Food in Provence (and elsewhere)

We’re on our own as far as food is concerned at the weekends so it’s time to do some shopping. There’s a Farmers Market in the nearby Midleton where the school has a stall so that seems a place to go. It’s conveniently near a large Tesco so I park there and walk across. The market is small and, apart from a one selling olives, the stalls are all selling local produce—things they’ve grown or made. There’s a stall selling salads at just €4 per portion so buying a couple for lunch seems a steal.

There’s also a stall selling roasted chickens and, more importantly, sausage and bacon baps—with proper back bacon you just can’t get in France.

After a trip to the supermarket for some baking staples, fruit and, most importantly, something to attach my phone to the windscreen of the car as its GPS is woefully out of date (it is 13 years old, after all), it’s back to the cottage for some cooking.

First of all, I need to make some yoghurt. The milk is raw from the farm and very clearly not homogenised with a clear layer of cream. This doesn’t look so good after the milk has cooled down, but I’ll have to see what the finished product looks like. On Monday Darina Allen showed you could turn a pot of the farm yoghurt upside down without it falling out; it’ll be interesting to see if mine is as thick (and I’m not sure I want it to be). Coincidentally we’ll be being taught yoghurt and cheese making on Wednesday; perhaps I’ll be doing things differently in a couple of weeks time…

Then, rather than buying bread, I’ve decided to make soda bread again. I have to buy a tin as there are none in the cottage (which seems a bit of an oversight), but that’s no great expense either. And my loaf comes out of the tin with no problems—although I did take the precaution of lining the bottom with parchment paper. We were shown how to make a white soda bread on Thursday; perhaps I’ll try that next.

The final task is to make a quiche. Because a) I’m still not happy with my shortcrust pastry making and quiche tine lining and b) I need something to eat for the next couple of days. I use Laura’s favoured recipe (175g of flour, 75g of butter and an egg to bring it all together) and it’s way easier to roll out than the pastry I made on Wednesday. The lined tin, though, isn’t as good as I’d like it even if I do manage to create the rope like edge effect. The end product, though, is pretty good and serves me well for dinner with a braised little gem lettuce.