Scouting Out Montbron

The Calm One will be giving a series of educational workshops culminating in a December treasure hunt for adolescents in Monbron. In preparation for that, we tootled off east of Angoulême for a fifty-minute drive in our electric car to check out the village of about two-thousand inhabitants. Parking the Zoe near Le Vieux Château, we started our exploratory walk.

My scooting down the steep steps flanking one side of the château and leading to the ville basse (lower village) provided a vantage point from which to see the monumental structure. It was built in the 15th Century within the remparts from stones of an earlier and destroyed château. Modified through the centuries and renovated by the town, it serves as a venue for municipal events and activities.

At the bottom of the stairs, the streetlights of the old quartier are shaped like golden lanterns which most likely provide a beautiful glow at night.

Note the orange and black lantern on the pigeonnier: shadow or painting?

Since the day was a jour férié (a national holiday, in this case, Armistice Day), it was just us and few others ambling about the winding streets.

Green garden gates are perfect cheery companions for narrow streets...

...ditto for pots of bright geraniums.

Eating fish on Friday (Vendredi), once mandated for Catholics by the Vatican, remains a part of the culinary culture in this region. But with a British twist.

The lower village slopes into countryside.

Succulents thriving in a rock garden

The surrounding Tardoire river valley consists of rolling hills presently tinted a mellow green and gold. 

That patch of bare earth is a veggie garden put to rest for the winter

Montbron and its environs have many points of interest and one are artisan flour and walnut oil mills in the Bandiat and Tardoire valleys. Another is the Vignoble de Saint-Sornin  from which is produced the vin de pays charentais. I can't wait to come back.

À la prochaine!

RELATED LINK:

Official site for Monbron (In French)

Roasted Broccoli Cheddar Soup

All the heads of broccoli have been harvested so it's time to make a copious amount of Roasted Broccoli Cheddar Soup. Thickened with a cheese sauce lightly flavoured with garlic and cayenne, this soup has both a delicious taste and velvety texture. 

Garnished with deep-fried young broccoli leaves and cheddar shavings

The headless plants however will keep putting out delectable side shoots until the first killing frost.

The numerous shoots add up to lots of broccoli for fried rice, pasta & fritters

Ingredients
makes 6 ample servings

• Broccoli, 4-5 heads, trimmed of any woody stems 
• Garlic cloves, slightly smashed, 3
• Potatoes, all-purpose, medium, 2
• Water to cover the veggies, around 710 ml/24 fluid oz
• Cheddar, grated 473 ml/16 fluid oz
• Cayenne pepper flakes or tiny whole dry peppers to taste (I use a v small amount)
• Flour, white, 5 T
• Butter, sweet, 4 T
• Milk, 473 ml/16 fluid oz
• Additional milk for desired consistency
• Olive oil for coating broccoli
• Broccoli leaves, a small handful
• Cheddar slivers for garnishing
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 177 degrees C/350 degrees F. Line a shallow baking pan with parchment. Rinse and coarsely chop the broccoli. Spread on pan in single layer and toss with enough olive oil to coat well. Roast for about twenty minutes until lightly browned.

Place the roasted broccoli in a pot along with the peeled and coarsely chopped potatoes. Cover with water and simmer for about fifteen minutes or until all the veggies are very tender.

Meanwhile make the cheddar sauce. Melt the butter in a saucepan and over low heat stir in the flour till smooth which takes about a minute or so. Pour in the milk slowly, all the while stirring. Whisk out any lumps. Add the garlic cloves and red pepper flakes or tiny small peppers. Simmer until thickened which takes about five minute. Remove the cloves and whole peppers if using. Toss in the cheese and stir until melted. Reserve.

Using a stick blender, puree the broccoli until the texture is more silky than not. Add a ladle of the blended broccoli into the cheese sauce and stir. Add another and stir. Then stir the cheesy broccoli sauce into the rest of the broccoli. If necessary, add more milk to get the consistency desired. Season to taste and keep warm. Put enough veggie oil (not olive) in a small saucepan for the broccoli leaves to float and heat until sizzling. Throw in some of the broccoli leaves. After a couple of minutes, remove and repeat until you have deep fried all the leaves. Garnish the soup with cheddar slivers and leaves.

The deep-fried  broccoli leaves add crunch and umami

Both in and outside the potager, foliage colour is much more vivid than in past seasons.

Golden feathery asparagus stems with red berries & burgundy abelia leaves

The veggie beds are still being weeded and mulched with leaves. Five of the eleven annual ones are done. Hopefully the dry and windless weather registering around 18°C/65°F will continue for a week or so. Any head start for late winter planting which occurs in just several months will make that rather frantic time less demanding.

Slowly decomposing oak leaves give off the most wonderful woodsy scent

One of Dirac the Young Cat's favorite kitchen spots is an overturned, large crock placed in front of a window overlooking the potager.

À la prochaine!

From Our Autumn Potager: Golden Acorn Squash & Broccoli Recipes

Golden acorn squash, resembling small pointy pumpkins, were harvested mid-October and will store well in our cool, dark cellier for several months.

An easy way to prepare this tasty and nutritious veggie is roasting. Scrub well, halve, scrape out the fibrous mass of seeds, rub cut ends with melted butter, sprinkle some dried thyme over them, and then roast cut side down on a parchment-lined pan in a 400 degrees C oven for about forty minutes or until fork tender and carmelised. C'est tout. Though I usually just cradle in my hand a warm squash-half adorned with a flourish of fleur de sel while spooning its luscious innards straight into my mouth, one could scoop out the cooked flesh and then mash, salt to taste, and serve this lovely mound of goodness as an accompaniment to fish, chicken, pork, lamb, or beef. Additionally it can be used as a spread mixed with some crumbled blue cheese for grilled bread.

A slightly more involved approach is first peeling and cubing it into small pieces. Saute the cubes along with garlic, thyme, and some greens if desired, like kale or young, small broccoli leaves in olive oil. After a few minutes, add a tablespoon of apple cider or sherry vinegar diluted with several tablespoons of water or meat/veggie broth. Dry white wine can be subbed for the diluted vinegar. If there are any cooked lentils hanging about, they can be added. Simmer covered for about fifteen minutes, adding more liquid if needed, until tender and lightly carmelised. Salt to taste. Sprinkle on some freshly grated Parmesan if desired. This melange can be eaten as a stew or it could be mixed with pasta or served on cous cous.

Good to the last morceau!

Broccoli, fresh from our potager, is slightly sweet, especially the stalk.

I am immensely proud of this beauty!

Though this is the third season of my growing calabrese broccoli, this is the first time that the heads came out so large and densely packed with buds.

I thinly slice the small leaves, adding them to minestrone & stir-frys

It's a lovely addition to pork fried rice. Rinse the broccoli and lop off the florets with a sharp knife as you work up the head. Slice fairly thinly this now denuded part of the stalk, discarding the rest. Julienne the slices. Heat up some vegetable oil (not olive) till sizzling in a large fry pan or wok. Using some thin strips of pork leftover from a roast, stir fry them for a minute or two until slightly browned. Remove and reserve. Toss in first the sliced stalk and stir fry for a couple of minutes, then add the florets and stir for another two minutes or so. If you want more tender broccoli, add a tablespoon or so of water, cover, and steam for a few minutes. Remove and reserve. Heat more oil if necessary and saute briefly some minced garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes. Push them aside in the pan and pour in a beaten egg, stirring constantly till you get tiny cooked bits which usually takes about a minute. Add cooked rice (I use brown) and stir fry for a couple of minutes. Add the pork, broccoli, and soy sauce. Give it all a good stir.

The main activity in the potager is preparing beds for late winter/early spring planting which involves weeding and then covering with oak leaves which are roughly chopped with a spade and kept wet. This mulch takes about a full year in our climate to become moisture-retentive leaf mould so by next fall it will be fully decomposed and can be incorporated into the soil. Then a new layer of leaves hauled via our electric car from a nearby oak copse will be placed on the beds. In a few months, the mulch will be moved aside temporarily so lettuce, spinach, onions, garlic, beets, carrots, parsnips, peas, leeks, bare-root strawberries & early potatoes can be planted.

The broccoli bed is in the upper left

Potted mums are great for an accent of colour here and there. That planter was done fifteen years ago! It still is thriving and have provided many cuttings for new plants.

Culinary sage is in the forefront

Dirac the Young Cat, a muscular, adventurous, energetic feline, is allowed to go out at night if he so wishes except during storms, Halloween, and on Firecracker Day, July 14. If so, it is not uncommon for him to sleep in all the following day, preferably way on top of the elm wall unit.

His tail is pointing to the volume that contains the entry on tigers

À la prochaine!

Aubeterre-sur-Dronne

A couple of weeks ago, The Calm One, our electric car, and I all tootled off to Aubeterre sur Dronne which is about a thirty-minute drive southeast from chez nous. Aubeterre, a lovely village of about four-hundred inhabitants, is nestled along a chalk bluff above a loop of the Dronne River and has been listed as one of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France since 1993. Our visit was an information-gathering one focused on identifying what pleases us the most. Well, everything pleased us. We will be back!

Crêperie de la Source not only gets terrific reviews for its menu and friendly, attentive service, but also for fabulous terrace seating overlooking the countryside.

Closed, but we shall return for the tapas, savoury galettes, creamy tarragon chicken...

Seeing hot-pink cascading geraniums hanging from a bracket fixed to a stone house soothed me as much as my catching muted conversation drifting from various sidewalk cafes situated in nearby Place Ludovic Trarieux.

The ubiquitous white limestone inspired the village's name: alba terra = white land

Someday I will find out the history of this intriguing house with its even more intriguing sashed dormer window.

Saint-Jean is an underground, monolithic church whose earliest beginnings date from the 7th century. Many pilgrims on their journey to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain visited this prominent reliquary.

The village, as it is built into steep terrain, has haute (upper) and basse (lower) divisions. We started our walk halfway between the two and could see the remnants of le château d'Aubeterre above and...

...and the countryside below.

Deciding not to fight gravity, we ambled downwards till we reached the bottom...

I see their soupe de poisson, paupiette de veau & fondant au chocolat in my future

...and then met sneaky, old gravity on the way back up!

Resting from time to time allowed us to admire the buildings full of character...

Balconies with stupendous views

...and beauty.

Limestone houses with red tiled roofs

We both loved Aubeterre and will return for the restaurants, various artisan shops, and its natural and historical ambience.

À la prochaine!

Taking a Short Autumn Break!

Souped-up Garden will be on hiatus the next two weeks.  The Calm One, Dirac the Young Cat, and I will be relaxing, and of course chowing down on good food like my warming, nourishing minestrone soup. Brimming with delicious ingredients like olive oil, garlic, basil, beef broth, tomato paste, bay leaf, carrots, potatoes, white beans, porcini, Parmesan, peas, greens, macaroni, and beef, it is perfectly attuned to all things autumn including our turning on the central heating!  The recipe is here.

Dirac demonstrates how relaxing is done.

À bientôt!

Quick Crusty Chewy Pizza

There are sundry ways of making something resembling real pizza without spending that much time. Lightly grilling a split English muffin first, then topping it with ingredients you love, and putting it back under the grill does result in a familiar enough goodie. But if you want a fresh, chewy dough coupled with a charred crust along with that favourite topping, shallow fry an easy-to-make flatbread dough in a skillet slicked with olive oil. Partially folding it over not only allows hassle-free removal but also slices which can be held in your hands via the folded edge. Pizza after all is a supreme finger food.

This lovely slab of goodness eventually got cut into hefty strips

Makes enough dough for about 10 individual pizzas: mix 600 gms/21 dry oz of plain, white flour, 325 ml/11 fluid oz of milk, and 1/2 tsp salt together. Knead until smooth which takes about five to eight minutes by hand. The ingredients can be halved to get a smaller amount, but keep in mind it does freeze well. A piece of dough the size of a golf ball is what you want for an 8 inch/20 cm to 9 inch/23 cm skillet. Roll it out as thinly as possible. Put at least a tablespoon of olive oil—more if you, as I do, want rivulets oozing onto the flatbread—in a heavy-bottomed skillet over high heat. Test for appropriate temperature by placing the tip of a wooden spoon's handle in the oil; a steady stream of tiny bubbles will appear if the oil is ready for the flatbread.

Carefully place a flatbread in the oil and then flip it over after thirty seconds or until slightly golden. Lower the heat and add your topping. Mine consisted of sliced tomatoes, freshly grated Parmesan, capers, dried basil, salt, and freshly ground black pepper. Cook for about five minutes or until everything is nice and warm, crusty but still chewy. Partially fold, serve on a platter, and slice into portions.

The large air bubbles simulate a yeast dough

Making pizza from dough that did a slow-rise in the fridge overnight is worth the effort, but there is no way to get the fabled charring that only commercial ovens can achieve. But it does happen when tossing a super-thin flatbread circle into a sizzling frying pan! 

A charred pizza crust is the way to my native New Yorker's heart...and stomach

The last big batch of our potager's tomatoes has been processed into stewed deliciousness. Happily there are still a few fresh toms here and there which are ideal for making some quick, crusty, chewy pizza.

Recent days have been warm and rainy of which our fig tree shows its appreciation by being full of ripening fruit. Store-bought figs are expensive simply because they bruise easily which makes transportation a challenge. If all possible, plant a fig tree chez vous as they are tough and productive, almost embarrassingly so. Fully ripe figs—partially ripe ones taste like chalk—are gorgeous.

A ripe fig feels like a little water balloon and needs just a slight pressure to harvest

Harvesting bay leaves is done best in spring as their aromatic sap rises then, but if one's stash is getting low don't hesitate to do it now.

Pick the largest leaves, wash, dry & cure on a dish/rack for about two weeks

Though honeysuckle is known for both early summer and autumn blooming, it's the first time our bushes have graced this season with their fragrant flowers.

One bush in the back of the garden has been allowed to drape itself over a pile of pruned branches. Because of wanting to be near its perfume, I use any excuse for adding to the compost piles situated just behind their trailing branches.

Dirac the Young Cat knows how many hedgehogs and lizards reside in this honeysuckle-covered mound but he isn't telling!

Reluctant to romp in the rain, once coming inside he enjoys kneading and cuddling my old fleece jacket.

À la prochaine!

RELATED POST

How to make pizza (photos from this old post got corrupted somehow, but the instructions remain correct)