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French word a week

French Word A Week: Fraises

09.04.2010 28 Comments

Fresh!


This is going to be a short and sweet French Word A Week post as Tami and I are busy working hard. In our case work is play and play is work but still. The weather is gorgeous right now in Charleston which makes me want to be outside and just walk around the city. The farmers market just started, the dogwoods are heavy with flowers. It’s all quite pretty really. And our strawberry season is literally just around the corner. Ah les fraises! (the strawberries!)

One of my favorite fruits. Fraises. Listen to the pronunciation here.

Strawberries here in town are a big deal. We even have a festival to celebrate its beginning at Boone Hall Plantation which is always a sight to be seen. Bill and I do the side step at this time of year because we can’t wait to see the "U pick" sign on the sign of the road. We love to spend a few hours on the grounds, digging up the sweet and juicy strawberries. I even took Marcela there two years ago when she came to visit. I wish I could take Tami there this year but we are one weekend too early.

At least I know what I am doing next weekend with our neighbors and their kids!

Have a wonderful weekend!

French Word A Week: Pate Feuilletee

02.04.2010 45 Comments

Gluten Free Mille Feuilles With Mascarpone Lemon Cream


We have literally eaten our fair share of this edition of French Word A Week lately and we would gladly do it again. Actually we might later today. It’s puff pastry, who wouldn’t be?

Yes, we are furiously infatuated by pate feuilletee in this household. You can listen to the pronunciation here (and yes it’s my voice this time and yes I am quite aware it’s two words. Bonus)

Hmmm…puff pastry…That elusive pit-stop of a baker’s apprentice. The one that elicit words such as "difficult", "temperamental", "finicky", "a pain in the derriere" and a sleuth of other chosen adjectives.

Yeah…

Add "gluten free".

Now we’re talking about a whole other level of difficulty.

Yet, within the course of this past year and bouncing off ideas, ratios, trials and errors with Shauna and Danny, I can say that our family finally ate a gluten free mille-feuilles worthy of that name!(pictured above)

I have made it four times in the past two weeks just to make sure that the first time I yelled "victory" was not a dream. Everytime it worked perfectly. Imagine a dough that does not crack when you roll it, that you do not need to patch and doctor up as you roll and fold. A gluten free dough that behaves exactly as one loaded with gazillion strands of gluten. Oh yeah….

I wanted to post the full recipe today until Shauna gently nudged me to do it one more time with step by step pictures so that people who have never made it could see the method and you could clearly see what I am talking about when I say I want to rest my head on the dough it is so soft.

So….the step by step tutorial is being photographed as we speak (I am in between 2 turns right now) and I’ll post the full recipe and several dishes/desserts I made with it on Tuesday.

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter weekend. We are having a few get togethers with friends and family until Monday when my parents leave to go back home. I’ll be moping around the house that day. Good time to write about pate feuilletee then!

Have a great weekend!