that I've been blogging very slowly these past few days and I have been bloging about my old recipes. My family is actually confronting a big problem (my dad is not doing very well). I still try to continue to blog because this makes my mind occupied. :-(