Jennie Goutet's Blog: A Lady in France, page 20
October 26, 2015
Gluten-Free French Apple Tarte
Sometimes a post just needs a do-over because the photos weren’t stellar or the recipe could be improved upon – and this gluten-free French apple tarte recipe is one such post.
When I blogged about it years ago, I was using a pre-made, frozen, gluten-free pie crust that I rolled out as a base. And I made the tarte in the evening when the light was not good for photos. I’ve changed all that for this post, and have included the pie crust recipe.
(If you are a new reader, or have just clicked over for the recipe, you can skip down to the next photo where the official post begins. These following few paragraphs are just personal news).
Before we get elbow-deep in gluten-free flour, I just wanted to touch base with you about the blog design. I would like to introduce you to the brilliance behind both my new blog look and my author website: Lauren Carns! Lauren is truly talented and is such a pleasure to work with. Even if you’re not interested in blogging or website design, she blogs about other things and every post is like eye-candy. I hope you’ll go check her out here.
There have been a few small glitches, which are pretty much resolved (I think). The posts weren’t loading properly on the tablet or phone – the left-hand side was cut off. The blog was also slow to load and the e-mail subscribers were not getting the full post delivered to their inbox. That is all fixed now.
And have you clicked on my author website? You might have done so when it wasn’t fully ready, but it is now.
My purpose in separating the two is so that I can reach people who have read my books, and who would like to know more. On the author website there is a place to sign up and receive newsletters, which I will send out on an infrequent basis, and which relate specifically to the books. Contrary to the author website, when you subscribe by e-mail to this blog, you’re getting the posts sent by e-mail a couple times a week. Some people want infrequent book news; some people want frequent posts. Some people want both! I aim to please. 
October 23, 2015
Unconventional Salad Recipe
This unconventional salad recipe was brought to you by the country of France which likes to use all parts of the animal(!)
Here’s an image of you to pin if you want to save the recipe:
To prepare (even the night before, if you need to), boil two medium potatoes.
About a half-hour before you’re ready to eat, wash and tear enough lettuce for two people. In France, it’s considered bad manners to cut your salad with a knife so you want to make sure the lettuce pieces are small enough. Ironically, many cafés don’t take this etiquette into account and you have to fold your lettuce in pieces in order to stuff it into your mouth.
Cut two red tomatoes into wedges. This is a cold salad with warm ingredients, which makes it a perfect meal for the in-between seasons. But a ripe tomato is a must. When you have your wedges, spread each one with some pesto and place them on the lettuce.
Take a shallot and slice it in paper-thin slices. One shallot might be a lot for two salads, depending on how big it is. But it’s such a happy thing to eat. Make sure you don’t need to kiss anyone immediately afterwards. Between that and the garlic in the pesto … (ahem).
Then take a chunk of chèvre and cut it in pieces. If you don’t have goat cheese, I think feta (which is sheep) would do in a pinch. But goat cheese is less sour and I think the taste matches very well.
Now comes time for the warm ingredients. If you don’t want to have to wash two pans, I would start by cooking the potatoes. Slice them, cook them in butter, and sprinkle with sea salt, chives and white pepper. Let them brown, then slide them on top of the goat cheese so it melts a little.
And the final touch – the gizzards! Yes, this is what makes the salad unconventional (although the pesto is a nice touch too). In France, our gizzards come soaked in duck fat with glucose syrup. It tastes good.
To duplicate the taste, I would roll each one in corn starch, and cook in butter over low heat for 10 minutes. Salt them, and when the gizzards are cooked, lightly pour honey over the meat to give it that sweet taste. Let the honey caramelise for a minute before putting them on the salad.
I make my dressing while the gizzards are cooking. A skimpy tablespoon of both Dijon mustard and balsamic vinegar. Then 2 full tablespoons of olive oil, and 2 of canola oil. This is what it looks like before you whisk it together.
Pour that over the salads and serve warm. With bread.
Hey! Unconventional salad recipes can be quite delicious.
At least my husband thought so.
Chicken Gizzard Salad Print Prep time 10 mins Cook time 20 mins Total time 30 mins From: Lady Jennie Recipe type: Main Meal Cuisine: French Serves: 2 Ingredients Lettuce 2 ripe tomatoes Pesto 1 shallot 2 potatoes 1 chunk of goat cheese 300 grams of gizzards (tossed in corn starch, butter and honey) 1T Dijon mustard 1T balsamic vinegar 2T olive oil 2T canola oil Instructions Boil the potatoes in advance. Wash and cut the salad, put them on two plates. Cut 2 tomatoes in 8 wedges, and spread them with pesto. Put on salad. Cut a shallot in paper thin rounds and put on salad. Cut the goat cheese in pieces and place on salad. Brown the potatoes in butter, and add chives, white pepper and salt. Put those on the salad too. Finally, toss the chicken gizzards in corn starch. Brown for 10 minutes, salt them and drizzle honey on the top. Let it caramelise. Put those on the salad. Toss the mustard, vinegar and oil to make a dressing. Serve the salad warm. 3.4.3177
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October 21, 2015
French Inspired Garden Ideas
When we went to the Château of Chantilly, our visit coincided with the Journée des Plantes, which is French for The Day of Plants – and it’s basically the place to inspire you with ideas for your garden. I couldn’t write about our weekend in Chantilly without talking about this event.
It was … magical.
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From the Côté Maison magazine, I gather that there are three famous Journée des Plantes (or something similar) per year: in Chantilly, Courson, and Beauregard.
In Chantilly, the grounds outside the château were packed with all sorts of vendors, from the unknown
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to the more famous, such as Truffaut and David Austin roses.
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This is the place where you’ll find the more exotic plants
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as well as everything you need to care for your garden.
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Matthieu and I were seduced by this little greenhouse that has a tiny gutter and a weather vane on top. He studied how it was made, and plans to try and reproduce it. We already know where it’s going to go, and it will look charming.
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Otherwise, there are tons of garden decorating ideas. Fountains –
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(Very French these ones made of copper).
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And iron garden decorations. Who needs dwarves?
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wooden garden decorations
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organic seeds
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places to sit
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and places to eat
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And then, of course, actual food! There were the cute little baristas on wheels. Oops no. The barista is on feet. The cute little coffee truck is on wheels.
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and fresh honey to take home (or do I want to keep a beehive?)
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even a row of exotic spices!
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And then these … not food. Yet.
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Truly, I’ve never seen more unusual birds outside of the zoo.
The setting was incredible, right on the château grounds (along with the sheep)
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with stands nestled in the trees, on the paths, and in the fields.
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You even have the French gardeners (with garden boots and corduroys standing on bales of hay).
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See? Everyone else was getting inspired too!
We weren’t prepared for this. If we had been, we might have measured our garden and determined which trees and perennials and decorations were must-haves for our tiny little plot of earth.
Perhaps it was best we did not. As it was, we came home with this:
A photo posted by Jennie Goutet (@aladyinfrance) on Oct 20, 2015 at 12:10am PDT
Dried hydrangea blossoms that I placed in a white water pitcher, and which are meant to last a year.[image error]
And then, of course, we came home with dinosaur grass. It’s similar to bamboo (also in the fact that it’s invasive, so you need to plant it in a contained area). But it turns fluorescent in the light, resists climate changes, and was around when the dinosaurs roamed the earth! The kids are enchanted.
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It will go in a rectangular box to line our terrace in the form of a green hedge.
So that’s it. I still need to share what to see in Chantilly, and I’ll do that after my recipe post later this week. And in case you missed my ‘where to stay and where to eat in Chantilly’ post, you can find that information here.
But these French garden decorating ideas deserved a post all of their own. If you dream of turning your garden into a sanctuary (and wonder where to start), I hope you’ll be inspired in the same way we were. At the very least you get lots of photos of all things French.
October 19, 2015
A Romantic Weekend in Chantilly
To celebrate fifteen years of marriage, we had a romantic weekend getaway in Chantilly. My friend Danila offered to take Juliet, and suggested some mutual friends to take William and Gabriel, and then offered to collect all three of them after church so we would only have to make one pit-stop at the end of […]
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October 16, 2015
Café Copine
Copine means ‘girlfriend’ in French, and is pronounced like co-peen. A couple of girlfriends in my town – moms, whose lives are flexible like mine – have instituted a regular get-together over coffee so we can catch up on each others news. We call it café copine. This morning we met at my house over café, and cinnamon […]
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October 11, 2015
Rooted in Christ – a podcast
If you’ve clicked over to my blog instead of reading this in e-mail format, you’ll notice the blog makeover! It’s not quite finished yet, so please bear with some of the minor blips – most noticeably right now – how slow it is to load. It will all be taken care of, and I’ll give […]
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October 5, 2015
For You, Who Lack Confidence
Hey you, who lack confidence – you, who are frozen with insecurity. Yes, you!
You don’t have to stay this way, you know. This is not the real you.
But it’s been so many years, has it? Year after year without changing? Those cringe memories that cause a stab of shame that only grows worse over the years instead of better? Those foolish knee-jerk reactions that make you wonder what’s come over you? Again!
Is it those memories from when you were young and rash that haunt you? Or was it just last week that you spoke without thinking, acted without constraint? Were you foolish and hasty with your words? Did you leave, wondering what they must think of you – that you were too loud, too boastful, too quiet, too mute, a non-entity. Are your defences ripped away, like a turtle without its shell, the membrane of your emotions raw, and thin, and stretched taut?
Are you outspoken? You spout off words without knowledge, which will undoubtedly change in a year or ten when you’ve questioned yourself again and again? Oh, truthful one. You seek to understand, to make sense, and to make peace. Your words break walls; your love builds them anew.
Are you scattered? A zillion projects going on at once so that you can never get your act together? Oh, resourceful one. You dream high, and you don’t rest until you’ve seized the flag at the summit where the air is thin and the view is spectacular.
Are you ponderous? No move is made until you’ve considered every angle and weighed every possible outcome? Oh, steady one. You don’t change and shift like the shadows, and you keep the masses grounded. Even the bright and shiny balloons need to be secured somewhere so they don’t float away.
Are you sensitive? Do you read every expression, mimic every emotion, cower under every challenge? Do you bend with the force of others, wondering what it is in you that needs to change?
Oh duckie … do you think confident people think that way?
I’m not talking about the confident people who discern a grace which covers all the rough edges – the ones who welcome others exactly as they are – the ones who have a heart. No, I’m talking about those who are never tortured over someone else’s pain. They are impermeable, inflexible, unyielding. The granite people. Do you think that each time there’s any tension or unhappiness, they think that they’re the ones who need to change in order to fix it? Do you think the granite people constantly question their every decision?
It’s the sensitive ones, who are always questioning themselves, who grow, you know. They are the ones whose every petal unfolds with each truth until the bloom explodes with color – heady with perfume. Not so the granite people, whose mind is curled up tight like a bud, whose heart is untouched.
But … don’t let’s compare ourselves to the granite people. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place.
Look at your eyes! They’re kind. Look at your smile that lights your whole face! It’s welcoming. Look at your arms that are a soft landing place for the ones who love you. And yes, they do. Maybe not that one who should have – whose love should have been instinctual – but this one who owes you absolutely nothing loves you – this one loves you. And this other one, and that one too.
Who else has your patented mix of humour and gravity? Who else displays the precise blend of sincerity and irreverence? Who is like you in both your industry and your adorable weaknesses? Who carries such strength in this aspect and such tenacity in that … like you? No one, that’s who.
No one from your past can negate who you are. They might have inadvertently bruised you through careless handling, or they might have flung you deliberately so that you smashed into a million pieces, but they have no hold on you. No, none. They did not will you into being, even with all the decisive force in the world.
You belong here. This air was made for you to breathe, this space for you to live in, this food for you to eat, this love for you to receive, this flow of grace to cover you again and again and again so that any flaw is polished into smoothness.
Breathe in the air, and claim this space that was set out for you. No one else was meant to fill it. Only you. You own this corner of the world …
and, oh friend, I’m so glad you do.
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September 25, 2015
Quick and Easy Dinner Ideas
I’ve been blogging for six years, almost to the day. (What day was it?) In that time, I’ve put up a lot of recipes, some of them complicated, most of them easy, and nearly all of them French.
I’ve decided to put links to some of the easiest dinners to make in my repertoire so that you have a quick reference guide. In this post, I’ll give you the estimated timeframe and the ingredients needed, assuming you already have salt, pepper and oil.
Number One is actually a three-fer because I am being featured over at BonBonBreak right now with three ten-minute meals that are French classics, or at least a variety on some french classics. I won’t give too much away, except to tell you that they have never before appeared on A Lady in France, so I hope you’ll click over to get inspired. (And I’ll give you a hint – one involves bacon, another involves eggs, and a third involves beets. Whut. Not into beets? Okay, then corn).
September 23, 2015
Homemade Liquid Laundry Detergent (with photos)
If you found me through a pin, or a google search for “homemade liquid laundry detergent” then you are clearly interested in making your own detergent, and I think I can help with that. However if you are a regular blog reader of mine, you will be wondering what has come over me.
Ha! Wait until I show you the cold-process soap I made by hand. What can I say? I have a garden full of lavender and I’m inspired!
My first attempt to make laundry detergent turned out great.
Well, once I started scooping up all that (rather solid) mousse and shoving it into the two containers I had prepared for the purpose, I found myself with a couple months’ worth of really good, nice-smelling, and not expensive in the scheme of things – detergent!
I like making liquid rather than dry because we have a lot of calcium in our water and I want the added vinegar to my detergent. I suppose I could make dry soap (much easier) and then a separate fabric softener, but I also like how liquid detergent never leaves bits of powder in the wet clothes like I’ve experienced with dry.
And it smells gooood. It smells like white sheets hung to dry under a blue sky. It smells like happiness.
I learned about detergent-making from this French site (I wanted to see what ingredients she used in France, but I didn’t use exactly the same ones. I did get a lot of the technique from her post, though). I also looked at the well-known site here. Her recipe makes 5 gallons, but I can’t get a container that big. It also doesn’t include a softening agent, so my recipe is modified for these needs. It fits about a gallon container. (It’s 1.3 gallons, but once the foam died down, the end result is about a gallon), and has all the ingredients and scents I need.
The first thing I did, was to take the lavender vinegar I made from scratch (in this post) and strain it into its own bottle for other detergent and house-cleaning uses. The sun really sealed the jars tight and, although the smell was strong when I opened them, it was more of a lavender strong than a vinegar strong. That stuff is concentrated!
No worries if you haven’t made lavender vinegar. For my first batch of detergent, I just used 15 drops of lavender essential oil and white vinegar. You can do that too.
But if you’re getting into this whole DIY eco thing and you have a garden, it’s not all that difficult to grow and harvest lavender. I wrote about that here.
So. My second time around was a little better. I had more experience and knew what to avoid. But I’ll still warn you that the process can be a bit messy unless a) you have a much larger pot than I have (I don’t want to buy a pot just for the purpose), and b) you use a large open container for the end result. I wanted mine to fit in a jug-like container so I could pour the detergent. This means that I have to get the foam in by hook or by crook, so to speak.
So. How to Make the Detergent.
Let’s get started. Assemble your ingredients: washing soda, Borax, white vinegar, essential oils (lavender, if needed, and tea tree oil), a bar of soap, like Ivory. Or more natural yet – like Dr Bronner’s. For instance, this one:
Dr. Bronner’s Pure-Castile Bar Soap, All-One Hemp Baby Unscented, 5-Ounce Bars (Pack of 6)
You can also order the Borax and Washing Soda together here:
Mule Team Borax and Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda Variety Pack
If you’re in France, I used Savon de Marseille for mine, and ordered both the Borax and percarbonate de soude (and some other cleaning products) at Droguerie Jary, link here.
Grate 3/4 cup of soap with a cheese grater.
Put that in the sauce pan with 2 cups of water and heat it until it melts.
It will start to foam just a bit.
Pour 1/4 cup of Borax into the container you’re going to use, and pour a little warm water in to melt the particles. I did use some distilled water, but I don’t think it’s necessary when you’re adding vinegar to the end result. Put the container in the sink so that you’re ready to receive the messy part.
When that’s done, heat up a cup of vinegar in the microwave (about a minute), and set it to the side. Then slowly pour your washing soda into the soap mixture. You can turn off the heat, now that it’s melted.
It will foam.
A lot.
This is after I poured the vinegar in to break up the foam. I also had to scrape some of the foam that was spilling over the sides.
Pour the vinegar in the mixture, and that will help break up the foam, but it won’t tame it completely. Don’t waste any time before scooping it into the funnel. It gets pretty solid, pretty fast.
You’ll end up scooping a bit and then pouring some warm water into the funnel to get it to go down. You can try using a turkey baster to get more foam in. You might end up scooping it up in handfuls and scraping it into the jug opening. Again, all this can be avoided if you use a large open container – if you can find one, and don’t care that you cannot ‘pour’ your detergent into the machine.
Add 1/8 teaspoon of tea tree oil (or 15 drops – mine doesn’t have a dropper), and then shake the laundry detergent. Every time you walk by that day, give it a little shake.
Let it sit overnight. My second batch was much more homogenous than the first and it stayed white. This was because I completed the mixture with warm water instead of cold, and that helped keep the soap bits melted. But there are still pieces of soap that will come out when you pour. Don’t worry about it – they don’t affect the load.
However, let me advise you right here to rinse all of your utensils before you put them in the dishwasher if you don’t want a film covering all of your clean dishes. I also keep a pot that is used only for making detergent.
I made a pretty sign, using canva.com and I slipped it into a plastic sleeve and taped it to my laundry container.
Why get started at all?
I started making soap, detergent and house cleaning products for several reasons. I wanted to put my lavender to good use. I liked the idea of having natural products in the home. I wanted to save money (perhaps in the long run it will, but I needed to buy a stock of product from a specialised French pharmacy). I liked the challenge.
I find that I’m thrilled with the result – the way it works and the way it smells. I still buy chemical stain-remover, and (only slightly-related) dishwasher soap, because that was a disaster. But I force myself to keep making more by not buying store-brand. I have all the ingredients and I feel so happy when I see something good that I made with my own hands.
So here’s a little recipe that you can print out if you want to try and make your own. If you don’t, I completely get it. Geesh! Who has time for that nonsense?
September 21, 2015
Last Night I Dreamt About a Wave
I dreamt about a wave last night. I can’t tell whether the waterway I accessed was supposed to be an amusement park ride, like one we went to recently, or whether it was a canal-way that was supposed to take me out of danger. But I stepped into the water, and was carried away.
I’m a good swimmer, so I watched with interest, rather than alarm, when the wave grew higher and higher, taking me a terrifying distance from the sea bottom. My amusement park ride – slash – canal had, by now, turned into the ocean.
I started to consider that the wave would inevitably break. It was so high – of course it had to break at some point. I mulled over the fact that I might die, if it broke and I was swept under, good swimmer that I am.
Then I looked down.
If I hadn’t already been convinced that I needed to be terrified, what I saw cinched the matter. I watched killer whales circling the bottom of the sea floor. They were easy to see in the shallow coast since most of the water was swept up into the tide that was about to break with me in it.
These killer whales were not the friendly, tame ones that you see at Marineland. They circled ominously below, like sharks. They were just waiting for me to fall.
I considered that this was right about the time I should start to panic, but I didn’t. Somehow, just like the wave that wouldn’t break, neither did my fear. The wave and my fear were both contained.
God was holding me. I heard him tell me in my dream, although I didn’t hear any words. He was effortlessly holding the water in place, and would not let the tide break with me in it. He told me that I should not be afraid, because he was holding me. So I wasn’t afraid.
Now, I can figure out where this dream came from. This rumbling state of panic that I’ve been facing the last couple of months with my need to earn money as an author/ blogger, now that I’m not teaching English anymore – combine that with a recent excursion to a water park, and a conversation about both sharks and killer whales, and you have yourself a perfectly explainable dream.
But what I found unusual, and … precious, was the absolute assurance that God would not let the wave break, and me be swept away with it.
I’m glad I take my dreams with a pinch of curiosity rather than prophecy, even though they do sometimes come true. 
Otherwise I might start to get nervous about what kind of tidal wave is coming my way.
I’m not nervous.
(or only a teeeeeeny bit nervous because that’s my MO).
Today, I struggled in my usual way, balancing the trip to the grocery store and the gym, with my online writing class and my blog and the FB groups that I moderate/ am part of, and my kids’ homework and music practice and laundry and a messy house and dinner and my boys wrestling on the couch and my girl asking me German questions … I don’t speak German.
In the midst of all that, a friend called and asked if I would speak at an upcoming event on being rooted in God – you know, just share my heart. No profound teaching or anything. And this invitation made me feel so honoured and touched, it sort of took my breath away.
Suddenly, my heart welled with that same melting feeling that I’d experienced in my dream the night before. The feeling of being so totally loved and secure and unafraid. He believes in me! I thought. God believes in me! as the memories and feelings of my dream came rushing back. It was a tiny moment, this encouragement – a small reminder of a truth that had already been proven through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Yes! Of course God believes in us.
But the timing of the moment was impeccable.
I know, I know. Everything in its time. This little blog, my little books, our little house, my little worries. They won’t come crashing down just because I’m not paddling furiously to keep up with the tide.
I suppose this is the point in the post where I should clue you in that I don’t actually have a point.
Except … that maybe it’s to remind you that God’s got you too. And he believes in you. And he won’t let you come crashing down.
He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
he drew me out of deep waters.
He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
from my foes, who were too strong for me.
They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
but the Lord was my support.
He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.
Psalm 18:16-19
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