Thank you!

It was a life-changing, culture-shocking week for everyone. I am so proud of all of the campers and can't tell you what an incredible experience it was working with all of you. Can't wait to cook with you again!

Day 6

Brunch
Kids and parents were invited to fend for themselves for brunch... in the afternoon, though, Jed taught the kids how to make tapenade with some tasty olives that we bought at the market.

Desert
Moelleux au Chocolat

Preheat oven to 177°C (350˚F)

10 oz. 70% baking chocolate

1 ¼ cups butter, diced

5 eggs

¾ cups sugar

½ cup flour

extra butter (room temp) for buttering the cupcake molds

1 Melt chocolate on low flame in a bain-marie (double boiler). When melted, take off flame, and…

2 Stir in diced butter, until it melts.

3 In another bowl, beat eggs and sugar, until the mixture starts to whiten.

4 Stir in melted chocolate and then add the flour.

5 Butter 4 individual ramekins, and pour in chocolate batter.

6 Cook for about 10 minutes.

7 Tip ramekins upside down onto dessert plates and serve topped with a scoop of pistachio ice cream and a swirl of crème anglaise.

Voilà!

Crème Anglaise

(this is the recipe I used for our crème anglaise… just in case you are feeing adventurous)

2 cups light cream or half and half

1 vanilla bean (or 2 tsp vanilla extract)

1/3 cups sugar

5 large egg yolks

Have a fine medium-sized strainer and bowl ready near the stove.

In a stainless steel bowl stir together, using a wooden spoon, the sugar and yolks until well blended. (Do not let this mixture sit too long or a film will develop.)

In a small saucepan heat the cream and vanilla bean (or vanilla) just to the boiling point. Remove from heat and whisk a few tablespoons of the cream into the yolk mixture. Then, gradually add the remaining cream, whisking constantly.

Pour this mixture into a medium sized saucepan and, over medium heat, gently heat the mixture to just below the boiling point (170 - 175 degrees F) (77 - 80 degrees C). You will notice that steam will begin to appear and the mixture will be slightly thicker than heavy cream. Do not boil or the eggs will curdle. Check to see if it is the right consistency by holding a wooden spoon sideways that is covered with the custard and run your finger along the back of the spoon. If the streak remains without the cream running down through the streak, it is ready.

Immediately remove from the heat and pour through the strainer, scraping up any thickened cream that settles on the bottom of the pan. Remove the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds into the sauce. Stir until seeds separate. For maximum flavor, return the pod to the sauce until serving time. (If you are using pure vanilla extract, instead of the vanilla bean, add it to the cream now.)

The creme anglaise can be refrigerated covered with plastic wrap for a couple of days.

Note: If sauce was overheated and curdling occurs, pour instantly into a blender and process until smooth before straining. If necessary, add a little heavy cream to the mixture before blending.

Makes about 2 cups

Dinner

Bouillabaise (see e-mail)

Day 5

Jed and I went to the market in Gange... One of the better markets I have ever been to.







Brunch
Moroccan food!


Dinner
(At les abrigaux)

In the afternoon, you all went to bake bread, and Jed and I prepared the main dishes:

Coq au vin
Potato Gratin

Jed and I hiked the huge put of coq au vin down, and then we had the kids do a top chef-style thing for the side dishes. They all came up with incredibly flavored dishes.


Team 1: parsnips, carrots, onions
Team 2: mash, roquette, lemons
Team 3: green beans, asparagus, garlic




Kids! Comment below to share your team's recipe!

Day 4

Brunch

Croque Monsieur/Madame

Serves 4

Béchamel Sauce

8 slices of white bread

4 slices of ham

Gruyère or emmental cheese

(for croque madame, 4 eggs)

butter

Heat up a pan with some butter

make a sandwhich: bread, cheese, ham, bread. And place it directly in the pan to start melting the cheese. Make sure your pan isn’t too hot so you don’t burn your bread before the cheese melts. Flip the sandwhich over and sprinkle it with more cheese. If you are going to make a croque madame, either crack the egg directly on top of the sandwhich, or fry it separately and place it on top before serving covered in Béchamel sauce (or however you like... I know a lot of the campers got creative with how they served this one!)

Because of the visit to the restaurant, we didn't have time for the desert I had planned. Instead, I let the kids experiment making macaroons! here is the recipe for what I had planned to teach:

Desert

Clafoutis Cerries/Pruneau

175˚ C (350˚F)

2 cups of fresh bing cherries, pitted (because cherries are not in season yet, we used prunes!)

2 tbls slivered almonds

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 tbls brown sugar

½ cup sifted flour

1/8 tsp salt

1 cup whole milk

¾ tsp almond extract (or Amaretto!)

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

powdered sugar for dusting

baking dish

1 bowl

1 Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and lightly flour a 9X9 or 10X7 baking dish. Toss in the cherries and slivered almonds.

2 Whisk the eggs, sugars, salt, and flour together until smooth.

3 Add the milk, almond extract (or Amaretto), and vanilla extract. Whisk until smooth. Pour into the baking dish.

4 Bake for 20-40 minutes or until lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. When you pull it put of the oven it will wiggle a bit which is normal. Place it on a wire rack to cool. The clafoutis will have puffed up quite a bit and will deflate while cooling. Once cool dust the clafoutis with powdered sugar. Serve.

Dinner

Potato Gratin

Apples and Cabbage

We prepared the ribs that Margot's dad donated

Day 3

Brunch
Katherine Munire (owner and chef of restaurant, Étape du Randonneur) : Salade with Pélardon Cheese and Chicken.

Desert
Macarons Praliné Noisette
Every ingredient in this French delicacy must be precisely weighed. If the proportions are off at all, your macarons will come out less than perfect. The amount of time you spend mixing the batter will also determine if the cookies will resemble the real thing. It is so difficult to make these sandwiches correctly that you can spend up to 3 euros each On this ping pong ball sized cookie!

150g powdered sugar
90g ground almonds

75g egg whites (about 2 ½)
1 pinch cream of tarter
35g sugar

parchment paper

1 Mix the ground almonds and powdered sugar.

2 Whip the egg whites with the cream of tarter until it forms peaks, gradually add the sugar.

3 Add the powder mixture to the egg whites and fold with a spatula until mixture is shiny. (You are essentially overmixing, but not overovermixing. It will take time to get this recipe right)

4 Pipe it out onto baking sheets (you can use a zip lock with the corner cut out, or use what we used—disposable pastry bags). Sometimes it is easier to get consistently sized cookies if you draw circles on your parchment paper before piping.

5 Bake at 180˚ for 11-12 minutes. After 5 minutes turn the temp down to 160. And open the oven door every once in a while to keep the humidity out.

Hazelnut Praline Cream
(I made this before hand, but here is the recipe if you’d like to try it at home!)
3 egg yolks

90g sugar
45ml water

150g butter, softened
50g hazelnut praline (I bought it at G. Detout)

1 Start by mixing the egg yolks together in a bowl.

2 Stir the water and sugar together in a small saucepan until the sugar is dissolved, and then heat to 115˚C (on a candy thermometer) Steam will appear, but don’t let this get too hot!

3 Do not stir the sugar after you have begun cooking it (you may cause it to crystallize) but you can move the pan around if you want.

4 When the sugar is at 115˚C, you may SLOWLY add the sugar to the egg yolks (you don’t want sweet scrambled eggs) while continuously stirring.

5 Once the sugar is incorporated, never stop stirring, add the butter, and then the hazelnut praline. The mixture should be soft but not too soft. Experiment with the texture here, using a fridge to cool it off and a second or two in the oven to warm it again.

6 When you think it has come to the right consistency to pipe, put it in a pastry bag and make some sandwiches!

Note: The only advice I can give you for these little devils is: Don’t get frustrated, and don’t give up!






Dinner

Cauliflower Gratin

Escarole and Belgian Endive Salad with Pink Lady Apples, Crème Fraiche and Roquefort.

Day 2

Cooking with Élodie!

Brunch
Another version of Brandade
Salade
Tarte Tatin

Gouté
In France, eating schedules are a little bit different than back home. Everyone takes a small breakfast, usually some kind of spread on a baguette in the morning. Then, mid morning you might have a little snack. The largest meal of the day is lunch; everyone sits down together and serves themselves family style. Around 4 in the afternoon, we take a gouté, which translates to ''snack'' in english. This snack is usually something sweet for the kids after they get home from school. Finally, at around 8, a small dinner is eaten, and desert is usually a fruit or a yogurt (what we might think of as breakfast food).

I wanted to teach the kids about the idea of having a gouté. Something sweet before dinner, rather than right before going to bed. So we made crêpes! They are such a fun and easy snack... and you can please everyone's taste buds!

Crêpes
Nutella banane/ confiture / citron sucre / crème de marrons (chestnut cream) / warm chèvre with honey and walnuts… I could go on…
Serving size depends on the size of each crêpe.

1 cup flour
2 eggs
¾ cup milk
¾ cup water (replace some or all of the water with beer or hard cider!)
pinch of salt
2 ½ tbls unsalted butter, melted
1 tbls of sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 bowl
1 frying pan

1 In a bowl mix the flour and eggs

2 Add the milk and water, followed by the salt, sugar, and melted butter.

3 If you have time, it helps to let this batter sit for a few hours, up to a day before you use it. (tip: make in large batches, cover it and leave it in the fridge for when you need it! Don’t let it sit for too long though…)

4 Start making crêpes! Traditionally, they are very thin so if you think your batter is too thick, experiment! Add more liquid or more flour to get the consistency YOU like.

5 Now fill them with your favorite treats! Crêpes can also be savory so don’t forget about cheese, mushrooms, ham, eggs… (you can really get creative).


Dinner
Lamb à Pistou (see e-mail)
photos from start to finish:

Day 1

This morning, Jed and I went down to the farmer’s market to shop for the week. We were pleseantly surprised by how friendly everyone at the market was… despite the fact that Greg was filming their every move.

The menu for today:

Brunch

Poached Eggs and Toast with Spring Vegetable Salad and a Mustard Vinaigrette. (see e-mail)

Desert

Pistachio Crème Brûlée.

Serves 6

You will need:

• 1 ½ cups whipping cream
• ½ cup milk
• 6 tbls pistachio paste (I brought the pistachio paste for our crème brûlée from G. Detout in Paris, but you can also make this tasty patisserie flavoring at home!) *
• 6 egg yolks
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 4 pears
• ¾ cup sugar
• a lemon
• unrefined cane sugar (or brown sugar, for the brûlée part)
• 2 saucepans
• 6 ramekins
• 1 large bowl
• 1 deep baking sheet

*This is the pistachio version of almond paste. If you want your paste to not be green, soak the pistachios overnight, and then remove the skins with a tea towel. If you leave the skins on, you end up with a product whose color can best be termed "unfortunate". You can always add some green food coloring if you want the end product to be green.

• 1/3 cup pistachios
• 1/3 cup powdered sugar
• 2-4 Tablespoons water

Grind the pistachios in a food processor for 1-2 minutes, until it's a near fine powder. Add the sugar and incorporate into the nuts.

This step is critical. Add water to mixture in the processor, one tablespoon at a time, until the paste has the consistency of marzipan. You want to err on the side of too little water rather than too much. The paste should not look liquidy, and should be easily held and shaped when in your hand.

1 Fill a saucepan with enough water to cover pears, add ¾ cups sugar and some lemon juice to keep the pears from browning. Turn your stove to medium and as you allow the sugar to dissolve into the water, peel the pears.

2 When the water is simmering, gently place the pears in the water and allow them to simmer for 20-25 minutes, or until they are tender. (For the adults, you can always poach the pears in champagne or wine. Also, encourage your kids to get creative with spices here! Adding some whole cloves, a whole cinnamon stick, or a vanilla bean will add a kick to this deliciously soft desert.)

3 In your second sauce pan, bring the whipping cream, milk, and pistachio paste almost to a boil (we call this scalding).

4 In your bowl whisk together the egg yolks and sugar.

5 Once your milk mixture is scalded, add a little bit to the egg mixture and whisk to cool down the milk without cooking the eggs.

6 Slowly add the rest of the mixture to the eggs without making scrambled eggs!

7 Fill each ramekin with 1-1 ½ cm of the crème mixture trying to avoid creating air bubbles. (lightly tap the sides of the ramekins if bubble do appear) Place the ramekins in your deep baking sheet that has been filled with a little bit of water.

8 Carefully place the baking sheet into the oven at 100˚C (212˚F) for 1 hour.

9 Now you should check your pears and if they are tender take them out of the simmering water and cut them into fancy shapes.

10 After an hour, your crème should go from the oven to the fridge. When they have chilled, cover the crème with the unrefined cane sugar and torch it to make a crispy caramel layer.

Serve with slices of poached pear and chocolate sorbet!

Dinner

Brandade. (see e-mail)