Bonjour!
Hi My name is Alison and welcome to my blog. I'm no expert chef and I have never written a blog before but I do love France, the French and all importantly the food.
If you are like me and have read the book A Year in Provence, have the DVD series, scour Lidls for anything French to eat and long to throw open the shutters of your Gite for a whole blissful week once a year or more if you are lucky! maybe we can close our eyes think of France and make the journey together.
I have a family of three girls still living at home age 7,10, and 15. A husband Malcolm, 2 dogs one of which is a Newfoundland and 4 Ragdoll cats which I breed, so we are a very busy household and apart from meal times we are rarely all in the house at the same time!
Now to make things difficult for me to cook French food we live in a remote part of the Scottish Borders with the nearest village shop being 3 miles away and not really stocking anything remotely usuable for French cooking. We do have a small Sainsburys and a Co-op plus a Lidls 8 miles away but it can be difficult to get ingredients, I am also on a very tight budget indeed, but then most of us are. Quite often I shall have to substitute or even leave out some ingredients, but that will be half the fun. If you are joining in with the blog and make substitutes let us all know how you got on and PLEASE lets have some photos of your work, after spending all that time in the kitchen you will deserve a pat on the back.
Now in good old Julie Julia fashion I shall be following the recipes of a famous French cook Francoise Bernard who was well known for good family recipes for the normal working families of France, afterall that is what most of us can afford and have the ability to make!
I shall send for the book from Amazon and let you know when it arrives. In the meantime I shall follow some simple French recipes from a book I picked up in a charity shop for 50p Just called French Cooking with no authors name! So wish me luck and here goes!!
PS
I will try to post a new recipe each day which I have tested on the family, some days i may not manage it but I will try!
If you are like me and have read the book A Year in Provence, have the DVD series, scour Lidls for anything French to eat and long to throw open the shutters of your Gite for a whole blissful week once a year or more if you are lucky! maybe we can close our eyes think of France and make the journey together.
I have a family of three girls still living at home age 7,10, and 15. A husband Malcolm, 2 dogs one of which is a Newfoundland and 4 Ragdoll cats which I breed, so we are a very busy household and apart from meal times we are rarely all in the house at the same time!
Now to make things difficult for me to cook French food we live in a remote part of the Scottish Borders with the nearest village shop being 3 miles away and not really stocking anything remotely usuable for French cooking. We do have a small Sainsburys and a Co-op plus a Lidls 8 miles away but it can be difficult to get ingredients, I am also on a very tight budget indeed, but then most of us are. Quite often I shall have to substitute or even leave out some ingredients, but that will be half the fun. If you are joining in with the blog and make substitutes let us all know how you got on and PLEASE lets have some photos of your work, after spending all that time in the kitchen you will deserve a pat on the back.
Now in good old Julie Julia fashion I shall be following the recipes of a famous French cook Francoise Bernard who was well known for good family recipes for the normal working families of France, afterall that is what most of us can afford and have the ability to make!
I shall send for the book from Amazon and let you know when it arrives. In the meantime I shall follow some simple French recipes from a book I picked up in a charity shop for 50p Just called French Cooking with no authors name! So wish me luck and here goes!!
PS
I will try to post a new recipe each day which I have tested on the family, some days i may not manage it but I will try!
A leisurely lunch outside our rented gite in Briarcourt 2011