Tuesday, January 13, 2009

French Cuisine


My brother, Joshua, knows that we love to cook so he sent us a new cookbook for Christmas and it came in a very cool Strand book bag. The book is 'Patricia Wells At Home In Provence ~ Recipes Inspired By Her Farmhouse In France' and is as much fun to read as it is to cook out of. Fun little quotes are on some of the pages and there are fun little blurbs about each recipe and why it was chosen for this book.

Last nights dinner was made entirely from our new cookbook. The menu read as follows:

Penne with Sausage, Fennel and Red Wine
Golden Parmesan-Pepper Loaf
and
Eli's Apple Crisp

I actually had made the bread on Sunday, but just before dinner we had decided to go to a movie (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button -thumbs up!), so while making the rest of the dinner on Monday night, we decided to grill slices of the bread on a hot cast-iron gridle. Mmmmm.... it was completely delicious that way! The Penne dish called for 2 cups of Chianti wine, so we drank the rest of the bottle with dinner. Cleaning up was a hoot, but after a couple of glasses of wine I really can't tell you if those dishes got very clean. Ah well, a good time was had by all!


"I feel a recipe is only a theme, which an intelligent cook can play each time with a variation."
~Madame Benoit

11 comments:

Wila (aka Ali) said...

That looks soooo yummy. I'm drooling at my desk now.

Unknown said...

Yum, Yum. This was a cook book Christmas. I've decided I have to move to Oregon, so I can get the fresh indgrediants that are in the cook book you gave me.
I did have Noah Bean yesterday.We played all day.

Mary said...

Paula,

The food looks delicious and your brother certainly knew exactly the gift you would love.

Looks like you gave Stacey a nice cookbook also. I'm going now to check out her blog.

Thank you for your comments on my story about Aunt May. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Blessings,
Mary

TC said...

Wow, it all looks/sounds delicious!

And I'm a firm believer in polishing off that bottle of wine. Getting the cork back in is a lot of work - why bother? Definitely the better option :)

Love Bears All Things said...

Sounds like a good meal and a good time.
Mama Bear

Adrienne said...

Oh to be able to cook uninterupted ...some day! And then I will be wishing for my boys to be little and under my feet again~

Jeni said...

Damn -that meal looks really yummy and sounds like something I might be able to fix and also -miracle of miracles -that the two kids would even eat! They love pasta! (Well, so do I too for that matter. But for them, pasta is the main staple of life!)
Can you e-mail the recipes?

Mary said...

Paula,

I have tagged you for a photo meme at my Writing Nook.

Hope you are safe and warm.

Tipper said...

Looks like a yummy dinner-and sounds like a lot of fun too.

Susan said...

Bon Appetit - MMMM, mmmm. I will be right over for some leftovers. I'll bring the wine!

happy zombie said...

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.