Vegetable Terrine, Part Two

The terrine stands alone. Along with a glass of local rosé wine.

It was a great success. I say that with all modesty. Really.

A close-up of the three-color terrine. Spinach, cauliflower, and carrots.

The terrine un-molded just fine, although a small piece stuck in the pan. It was easily repaired without much fuss.

Slices of vegetable terrine on the plate.

Then it sliced perfectly and was quite attractive. We plated it with the daube de bœuf that Ken made and we ate it up for our Saturday lunch. It was delicious, if I do say so myself.

Our Saturday lunch. Yumm !

Leftovers will be great... We talked about making another with celery root and broccoli. We shall see.

Vegetable Terrine, Part One

Yesterday was the day. I cooked carrots, cauliflower, and spinach to make the three-color vegetable terrine (terrine de légumes aux trois couleurs) that I talked about on Tuesday. The carrots and cauliflower were fresh, but the spinach was frozen.

A kilo of carrots, peeled and cut into rounds, waiting to be cooked.

After all the vegetables were cooked (separately) and cooled, I put them through the food grinder attachment of the Kitchen Aid mixer. This was definitely more trouble than just whizzing them in the food processor, but I decided that the texture of the ground vegetables would be more agreeable for this kind of dish. I then seasoned each ground vegetable with salt, pepper, and freshly ground nutmeg, then mixed each with eggs and cream.

A kilo of trimmed cauliflower awaits its fate.

I then layered each of the mixtures into loaf pans that had first been buttered and allowed to chill in the refrigerator. Carrots on the bottom, cauliflower in the middle, and spinach on the top.

The three cooked and ground vegetables just before the egg, cream, and seasonings are added.

The pans went into a bain marie, or water bath, and into a medium/slow oven for about an hour and ten minutes. The water bath was hot when the terrines when in.

Veggie mixtures are layered into buttered loaf pans before they're cooked in a water bath.

Thee cooked terrines spent the night in the fridge, and today we will un-mold and taste them along side a daube de bœuf that Ken made. Stay tuned for part two ! The proof of the terrine will be in the eating...

Loire Valley Sights

I'm continuing to digitize color slides from the 2000 Loire Valley trip. Here are a few random shots.

The first (below) is a small flock of sheep that were kept on an impeccably immaculate grazing patch near the Château de Chenonceaux. I don't know if they belong to the château and are there to add some country charm, albeit genteel, to the place, or what. But I think, if memory serves, they were quite near to the parking lot.


I found This door and window (below) in the courtyard of out-buildings at the Château de Fougères-sur-Bièvre, an 11th century seigniorie near Blois. The current buildings date from the 15th century.


Finally, the stained glass crest inset into the window below can be found inside the Château de Chaumont, which overlooks the Loire river between Blois and Amboise. The castle is famed for having been given to Diane de Poitiers by her rival, Catherine de Médicis (I describe the story briefly here) after the latter kicked the former out of Chenonceaux.


As I said, these are just random images. If you want to see more photos of these places, you can click on the "châteaux" or "loire valley" labels in the sidebar to see all my previous posts from those categories.

Open Signs

I kind of lost track of the Open Series that I was doing, so I decided to put all the images together into a collage of sorts.


These pictures were all taken in Hudson, New York, back in October 2006. The main street of town is lined with art galleries and boutiques these days. It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon and people were strolling up and down, stopping into shops or just looking at window displays.

I noticed that many of the signs saying "we're open" were unusual, so I just started snapping.

Word Of The Week

instar

You most often see this word as part of a specific phrase : à l'instar de (quelque chose). It always throws me off because I haven't yet incorporated its meaning into my daily life.

While the word/phrase looks and sounds like it should have something to do with technology or science (that's my bias), any student of latin (not moi) would most likely disagree. It means : as an example, in the manner of, almost equal to, or like.

The dictionaries tell me it's not really something you say in spoken French. You see this expression in written French and only hear it if someone is reading aloud or in newscasts (the newscaster is reading the news, after all).

Maybe writing this post will help me cement the meaning into my brain !

Kitchen Collection [6]

How many glass loaf pans does the well-equipped kitchen need ? Exactly four, and each one should be a slightly different size from the others. It makes things challenging, not the least of which are stacking and storing.

Many of my recipes (like zucchini bread) make 2 loaves, so two pans work very well. I don't know how we ended up with four, but we did. I like glass because I can see what's going on inside the pans while they're in the oven, like how brown the loaf is getting.

These pans also double as molds for terrines and pâtés. We do have more traditional molds for those things, but a good glass loaf pan fills the bill if you don't have specialized molds.

I'm planning on making a vegetable terrine in the coming week. It will be a three-color terrine with spinach, cauliflower, and carrot layers. There will likely be pictures, so stay tuned to see which pans get the job !

Vouvray Again

The street that went from our gîte down into the village of Vouvray.

This will be the last of the Vouvray posts for now. After this we'll move on to something else in the Loire Valley. But still, Vouvray is nice, no ?

The bell tower of the the Vouvray church.

The center of town is down around the level of the river, but there is a part of the town that seems older, that crawls up the bank toward the highlands. It is here where the church sits, looking out over the valley. Its tower is taller than the riverbank it is built into, and can be seen from the vineyard out on the flat plateau above the Loire.

Le Château de Moncontour, on the heights above the Loire in Vouvray.

Also built on the the heights is the Château de Moncontour, a winery that produces all the varieties to be found in Vouvray. Among them are pétillant, moelleux, demi-sec, and sec. All made from chenin blanc, bien sûr.

Red leaves in Vouvray.