Tagged with "Paris day trips"

Inspired by a Rich Stein recipe Nigel cooked this for dinner last night but cut a few corners to make it more simple. It’s spicy and delicious.

For us Brits, Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without mince pies. Perceived as something rather strange by the French that doesn’t deter me!

Trèfle du Perche is a relatively ‘new’ cheese from the Loire valley. Created by 7 cheese making goat farmers, it has the shape of a four leaf clover.

For a really easy dinner try this really simple marinade. It works well on chicken thighs or breasts and is healthy and quick to prepare.

Flowering is an important stage in the vineyard year. Vines further east have flowered and the fruit has set whereas here in Anjou, our vines are in full flower.

Egg whites freeze really well and it’s very useful to have them on hand. When I make a recipe that requires just the yolks, I pop the whites into a bag, note the number of whites and pop them in the freezer.

You can buy pastry in any French supermarket and I certainly don’t judge anyone for using it as it saves time, comes rolled and is ready to slide into a tin. But, it’s not quite as good as homemade. Probably because when I make my own I use rather large quantities of really good fresh butter

I posted a brief resumé of this recipe on Instagram. This is a really easy recipe that really peps up a large fillet of fish. I used Lieu Noir (Coley) which is much cheaper than Cod and just as delicious.

It’s the annual Fête du Thoureil this weekend, the 5th and 6th May. The forecast is for 23°C on Saturday and 27°C on Sunday, sunny and bright so fantastic news for the organisers of this lovely local event on the river Loire. 

There are a number of vineyard practices that are routinely done in the Springtime and in recent years we have seen more and more growers working their soil mechanically instead of using chemicals. So what exactly is décavaillonnage?

Dating back to around 500 AC farmers prayed to the ice saints (les Saints de Glace) to protect their crops from damage. As we approach May, growers are holding their breath and hoping that we’ll not have an episode of late frost this year.

We’ve been working with Mathieu Vallée of Chateau Yvonne for the past 8 years and love his wines. A former engineer, Mathieu took over Chateau Yvonne in 2007. He has 28 small parcels dotted around the Saumur Champigny appellation (3ha of Chenin and 8ha of Cabernet Franc).