French Savory Bread April 7, 2010

My great friend Courtney lives in Paris, France with her husband and shares my joy of reading food blogs.  She recently introduced me to a new blog, Lunch in Paris, by Elizabeth Bard.  I immediately loved the site.  Plus, I found out she also has a new book  by the same title.  When my mom let me recently borrow her Kindle, I knew instantly what book I wanted.  I really enjoyed reading Lunch in Paris, especially all of the recipes.  I love reading cookbooks and nothing is better than reading recipes in an actual book!  So I may be featuring a few recipes here on the blog, and the first one is “savory bread.”

When I first read the recipe, I happened to find another recipe very similar on another blog!  This blog, What Are You Feeding Your Kids Today, is also written by a French woman.  She had an almost exact recipe to Bard’s “savory bread.”  Here’s what she says about the bread:

A Cake Salé is generally made in the Summer to bring along to a pique-nique or to eat as an entree for lunch/dinner along a big salade. French people love them and I was surprised that with the American tradition of eggs-for-breakfast and brunch, I had not seen many Cake Salés in the US.

The basics seem similar between the two recipes…flour, eggs, baking soda, baking powder…and then you add whatever ingredients you would like.  I happened to have olives, sun-dried tomatoes, swiss cheese in the refrigerator, and I picked up some ham.  Here are the original ingredients:

•  1 slice (1/2 inch thick) of ham to cut it into dices.
• 1 cup of pitted green (or black) olives. (I used black) 
• 4 eggs (local)
• 1 Tb of Herbes de Provence or Fresh thyme (I used dried thyme from the cupboard)
• 1 2/3 cup (200 gr) all purpose flour
• 1 ts of baking powder
• 1/2 ts baking soda
• 1/4 cup (5 cl) Olive oil
• 1/2 cup (10 cl) beer (local)
• 1 cup (75 gr) of Swiss cheese or Comte (Shredded) (I used Swiss)
• a pinch of Chili Pepper (optional)
• Salt and pepper

Forgot the beer and tomatoes (from The Bradford Store) in the first pic!

So I set up the Kindle and got to work!

You basically just mix it all together!

And come up with this…

 After 45 min. in the oven…Perfection!

We ate this a couple of nights ago on a warm evening.  It was a perfect addition to a fresh salad. 

I am very pleased for my first attempt at French cooking…I think more is to come!

Chain Grocery Store & Local Food? March 16, 2010

Yep, they can go together! 

I haven’t made it back to my home in the mountains yet (still trying to buy a car!) so am spending another day with my parents.  And while trying to make plans for dinner last night, we took a trip to the local Harris Teeter.  I was anxious to find organic and possibly local food but didn’t have my fingers crossed.  However, I was quite surprised and found lots of options!  Now of course there were organic products, but I also found local ones.  Check it out:

Here’s what HT says about the “locally grown” signs:  “When you see the HT Locally Grown logo, you can rest assured the produce has traveled 6 or fewer hours from the farm to the store. This shorter drive time reduces the carbon footprint on our environment while supporting local farmers and their neighborhoods.”  Sounds perfect to me!

And remember that cheddar cheese I bought at the WNC famers market?  Well, I found the same company’s ham even closer to the original source!

And here’s some milk from about an hour north of here:

This trip to the grocery store is a great reminder to me that it is possible to find great local food at bigger chain stores.  I hope wherever you shop that you too look for and buy local food.  Make sure take an extra moment to let the manager know you appreciate them supplying local food.  Or drop them a line on the website.  However, you do it, support local food!