It is a recipe that tastes good and smells my childhood. A nice mixture between my dad'pissaladiere with my Mum'puff pastry.



A pissaladière with Breton onions... The pissaladière is a type of pizza, a white one without tomato sauce, done with onions on a bread dough. Usually anchovies are also part of this pie.
The way I do it is a bit different : I use Breton onions, the one from Roscoff, called oignons rosés or may be the Johnny'onions.
They are quite good for this onion pie... because they're sweet. Like South European onions. You need to cook them a really long time... I don't use bread dough but puff pastry instead. It's not "the real one" but it is good !

Time: two hours for the onions and cook about 45 minutes for the onions'pie.

Ingredients
2 to 3 kilograms of onions (it has to become pureed)
A little olive oil
Black olives

One to two hours of gentle cooking.
The tart should be well covered with a thick layer of onions ... more than one centimeter ... au moins. At least. Onions reduce very slowly until it becomes very soft, almost like a puree and the colour becomes khaki brown.

Ingredients for the puff pastry (pate feuilletée) to a 30cm pie
wooden spoon
160g flour
half or 80 g butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
a small glass of very cold water

Cut butter into pieces (2cm to 1) in the flour. Pour the oil. Mix. Add water little by little and mix (no fingers but with a wooden spoon) until dough is held (not necessarily very well but it does not matter).
Avoid putting too much water, your dough will be hard. And do not touch the dough with fingers. These are the two secrets to succeed for a pate feuilletée !
Pour your dough on the table and with a rolling pin, spread roughly.
Fold it again and spread...with rolling pin. Repeat this operation 5 to 6 times. Fold one last time and store at least 15 minutes in refrigerator. The more you've folded your dough, the better the puff!
When the time expired, spread the dough and pour over your onions and black olives. For 45 minutes ... Your puff pastry is done.
Enjoy with a green salad.

Read it in French : Tarte aux oignons rosés de Roscoff sans anchois

Some weeks ago, I did some nice elder flowers fritters, and now that the berries are being eaten by birds, I ‘m hurrying to make a nice jelly. As it is my first elderberry jelly, I tried to find on internet the best recipe. Well, none appealed to me… So after some tries, I’ll tell you what for me is the best.

Ingredients :
berries, (for 3 pots of 300 g of jam, you need a full bag of berries)
sugar,
an orange if you have one (recipes usually use lemon but orange is good)
and some water.

Harvest your wild berries in the countryside, you’ll find them everywhere. Choose the ripest ones, full of water and not the one already tasted by birds that are no more watery. Because the secret for a good jam is liquid.



Pick berries off the stalks, keep the black ones, and weight them before doing anything else. Because thanks to its weight, you ‘ll have to add one third of sugar later one.
Once you weighted them, put the orange juice into a pan with the water and let it boil for some minutes. It smells really strange and not nice but go on. Crush them. Then use a food mill to remove the seeds. I first tried with the berries and seeds, it is inedible.

Once you have the sauce, put it into a saucepan, add sugar (one third because once you removed the seeds and skin, you have not a lot left) and mix.
The best is to wait the next day to cook it. Boil it then for some minutes. Your jam is ready when using a teaspoon, the jelly is covering your teaspoon and dropping very slowly. The drop must almost stay on your teaspoon.
Pour the boiling jam into pots and seal them and let them cool down upside down. And again store them upside down till eating. The pots can be kept for a long time (a year or so).



Be careful with the berries : never eat them raw, they are toxic, as are the leaves, the roots and the bark.

Read it in French : Recette de confiture aux baies de sureau

2 differents steps... Ratatouille is easy to make but needs time to be good.

1 - Preparation of vegetables ratatouille
2 - Crumble and cooking
1 – Ratatouille with summer vegetables
In summer, the ideal is to make a French ratatouille. The secret is to cook it a long time. Better to make a big one that you can freeze.The recipe is for 8 people.

Ingredients for 8 people 2 garlic cloves
An onion
2 peppers
2 eggplants
5 zucchini
8-9 tomatoes
Olive oil
Garlic in olive oil for 5 minutes. Peel the onion and add to garlic (15 minutes).While the onion and garlic cook. cut into small pieces peppers. Add and cok fr 15 minutes. Continue with the other vegetables (15 minutes each). Then cook over low heat for one hour (no cover). Let cool a few hours and again cook for an hour. It's done

2 - Crumble
Ingredients for 4
100g flour
50g butter
50g Grated Parmesan
Cut butter into small pieces and add to flour and grated Parmesan. Mix until small balls. Pour the ratatouille into a baking dish. Add the crumble top. Oven for 20 minutes to 7.
This winter you can do the same thing with carrots, leeks, potatoes and mushrooms ... Or any other vegetable that you will cook in the oven before proceeding.

Read it in French : Recette du crumble salé aux légumes de saison

You can do it salty or sweet… It is an easy recipe, nice to do with children.
Several ways can be done : vegetarian with vegetables thinly sliced, with crumbs of tuna fish or sweet with fruits.

Ingredients :
50 g flour
2 yolks and 2 whites
150 ml milk
25 g melted butter
A large pan

Mix the ingredients. Add the whites softly.
Slice thinly your vegetables. Add them with a bit grated cheese.
Pour into a frying pan. 10 minutes for each side.
Eat it with a green salad.

The sweet recipe

Add 25 g of sugar to your dough. Slice thinly the fruits.
Add them. Same cooking time.

Read it in French : Recette de matafan végétarien à la mode de Bretagne

Buckwheat is nice for food allergy : gluten free is the flour and the recipe does not use milk (and lactose !). It is also a recipe vor vegetarians.

Ingredients

330g of buckwheat flour (Brittany produces organic buckwheat flour, you know !)
75 cl water
Salt
a bilig (or a pan)



15 minutes to a few hours

Pour slowly in a big bowl water into your flour. Mix with a wooden spoon and be careful with lumps.

You have to whip it 100 times with your wooden spoon. The more it will be whipped, the lightest it will be.

Wait 15 minutes to a few hours to use it.
In a pan, melt some butter and pour a laddle of your sauce.
When one side is done, grap the borders of the galette and flip it.
Add the fillings you want.

In Brittany, we don’t fill it a lot as we think we don’t enjoy the galette anymore when it has too much flavors.

Read it in French : Recette typique des galettes de blé noir en Bretagne

Easy recipe.
Cooking time : 20 to 30 minutes.

Ingredients

A whole fish with thick skin (bass, sea bream, salmon ...)
Coarse salt
A trickle of olive oil

Preheat the oven (T 240°C / 8).
In a dish for the oven, place your whole fish. Add olive oil and a generous handful of salt. Bake the fish and cook according to the size of the fish (20 minutes to 30 minutes).

Once cooked, the skin comes off really easily. The fish is perfectly salted. Not bad with new potatoes.

Read it in French : Recette de poisson au gros sel au four

Sloe or Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) is a small bush that grows in hedges in Brittany (France). It blooms between March and April. They can help against a difficult digestion or a light constipation.

No wonder as Blackthorn is the brother of the plum tree.



The fisrt recipe is done with fresh flowers.

Massage oil done with fresh flowers of Blackthorn (digestion).

Ingredients :
One third fresh flowers of Blackthorn
Two third of olive oil (better an organic one)
3 weeks

Once you picked the flowers, put them in oil. Open the bottle every day so that humidity will evaporate and the flowers won’t mould. Shake every day.
After three weeks, use it to massage your tummy when you have digestive disorders. You can use it for your children too.

Recipe of herbal tea with sloe flowers (constipation).

Once you’ve dried the flowers, you need : 2 teaspoons in simmering water. Let it infuse for 10 minutes. Drink it 3 times a day during a week.

Read it in French : Recette d'huile de massage et recette d'infusion à base de felurs de prunelliers

Green tomatoes left, what can I cook with them ? a nice chutney, a French recipe !!!



Ingredients for a small pot :
200 g of tomatoes (green and some redish)
1 tablespoon of honey
4 tablespoons of vinegar
Pepper
Ginger powder
2 tablespoons of Rum


Recipe :
Slice the tomatoes in small pieces, add rum and let macerate for an hour.

Put the sugar,honey, vinegar, pepper and ginger into a large pan. Bring to simmering point and simmer for almost an hour. It has to be thick and caramelized.
Eat it with strong tasty cheese such as roquefort or dry goat cheese. Or with poultry or foie gras. Pot them and sterilized them.




Read it in French : Recette maison de confit de tomates vertes et rouges

If you want an easy and quick recipe… here you are… with algae mustard…

Ingredients :

Fish fillets

The sauce :
- algae mustard (french strong mustard (moutarde de Dijon) is also ok, but don’t use sweet one !!!)
- double cream
- salt, pepper

an oven

Preparation time : 5 minutes
Cooking time : 20 minutes , oven to 7

Mix the same quantity of mustard and double cream. Brush the fillet generously with the sauce. Add salt and pepper. And bake for ... 20 minutes. It’s done.
Bon appétit.

Read it in French : Recette de poisson au four sauce moutarde aux algues

It is a really easy recipe.

Ingredients for 8 blinis (10 cm) :

A yoghurt (used as a measurement)
1 egg
Flour (one yoghurt…)
Half a yoghurt water
Baking powder
A small frying pan (10 cm)

Preparation time : 10 minutes and leave the batter one hour before frying.

Mix in a bowl the ingredients one after the other. Leave the batter for one hour.
When the frying pan is warm enough, brush it with oil or butter. Pour a small ladle into the pan and wait till it makes holes. Then flip it over and cook it on the other side.



You can add chocolate chips, pieces of dried apricots, sultanas to the batter before cooking…

Read it in French : Recette de facile de blinis à la farine de châtaignes

It took me some time to peel the rose hips but here I am with those high concentrated vitamin fruits !!! I’ve done two different recipes with them : jam and syrup.



The more difficult in the recipe is to peel the rose hips. You have two different ways to do it : for the lazy ones (read 1), for the meticulous ones (read 2).

Ingredients :
Rose hips
Sugar

To take away the itching powder, you need time and you can either :



1 – Put the rose hips through a colander and save the pulp.

Or

2 – Cut the rose hips in two pieces and take out the fine hairs with a knife. I know it is quite long…

Once you’ve done that, it’s easy.
Add to the pulp sugar (400 g rose hips, 200g sugar) and boil till you have a nice thick orange mixture.

Put in jars.

The recipe of the syrup now…

I would say it is an homemade medicine for sore throat : it has no chemicals and plenty of Vitamin C (you remember that rose hips have 20 times more vitamin C than lemon and when you catch a cold you have a vitamin C deficiency) and honey (everybody knows that honey is good for sore throat).

You have to use 65g of fruits for 35 of honey. The savour of honey is stronger than the rose hips (but they are the benefits of the vitamin C). Anyway it is good for your health…

Take care…

Read it in French : Recette de la confiture aux cynorrhodons d'églantier