Lentils for lunch

I'm not sure Americans in general eat enough lentils. They are a standard item here in France, served hot with salt pork (lentilles au petit salé) or cold in salads with vinaigrette dressing. I made a batch yesterday to have with a Toulouse sausage, some "pulled" duck meat, and diced-up turnips — they are the brown cubes you see in the photo above. You can subsitute carrots, rutabagas, or parsnips for the turnips. One big advantage of cooking and eating dried lentils is that they cook quickly. I soaked the ones we ate yesterday for an hour or so in cold water and then cooked them for about 30 minutes with the meats, turnips, and duck (chicken or turkey would be a fine substitute).

I've blogged about lentils several times over the past 20 years. Here's a link to some of those posts. I remember being surprised to learn that Canada is the biggest producer worldwide . I wasn't surprised to learn that India consumes more lentils than any other country (as dahl). The lentils I cooked yesterday were green lentils. They were probably grown in central France (in the Berry province or in the Auvergne). Green lentils grown around the town of Le Puy-en-Velay in Auvergne have  a European Union AOP quality label. Other varieties are marketed as red, brown, coral (yellow) or black lentils.

Broccoli and ?

Yesterday's lunch was a stir-fry featuring chicken tenderloins, broccoli florets, änd a soy-based "wok sauce." Can you guess what the other vegetable was? We ate the stir-fry with steamed rice.

Yesterday on different news shows and interviews with weather specialists, I heard several times that the western part of France, from Brittany down to the Pyrenees and over to Toulouse, has had 37 rainy days in a row, starting in January. The weather seems to be changing right now, and we're looking forward to having more sunny days in the near future. Fingers crossed...

Le château de Martinvast, en Normandie

I was working on organizing some photos that I took in 2004, a year or more before I started blogging. This is the Château de Martinvast, AKA the Château de Beaurepaire, near Cherbourg on the Cotentin peninsula. It's just 15 miles north of the village of Carteret. CHM and I were there to see old friends and to do some sightseeing.

I don't remember this château clearly. There are so many châteaux in France that it's hard to keep track of them. Martinvast was originally a medieval fortress, but it was badly damaged during the 100 Years' War in the 14th century between England and France. A Renaissance château was built on the site in the late 16th century. That building was modified and "modernized" over the centuries.

Una focaccia

With all the chilly, damp weather, we spend a lot of time indoors these days, and a lot of that time in the kitchen. Yesterday, we made a focaccia bread, which resembles a pizza but has a much thicker, breadier crust. In this case, the bread crust was made with four parts wheat flour and one part white corn meal. Here's what it looked like:

Just above on the left is the dough that Walt made and that we used to make the focaccia bread. It had been punched down and spread out on a baking sheet for a second rising in a warm oven. On the right above is the crust ready for the oven with all its toppings in place, except the olives and cheese

Other toppings were a thick tomato sauce made with shredded, chopped chicken and cubes of pre-cooked sausage meat. Thyme and black pepper went into the dough and dried oregano went on top before the cheese strips and olives were arranged on top and everything was drizzled with olive oil.