Vegetable casserole.

Firstly I must apologise to you all for the slow rate at which I am posting!
Time just seems to fly by and  keeping up with everything is not easy, especially at this time of year, when the garden needs a lot of attention!  

I have still not managed to edit my photos of the Lot region of France and we go on holiday next month, so there will be loads more photos to edit on our return after 3 weeks of travelling.  I have, however, managed to keep up the photo diary, for those who are interested. Catching up with 'My life in the Charente' in summer may be difficult but I will do my best when we return from holiday.  Tomorrow we have a blogger friend arriving and we are looking forward to showing her around; sadly the weather has taken a turn for the worse and lots of rain is forecast!

Meanwhile, I have discovered an amazing way to make a vegetable casserole and decided to pass on my 'invention,' as we thought it was so good.  No amounts or weight are involved; just decide how much you need for each person.

You could use pretty much any vegetable of your choice but I used:

2 carrots

1 parsnip

A large stick of celery

2 leeks

A few mushrooms

Two sticks of asparagus that I had in the fridge.

Freshly ground pepper to taste

Chop all and put into a dish with a lid.  I then added liquid 3/4 of the way up the dish.  This was a 50:50mix of box orange juice and dry white wine with a vegetable stock jelly added.  Put on the lid and cook in the oven at about 190C (375F, gas mark 5) until the carrot is just tender; mine was done in a little more than an hour. Pouring in heated liquid  first would speed up the cooking time if you were in a hurry.

When the vegetables were cooked, I drained off the liquid to make a sauce and kept the vegetables warm meanwhile. 

Butter - about 60 grams or 2 ounces, melt in a small saucepan then add some flour (about 2 tablespoons), Add a couple of heaped tablespoons of lemon and lime marmalade, stir well then slowly add the vegetable liquid, stirring all the time until you have a thick pouring consistency.  Serve up the vegetables and pour some of the sauce over.

I served it with a potato cooked in the slow cooker, and a grilled pork chop, it was delicious.

Pasta sauce.

We had some of the above vegetables left over, as I had cooked more than we needed. I made up a little more sauce using butter, flour, wine, orange juice and marmalade and adding the left over vegetable.  We then poured it over our favourite pasta and hey presto, what a great sauce it made.

I hope that you get to try this out as I thought it was really exceptional and the lemon and lime marmalade just finished it off with a novel taste.  It may work with any marmalade, but that is for you to try and experiment with!

See also My Life Before Charente (updated 9 March)

and my daily blog

Photo Diary 

The Promised Renovation Update

When we bought our house in 2005 there was much we wanted to do, but due to various circumstances (the economy being one!), renovation has taken rather longer than we hoped or intended!  The final phase of work was to make 3 rooms upstairs in the grenier (attic) of the barn, and last year I helped a friend put the ceiling into this area, with  insulation above. The latter is 300 millimetres (one foot) thick - the current recommended standard! - see here.

The kitchen and lounge renovation, if you are interested in going back, is here.

The very dark earth- floored barn at the other end of the house, which became our bedroom, is here.

Finally, what has been keeping us in complete chaos for the past few weeks, is HERE.  I have put these photos as a stand alone page for my convenience and I am hoping that this does not deter you from viewing them.

Meanwhile, autumn has well and truly arrived here, and the temperatures are on their way down, with possible frosts early next week, so the forecast says at the moment!

Our oak tree is dropping acorns everywhere, but sadly we have no pigs around here who might benefit!

These pumpkins  will have to be brought in this week, before the cold arrives

This is a whopper of a butternut; it's not really ready to come in, but it cannot survive a frost either!

The chard looks great and this is a fantastic survivor in cold weather.

and last but not least, the butterflies are still fluttering around. 

Small Copper - Lycaena phlaeas.

Thanks Noushka

 

See also - My Life Before Charente updated  7 October 2012 

Catching up with the Garden - Free Promotion

Here are a few photos showing how my garden is progressing after its very slow start, following the coldest winter in about 60 years.  The winter was followed by a late frost in May, which took out almost all the blossom on the fruit trees. The cold snap also meant an absence of bees! I thought that the quince had not produced any fruit, but I have managed to track down a few, in between the leaves and all very high up.  We also have one mirabelle plum tree with some fruit on it, while the other 3 are bare!

The 'Mushroom Garden' has taken ages for anything to flower in it, but the lavender is looking good, together with a few yellow calendula.  Because this bed is in full sun, I have not planted anything which needs too much water. There are a lot of cactus and succulents planted around the perimeter of the bed, but they are not yet big enough to be noticeable in the photo.  Next year I hope they will all multiply!!

In other parts of the garden there are various flowers in mixed beds

 The top two are  cosmos, the left hand one with a bee in the centre.

Bottom left is a shot of the cactus flowering in the 'mushroom garden' and bottom right is hibiscus.

 Love-in-a-Mist on the left, Lavender top right and the flowers of the herb oregano  bottom right.

Sunflower on the left, calendula top right and courgette (zucchini) bottom right. The birds have eaten most of the sunflower seeds!!

Climbing rose top left, pinks top right, zinnia bottom left and my unknown rose  with the amazing perfume bottom right.

Various Zinnia

My Stargazer, which happily survived underground in the cold of winter and it is now  putting on a beautiful display, which will last for a week or so.

Hydrangeas at the back, partly hiding the neighbour's horrible barn wall (!!) with what I think are single chrysanthemums in front, and a few lone poppies.  The insects really love this bed!!

A bed of calendulas, zinnias, cosmos,with pampas grass at the back and a small holly right in the front. We cut and burnt back the pampas in the spring, as it was getting too big - all now under control!

Apples top left,there are a very few this year, grapes top right, hazel nuts bottom left and we have at last a few small figs, bottom right.

Round courgettes top left, Italian plums top right, pepper bottom left and round yellow courgette bottom right.

Haricot beans, as they are called here in France (French beans in the UK) on the left, marrow top right and chard bottom right.

A bed of courgettes (zucchini) and pumpkins taking up at least half of the vegetable garden and climbing the anti-rabbit perimeter fence. They are really running wild in the sun!! You can see some haricot beans between the two.

 

See also - My Life Before Charente updated  04 August 2012

Free Promotion from 6 August 2012 until 9 August 2012

The following weeks of the next part of my life story I have put on Kindle and you can obtain it at www.Amazon.com or www.Amazon.co.uk I will however continue writing it on 'My Life Before the Charente' as well so that the blog is not interrupted. 

It can also be downloaded to computers, smart-phones or tablets see Here