After Lunch Chez Dan, Chateaubriand

Half wild, half blind.

Our semi wild drake appears to be blind in one eye.

He also has desires on our geese and has started to chase them. Not as strange as our turkeys trying to be amorous with our Jack Russell's though.

Fete de Mort and La trêve d'hiver

In France the 1st of November is All Saints Day and the 2nd is Fete de Mort, as The 1st is a holiday both events are celebrated on the 1st of November, the grave yards are decked out with flowers usually Chrysanthemums as family's visit there deceased loved ones.
The first of November is also the start of La Trêve d'hiver, from now till the 15th of March no one can be evicted from there homes and you cannot have electricity or water disconnected, the homeless should be offered somewhere to sleep and hot food, in theory no one sleeps rough during the winter months, unfortunately some do fall through the net and many larger city's have been working as hard as they can to evict people such as the Roms from the country before this date.

Black Cherry Cheese Cake

This recipe is for two individual cheese cakes, it takes about 5 minutes to make, for a larger cheesecake for a family you will need a pack of digestives and 500gm of Mascarponi and more sugar. Try using a different jam, fresh fruit. leave out the fruit and jam and add the juice of the lemon to the cheese, So many variations I waned to make one with lemon curd but wasn't able to buy any yesterday, as soon as I see some I will try it.

7-8 digestive biscuits
250gm Mascarponi cheese
Butter
2 tbsp sugar
1 Lemon
Chocolate
Black Cherry Jam

Crush the biscuits, I put them into a freezer bag and use a rolling pin to smash them, add enough melted butter to hold the biscuit together, put in the serving dishes and cool in the fridge. Meanwhile, put the mascarponi cheese in a bowl with the sugar and the zest of the lemon and mix together, put the jam, about one tablespoon on top of the biscuit base and put the mascarponi on top.

Edit, Paul just tasted the cheesecake, he says "less jam" But gorgeous though.

The Chocolate, using any chilled chocolate bars that you want, put the bar on a work top, using a large knife scrape the blade across the bar, you will need to hold the bar against you so be careful. for a powdery chocolate lean the blade towards you, for thin slivers hold the blade up right. place the chocolate on top and eat or return to fridge.

Nest boxes

Outside of the supper markets you will usually find the empty vegetable and fruit boxes, to make nest boxes for the chickens Paul just screws two together adds some straw and puts them in the chicken coops.

A few photos of the cats.

Above, Lewis in his favourite place, no one bothers him up there.

Below, Mercedes, just being cool.

Dead Duck

I noticed that there was only four ducks walking around, I went searching for the missing one and found her in the pool, drowned!

Paul took the meat off her, not much meat on the breast but the legs are OK. Not letting her go to waste.

It was just after this that the cat in its excitement grabbed Paul's arm and bit him.




No its not normal for the cats to be on the work tops, but you can understand there curiosity.

Site review

Keith at "A Taste of Garlic" has reviewed my Rosies Kitchen blog, click on the logo above to read it. Thank you Keith, Keith reviews different blogs and websites (nearly) every day, with a few exceptions they are all about France. Getting a mention on "A Taste of Garlic" ensures my own visitors increase. His sites are so popular.
There are two sites from Keith I look at daily, "A Taste of Garlic" and "Breton Diary" Breton Diary is Keiths own blog, often amusing, some great photographs and like my blog offer an insight into what its like to live in this beautiful part of France. Keith and I have a similar approach to blogging, we don't write endless streams of text (apart from now) but like to use photographs to show what living in Brittany is like.
I try to add to my blog daily, or at least every other day, I know that sometimes the days post could be boring to some, but this blog is my diary, but it contains recipes, history, advice on living in France, what's on and many other subjects, I hope you enjoy reading my blog, it has over 450 posts on it, I love writing it.

Future dinners.

My ducks were pecking at each other and eating the feathers, usually a sign of boredom and bad diet.

So I've let them out of there house (they know where it is now), and changed there feed, they can also forage, that keeps them occupied. Still very timid, they follow each other around in a very tight group. They are gaining weight and are starting to look very tasty, as usual, much to Paul's annoyance, I have a favourite, one of them looks like a half wild duck and I want to keep her, I know its a female and would like to breed it with my wild male, Paul agrees that the offspring may prove very tasty so it looks like I may get my way, again!

Carrot Cake

Another version of my World Famous one pot yoghurt cake, this time with carrot.

Find the recipe and method here.