Apple and mincemeat galette

Mince pies have been filling up the supermarket shelves for the last few months and jars of ready-made mincemeat have sneakily taken their place amongst the baking ingredients ready to jump out and berate you for being completely unprepared for Christmas months in advance. If you’re one of those wonderfully organised souls you’ll have made your own batch of mincemeat several weeks ago. I, on the other hand, found myself baking with the tail-end of last year’s jars until my lovely mum kindly handed me a jar she’d made the other weekend.

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Croustillant aux pommes

It’s another Avignon-inspired recipe for you today! Going back to Les Halles market – the one to give you foodie dreams for years to come – I mentioned the boulanger who sold apple pie by the slice. His pie/tart was not the usually fancy affair with neatly sliced apples delicately arranged in concentric circles but a handheld, picnic-friendly pud.  A sweet apple compote was sandwiched between two layers of flakey, buttery puff pastry while the top was covered in a crackly layer of golden sugar. Thin squares of pie were sliced up and wrapped in a napkin for eating on the spot. The perfect end to a simple lunch of cheese, bread and tomatoes eaten on a sunny park bench overlooking the Rhone river.

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Tea eggs

For reasons which are probably familiar to many diabetics using an insulin pump, every six months or so I spend eight days (usually spread over a couple of weeks) skipping meals or in medical terms checking fasting blood sugars. It’s not a great hardship but it’s never something I like doing since it entails fasting for 10 or 12 hours and a lot of finger pricking. The problem is that I spend so much of my time thinking about food and planning meals that to deliberately skip one is like torture. I’m not supposed to eat anything at all which I can just about manage overnight or when missing breakfast but if I have to miss lunch or dinner I struggle. If I start to feel really empty I cheat and eat something small that has no carbs so it (in theory) won’t alter my blood sugars. 

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Courgette and tomato gratin

I’m struggling to keep up with my courgette plants, for some reason this year they have decided to grace me with an abundance of fruit. It’s not that I’m ungrateful, I love courgettes, but there are already three of them in my fridge, another four on the plants and two more plants that are just starting to produce. I’m trying to find as many different ways to use them; we really enjoyed this cake from David Lebovitz’ site and this galette from Deb at Smitten Kitchen as well as this pasta and this tart from Clotilde at Chocolate and Zucchini. Just as I was starting to run out of ideas I happened upon a fabulous new cookbook from Riverford farm – a vegetable box supplier just a few miles down the road. Not only do they grow a huge amount of interesting things, they also have a hugely popular field kitchen staffed by chefs from around the world, many of whom have previously worked at the legendary Chez Panisse in San Fransisco.

 

 

 

 

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