Hello! Welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–I’m so glad you’re here!
For the last two weeks, I’ve been featuring German food. For the most part, it was a lot of fun. I have a good dose of German in my gene pool and I enjoyed sharing recipes that my grandmother, who immigrated from Germany back in the 1920’s, cooked for me when I was a little girl. The only recipe that went off the rails–and I mean it missed the tracks by a mile–was sauerbraten. In good Stone Soup Cook style, however, I used the errant meat to make a nice filling for manicotti. If you missed that post, you can view it here:
But overall, the German food weeks were a lot of fun–even the sauerbraten proved to at least be an interesting experiment..not one I’ll be willing to test out again soon, but…
So, this week, I thought I’d continue my foray into international foods by focusing on French foods–and yes–I realize that I could spend the rest of the year focusing on French food and not even scratch the surface! I’m going to just share a few tried and true recipes–mostly bistro-type dishes, that I make all the time, as well a few new ones.
The French love their food. I’ve heard it put this way: while many people around the world eat to live, the French live to eat. They spend a lot of time talking about food, they spend a lot of time cooking and they spend a LOT of time thinking about it.
I recently read a couple of very enjoyable books that give a loving glimpse into the French way of life, their habits, their customs, their eccentricities and most of all, their love of food and the importance of it in their everyday lives. One of the things that stuck with me, especially as I look at my refrigerator on a Sunday afternoon when it’s loaded with my week’s ingredients, is that a refrigerator in France will, for the most part, be practically empty. The French will go to their small, neighborhood grocery stores almost every day to get fresh ingredients for daily meals. Going to the local grocery is just a normal part of the daily ritual, which also includes a daily trip to the bakery to get the daily baguettes, brioche or croissants that will be consumed with meals throughout the day. Any bits and bobs that are leftover will make their way into a soup or an omelette at the end of the week if necessary. I think I could get used to this way of life!
Here in northern California, while I do have a large chain grocery store just down the street from me, I only buy shelf stable items there unless I’m in a bind. The foodstuffs are purchased on a large scale and/or picked long before their peak in order to survive the long journeys they have to take before making it to my local store. And, before you ask–no, just because a lot of the produce supplied to the rest of the country is grown on large commercial farms in our backyard does not mean that we get reliably good produce. It frequently means that we get the leftovers that won’t survive the long journeys.
On Saturday mornings, I religiously go to the farmer’s market, where I can get really high quality, freshly-harvested produce; and I get my meat from the gourmet grocery store that’s a 20-minute drive from me–and I feel lucky to have such a fine grocery store that close by!
Californians do care about food, but even with that focus, the economics of being able to run a small neighborhood grocery store is out of the question, given the competition from larger chain grocery stores and the price of real estate and rent. So, while I would love to shop daily, it’d be really challenging. Hence, my refrigerator is always packed full on Sundays and by the end of the week, if I have planned carefully, I am left with bits and bobs that I will toss into a soup, a casserole or an omelette.
One of my challenges (and part of the reason I started The Stone Soup Cook blog) is food waste. I think we’ve all encountered this challenge at some point. I wanted to address the food I tossed each week and try to plan better and use up what I bought. The blog has helped, but another thing I learned about the French (and Europeans in general, I think), is that they tend to have very small refrigerators. So–not only are their refrigerators empty, but they’re also small. Wow.
I recently had to replace my refrigerator because it just died on us. This is never a good day. However, we had just returned from a two-week road trip, so the fridge was pretty empty and I was able to load up the contents into two or three cooler chests, and off to the appliance store we went. My old refrigerator featured a bottom-drawer freezer, French doors on top and ice and water through the door. I like the bottom-drawer freezer because cold on the bottom just makes sense to me, and I like the convenience of ice and water through the door, but I have to admit that I never loved my old refrigerator. I walked into the appliance store with the expectation that I would end up with a similar fridge, but wanted more…of something–I wasn’t sure what.
I was just about to purchase a fridge almost exactly like the one I had had before and decided to take another spin around the store. And then I found it: the Bosch 800-series bottom-freezer, French-door refrigerator: https://www.bosch-home.com/us/productslist/refrigerators/fridge-freezers/freestanding-fridge-freezers-with-freezer-at-bottom/B36CL80ENS And I was totally smitten. I loved the look, I loved the amount of ice it would make (my old fridge had a ridiculously small ice-maker), I loved the middle drawer that could be programmed for a variety of uses, I loved the little extra demi-shelves in the main compartment–I just loved (and still love!) everything about this refrigerator.
And here’s the thing: it’s SMALLER than my old refrigerator–by about 5 cubic feet! And I don’t miss it even a little bit. In fact, I like it so much better than having a huge refrigerator where things can get pushed to the back and lost. In this fridge, I can see everything and I know what I’ve got. I have cut my food waste down by probably 50% with this new fridge, just because I CAN SEE everything in it! Food for thought–that’s what I say!
So, today, I’m going to share my template recipe for an omelette, which is a great way to use up whatever you’ve got leftover in your fridge at the end of the week. The recipe is the one I made only yesterday from the bits and bobs left over from the previous week. I love to make an omelette or soup on the weekend to clean out whatever is left from meals or cooking the previous week. It’s so satisfying knowing that these perfectly good scraps are not going to be wasted and thrown into the landfill at the end of the day. For this particular omelette, I found some leftover roasted potatoes, a piece of zucchini, a leek that was a little past its prime, but still had a perfectly serviceable hunk and a couple of pieces of cooked bacon. But you should look in your fridge and use whatever you have. I generally try to include a vegetable, a protein, an aromatic and a starch, but…whatever–you do you!! And enjoy!
Tune in again tomorrow for more French recipes and reflections–until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
