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When we lived in New England (Massachusetts and New Hampshire) we enjoyed the beautiful changing colors of the trees during the fall. The sugar maple trees, oaks, black walnuts and many others turned gorgeous colors - red, orange, yellow, purple. We love our life in France and are fortunate enough to have a little bit of that same color in our fall here in the Loire Valley. The leaves on our Butternut trees, for example, have turned a bright yellow.
Fall is really here. The nights are colder, the days shorter, and a slight nip is in the daytime air. For the moment, it has stopped raining and the air is dry. The field behind the house, seen in the background of the photo above, has been plowed and is ready for its seeding of winter wheat. The colza has already been planted in the other fields around us and is ready to winter over as small, leafy plants before bolting upright when Spring arrives. And finally, our apple tree is offering the best crop ever - large, red-blushed, tart apples for making apple pie, apple tarte, apple cobbler ... the list goes on.
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As we have each fall for the last three years, we led the lambs ... (if you are a bit squeamish about how food, in this case lamb, makes its way to our tables, you might want to skip down a paragraph) ... to slaughter. The butcher came and helped us turn our lambs, born in February, into about 80 pounds of chops, shoulders and legs. We shared our bounty with two other families. These lambs lived a very happy, though abbreviated, life cavorting through the five acres (mostly planted in pine trees) we have set aside for them with the ewes and the ram. They drank nothing but mother's milk and ate nothing but the grass growing in their area. Oh, they liked the occasional tree leaf or pine bough and they loved stale bread when we shared it with them. They were not given vitamins, growth hormones or preventative antibiotics. So, in the winter, when the Le Cormier leg of lamb reaches our table, it is sweet and tender without any overpowering smell, strong taste or strange additives. Absolutely delicious! |
During this season, hearty soups and slow roasted meats replenish the spirit and ward off the chilly night air. Here are two of my favorite recipes: Soup of winter squash and Slow-roasted lamb shoulder with carrots and potatoes. Add your favorite dessert and you have a wonderful meal!
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| There are many types of winter squash that grow in France. We grow two butternut varieties. One looks just like a butternut; the other is longer, more colorful and much larger and heavier (shown in the picture above). They both make good soup. This recipe will easily serve eight. The number of servings can be proportionally increased or decreased as you like. |
Ingredients and Preparation
| Soup - 2 Tablespoons butter and 2 Tablespoons olive oil - 1 onion, chopped (about 1 cup) - 1 apple, peeled, chopped - 4 cloves of garlic, chopped - 4 cups of your own, home-made chicken broth (see below) - ¼ cup Pommeau (or other apple liquor, cognac or 2 Tablespoons brown sugar) - 1 cup white wine - 2 - 4 cups roasted winter squash - 1 Tablespoon fresh thyme - 1 Tablespoon minced fresh sage - ¼ cup whipping cream (or crème fraîche) - salt to your preference
Croutons |
To roast your winter squash, cut it in half and remove the seeds. Apply a little bit of olive oil to the cut surfaces and lay the pieces, cut side down (to avoid a dried out surface) onto a cookie sheet with a raised lip (some juice may come out) and bake at 350°F for one hour. Let the squash cool then spoon out the flesh.
Melt the butter in your large soup pot with the olive oil over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, apple and herbs and sauté until tender. Add your broth (or your low-sodium, store-bought broth), wine, and Pommeau (or other liquor, cognac or brown sugar). Reduce the heat, cover and let the soup simmer to meld all the flavors until about thirty minutes before serving the soup. If this is ready by the middle of the afternoon, you can turn the heat off until about an hour before serving. About thirty minutes before serving, add the squash and turn up the heat. Bring the soup to a gentle boil. Reduce the heat and, using a hand (or immersion) blender, blend the soup to your desired smoothness. Add the cream and salt just at the end of the blending. Taste and season as necessary. This soup can be made thicker or thinner by the addition or withholding of squash pulp. Keep the soup hot until it is served. Don't let it boil. It might burn on the bottom of the pan. To make the croutons, start by preheating your oven to 450°F. Place the croutons in the oven on a cookie sheet or similar and bake for 8 - 10 minutes until golden. Remove and let cool a bit. Next rub a bit of garlic onto each crouton. Use the whole garlic clove (skin removed), holding it in your fingers and rub it into the coarse, crusty bread. You may need more than one garlic clove. Arrange the croutons on the serving plate and sprinkle the parmesan cheese over them. |
I love making my own stocks and keep several types in the freezer (fish, chicken, game, etc.). Stocks make any soup or sauce better, richer and more flavorful. And making stock does not have to be painful or time consuming. Finally, when you make your own stock, you know exactly what is in it - how much salt, which cuts of meat and which vegetables. My stocks are always made from last night's leftovers.
After roasting a chicken and carving it up, the carcass is left over. Start with that the next day. Break it up a bit so it fits into your stock pot, add all the leftover scraps of meat, skin, giblets - everything, add a chopped onion (or the ends of the onions you already chopped for dinner - why waste them?). Throw in coarsely chopped garlic cloves - you know, the smaller cloves you might normally throw out. Don't bother trying to remove their skins or removing the germ - who cares? It all gets filtered in the end. Add some fresh herbs like thyme (a favorite), sage, or anything you bought or have that looks like it is on it's last legs. You know, life isn't all centered around a bouquet garni! If you like just an edge of spiciness, toss in some pepper corns. Finally, use up any left over raw vegetables you might have on hand - and I mean anything - celery, turnips, carrots, and so on. In fact, while cooking the night before, instead of tossing out those carrot and potato skins, onion ends, beet greens and so on, toss them into your stock pot and cover them with water. The next day, add water to cover everything and bring to a slow simmer. Cover and simmer for an hour or two. Don't let it boil too much. Let it cool then filter the liquid into another pan (cheesecloth, a sieve or an old tee-shirt - clean, mind you). Throw away the cooked scraps. Bring the liquid to a boil and reduce by half. This is your stock. You can use it now or freeze it for use later. If you want clear bouillon, you can use a very fine filter (several layers of cheesecloth) or use the eggwhite trick to grab up the suspended particulates. Me? I use the stock as is - it is very rich in flavor! And you'll notice, I put no salt into the stock! I don't add salt until I am making the final dish.
Ingredients and Preparation
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- 1 onion, diced - 1 carrot, diced - 1 branch celery, diced - 1 clove garlic, crushed - 1 cup white wine - fresh thyme - bay leaf - Lamb shoulder from your butcher, bone in, fat trimmed - salt - pepper - potatoes, whole or peeled, as you like them and as many as you need - carrots, cleaned, as many as you need |
This is a slow roast recipe that my neighbor, Joëlle, prepared last year. It was juicy and succulent. The meat simply melted off the bone. This recipe presents the lamb in its natural glory without a marinade or a rub - just a soft bed of vegetables to flavor the sauce (called a mirepoix). Try it this way first, then experiment with those other ideas later.
Use a large, covered baking dish and evenly place the first seven ingredients on the bottom. Salt and pepper the lamb, then put it on top, leg bone up. Preheat your oven to 300°F. Roast the lamb, covered, until very tender and a thermometer inserted into the center registers 170°F, about 5 hours. Two hours before the lamb is done, prepare the potatoes and carrots. Clean and or peel the potatoes and carrots. Pre-cook each by boiling in salted water - 30 minutes for the whole potatoes and 15 minutes for the whole carrots. One hour before the lamb is finished, put the pre-cooked potatoes and carrots in the pot with the lamb. At the end of the cooking period, the meat will have pulled back from the bone on the leg. Transfer the lamb, potatoes and carrots onto a platter where the lamb can rest for about 15 minutes. Cover with aluminum foil. In the meantime, filter the juices from the roasting pot into a fat (or soup) skimmer. Let the fat rise to the top, then pour the fat free sauce into a sauce boat. Bon apetit! |
| Finally, when the weather is good and the sun is shining, the Loire Valley can offer some very nice bicycling. Marie-Louise went bicycling with her friends in October, biking from Pontlevoy to Azay-le-Rideau. Pontlevoy is the next village south from Sambin on the major road that connects Blois (on the Loire river) to Montrichard (on the Cher river). Azay-le-Rideau, on the Indre river about 90 kilometers from Pontlevoy and between Chinon and Tours, is a charming village with a small, exquisitely delicate chateau. |  |
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Those of us who didn't bike, went down in a car, visited the village and scouted out a place to eat. We found a delightful brasserie for lunch, then waited for the three bikers to arrive, which they did at about 12:30.
We remain open during October and November for our guests who wish to visit when the area is not so crowded and we will re-open in May. If you want to visit outside these times, call or email us to see if we can accommodate you. Most of the chateaux in the region are open almost year round. If you don't wish to bike, long walks along quiet lanes and kicking at the leaves that have fallen can be the order of the day. A good book in the late afternoon next to the fire is fine preparation before going out to a tasty and succulent French dinner. If you come to visit us, we can help you find very nice walking or bicycle routes that pass through quaint villages along quiet roads. We'd love to see you. Please enjoy your Fall, where ever you live.
With warm regards from your hosts at Le Cormier, |