No, not Japanese for a change! Ever since I finally got a copy of Linda Majzlik's A vegan taste of France (I tried for years in vain to get it through Amazon Germany), I've been forcing lots of quiche on everybody around me. Furthermore, I heard of this wonderful invention called cake salé. Now that's not something you might have heard among the croissants, vichysoisses, cassoulets, ratatouilles and other famous French foods. Cake salé is a proper home style French food, and cannot be bought in shops usually.
What it essentially is is a moist, wonderful, savoury snack that's very easy to bake, even when you're me and cannot really bake. You can use everything you like - olives, peppers, herbs, cubes of (vegan) cheese, tiny bits of seitan or tempeh, sundried tomatoes, grated courgettes or carrots...
It's wonderful on its own, with a spread, or along a soup or salad.
I love doing a simple olive and courgette version. This is for a small loaf tin.
Cake Salé type Backyard N19
- 1.5 cups of flour
- 0.5 cup soy yoghurt
- 1 courgette, grated
- 100g olives, chopped
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tsp baking powder
- about 1 tablespoon dried/ 2 tbsp fresh chopped herbs (I used a mix of rosemary, sage and water where necessary (might depend on the size of your courgette)
Mix everything - the batter should be like muffin dough, not overmixed, and not too moist. Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake for about 30 mins at 180°C. Eat hot, cold, toasted, whatever way really!
Speaking of France, I went to Paris for the first time in ages this weekend. It was wonderful, the city wasn't busy and I got to see many things that I haven't seen before, including L'Orangerie with Monet's waterlilies (not sea roses as I awkwardly translated literally from German :) ). It also was the first time that nobody attempted to speak in any language other than French to me, which means my French must have improved quite a bit in the last few months!
Sunday afternoon when I had some time left before my train, I went to Musée de Carnavalet in Le Marais, which is touted as "the Paris history museum", but actually it was much more than this. It's a beautiful old town villa with a wonderful (herb) garden and a collection of paintings, everyday things and exhibits of actual historical value. And the best: admission is free, a rare thing in Paris! I'll be back!
... and even salads can be sexy! I haven't posted in three weeks because a plain salad with bread was the most I created in the last couple of weeks. I was so busy, eating out and being invited to people's places for dinner, or just skipping cooking for a couple of mostly raw food-on-the-go days lately. I know I could at least have taken pictures, but my camera batteries died after 6 years of perpetual re-charging :( Payday will come soon and with it a new month, time to cook, money to buy fancy ingredients and new batteries. For today, I'll leave you with a quote from Margaret Visser's fabulous book "Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos of an Ordinary Meal"
This is my entry for Almond and the Hazelnut's food quote challenge. I would've love to provided a quote from a non food-related book, but everything I read at the moment is either foodie stuff, heavy AR philosophy tomes or event management reading.
"It was the custom in the past that the youngest daughter of the household had to turn the lettuce in the dressing with her fingers, maintaining the "fresh, green, female" mythology of lettuce. Dressing a lettuce made the anaphrodisiac plant "salad" (literally, "salted"); the sexual connotations of salt could add an extra erotic dimension to the girl's performance before mixed company at the dinner table. The French used to say of a still young and beautiful woman, elle retourne la salade avec les doigts ("she turns the salad in her fingers"). (and I thought this was an invention of Jamie Oliver who calls it "fairy fingers" in one of his books!)
:) Somebody suggested to post a lot about Bourdain and veganism to boycott google results, so that is my little contribution. see here for more info on the project: http://hezbollahtofu.blogspot.com/ Needless to say I hate Anthony Bourdain (who can't even spell his own name right... he's of French descend and spells it American... is this really common in the US?) and have ordered the only French vegetarian cookbook available on the German market in order to start kicking his ass next week (HOLIDAYS, people!!!) as soon as I have returned from the PPK meetup. For now, all I made is seitan bourgignon , lovely rustic grub! Pre-bake: 
Post-bake (somehow it was prettier before):
About once a month, I get into the mood to whip up a batch of seitan.I don't remember having butter chicken as an omni, thus there is no proper comparison, but this stuff is like crack to me and tastes very authentic. Praise Vegetation for the recipe!A week ago, it was our accountings lady's birthday, and she (hard-chore omni elderly lady) insisted on bringing something that was vegan so I don't need to watch the others scoffing cake as always.I thought of it as a joke, but when I came from school last Friday, there were three slices of vegan quiche lorraine waiting for me (omni coworkers had devoured the other part of the quiche already). I was so happy, I nearly cried. How sweet is that?Unfortunately, I had eaten a huge falafel pita sandwich before, so I took two of the slices home.
