Cold beet soup / Aukstā zupa

Never having had a garden large enough for anything more than a few tomato plants, beans, peppers, radish and salad, I wasn’t exactly sure what potato harvesting entailed. From literature I knew they grew from “seed potatoes” which are pieces of the potato, and that harvesting can be labor-intensive.

As I explained in my previous post, our visit to see friends in Chatenet resulted in a potato harvest and a bag of goodies for us to take home. And that is how I came to be in the garden digging potatoes 18 weeks pregnant! It was actually easier than I had imagined, Nigel worked the ground, turning over the roots of the dead plants, and I plucked the potatoes out. Ever year he saves a few potatoes of each variety, chops them up for seed potatoes, and plants them in neat little rows. The importance of the neat rows, and of marking the start and end of each row and variety, became clear in the garden.  The green potato plants are long gone at harvest time; in fact while the plant is still living, the tubers are still growing.





We came home in abundance with the variety that did remarkably well this year, vitelotte. Yesterday I spent quite some time washing them, as well as the beets and carrots that we had been gifted. Then started the beet soup preparation; little did I know what I was in for!

I decided to use the recipe I found online here, partly because I had access to most of the ingredients, but mostly because of all the nice pictures, encouraging me that I’m following instructions correctly if my results look similar to the pictures. To my non-Latvian speaking readers, I’ve translated the recipe down below. However, I ran into quite a few snags including lack of availability of some ingredients (and hence, substitutions), uncertainty on some quantities of ingredients, and fatigue when I still hadn’t finished by 11pm.

The beets cooked exactly as they should, and the skins came off very easily. Then - my first liberty with the recipe, not clear on what 200 grams of cooled beet broth would be, I simply used enough to completely cover the chopped beets. I then skipped the chives, adding only dill and parsley (parsley from my balcony garden, dill from Carrefour, and again, not quite clear on quantities), skipped the milk sausage (any recommendations for substitutes out there?), and because I have yet to find kefir in the stores here, I added crème fraîche épaisse (clotted cream, used in several other cold soups).

With only these minor deviations my bowl looked nothing like the lovely pictures on fotoreceptes.com. I took quick action, adding a little milk and some water in order to make more of a soup than a beet salad. The rest of the recipe I followed to a T, and then Roberts came in for a visual inspection. “Smells right, right color” was the initial verdict.

I should also include the following warnings:

1. My hands are still stained red, two days later.

2. Beet juice will stain wood, plastic utensils and other surfaces, operate with care.

3. The resulting pink color is not easily found in nature, unless pepto bismol qualifies as nature.

4. The recipe results in enough soup for two dinners, so I will be freezing some.

And so, the following night we had beet soup for dinner. Or shall I say, Roberts and Lauris had beet soup for dinner. Final verdict? “Visually:  Perfect color. Professional presentation with the touch of parsley on the side.  Taste and Texture: Slightly larger beet and potato pieces than previously experienced, while the radishes are almost too finely-cut to notice.  Would add some chives. This was the best beet soup ever thank you honey you are the best.”

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Cold beet soup

* The original recipe did not mention quantities for some ingredients and I took the liberty of including here the measurements I used.

6 beets
4 small cucumbers
kefir
milk sausage (? not sure how to translate….  I skipped this because I’m not a fan)
4 potatoes
4 eggs
a bunch of radish
chives, dill and parsley
mustard
one lemon
pepper, salt and sugar

1. Wash the beets after removing the leaves, put them in a large pot and heat to boiling, then reduce heat and let simmer for about an hour.

2.  To preserve the color and taste, drop the boiled beets into a bowl of cold water.

3. While the beets are cooling, wash four large potatoes and then boil those.

4. When the beets are cool, trim the ends and remove the skin, then cut into small pieces.

5. Take enough of the cooled beet broth to cover the beets and add a teaspoon of salt, two teaspoons sugar and the juice of one lemon, then pour over beets and let sit for two hours  

6. Once the potatoes are ready, peel and cut them into small cubes. They can be added to the beets when done marinating.

7. Finely chop the chives, dill and parsley (note: I used only dill and parsley as I could not find chives) and add to the mix.

8. Chop up the milk sausage and add that as well.

9. Add 1 L of kefir, mix thoroughly.

10. Chop the cucumber, add that.

11. Boil the eggs, peel and chop them (into semi-large pieces) as well before adding.

12. The radish also gets chopped into small pieces before being added.

13. Mix well, then refrigerate overnight.

14. For a little extra sharpness, add some mustard.

Voila!

A week of vinaigrette

Now that I’m almost completely over the morning sickness (why do they call it morning sickness if it lasts all day?) I’ve been able to get back in the kitchen. Although I was able to sneak back my grandmother’s rupjmaizes ieraugs (Latvian rye-bread starter) from Michigan on our last trip overseas (“excuse me ma’am, why didn’t you declare that gelatinous mass in your checked baggage?”), the bread baking is going to have to wait another month or so. Last week was hot here in Clermont-Ferrand, and although it cooled down considerably this weekend, the kitchen still heats up quickly. 

I've found a few more foods to add to that list I started at the beginning of the year of  foods not easily found here, including corn on the cob (thought of as being animal feed; sweet corn is sold in cans), salad dressings and many of the cheeses I’m used to cooking with (and for those who know of my love for Colby-jack, I’m still searching for anything similar!). Of course I don’t miss the American cheese and cheese whiz so much, but as I haven’t developed a taste for enmetal, which is the commonly used shredded cheese widely available here, I’m still searching for cheeses to use in various recipes. Oh, and kefir. But I had problems finding that in the US.

Lauris and Maksis in Chatenet

As for the salad dressing, we had made do with a pseudo ranch until we returned from the United States with those little ranch dressing mix packets, but I have been craving a change (why is French salad dressing called French if there is no comparable dressing here in France?). I had never made my own salad dressing, but having culinary geniuses among my friends I knew it should be easy and turn out tasty. So, I gave it a go with Emeril’s simple balsamic vinaigrette, and it came out delicious, leaving me wondering why I hadn’t made my own dressing before. And we had a delicious salad dinner.

With the heat wave continuing, I marinated chicken in the dressing, and served it cold over a salad tossed in the same the following night. And the day temperatures were the highest they’d been, a simple pasta salad with the remaining dressing tossed with rotini, red pepper, salami, red onion, and a cheese I’ve been experimenting with that comes in a red casing (don’t remember what it’s called, you could probably substitute provolone).

Lauris and Maksis sharing rocks

The weekend was spent in Chatenet (to read about our first visit, click here), visiting our friends before their long vacation. It turns out this is the ideal time to visit friends; they were busy harvesting the produce from their garden, and what would not keep in the root cellar either had to be eaten or given to visiting friends... As my balcony gardening experiment has completely failed (but that's a whole other post!) I was delighted to lend a hand with harvesting the potatoes, and this eventually resulted in a big bag of potatoes, beets (also called beetroot), carrots, beans, tomatoes, grapes, even a squash accompanying us home to Clermont-Ferrand.

This week will be an adventure in cooking. Not being a big fan of beets I have never prepared any before, but since Roberts's top-ten list of favorite foods includes aukstā zupa (cold beet soup), I have quite a bit of experimenting ahead of me! Wish me luck!

The BIG announcement

You know it's time to announce your pregnancy when...

1. ...sorting vacation pictures to find photos that don't reveal your baby bump becomes a two-week process

2. ...the "decoy drinking" tactic of ordering two glasses of beer when out with friends is resulting in too many calories for your husband

3. ...your realtor congratulates you on the pending addition while touring your apartment for needed repair work

4. ...your toddler likes your new belly button so much he's always trying to see it in public

5. ...you're dying to put one of those pregnancy timelines on your blog

6. ...all your clothes are elastic or the shape of a potato sack

7. ...after four months your husband finally notices you aren't joining him for sushi or a glass of wine anymore (just kidding)

8. ...to those polite inquiries (intended to elicit a confession) of "are you planning to have any more children?” you've begun answering “not once we find out what’s causing this condition"

9. ...you want to share your wonderful news with all your family and friends, as well as give them ample time to come up with nicknames

10. ...you want to post this picture

Due: January 25th, my brother's birthday

The echographie at 14 weeks



Lausanne, Switzerland and Lago Maggiore in Italy

On our way east we stopped at Lago di Garda, in close proximity to Verona, and enjoyed the detour very much. Beautiful scenery that differed from everything we had seen in France as well as Roberts’s love of water influenced our decision to take a different way home from Milan than through Torino, as we had come almost two weeks earlier. Driving north would take us to Lago Maggiore, perhaps the most famous of the Italian lakes.

These lakes in northern Italy are of glacial origin, narrow and long. Lago Maggiore is sheltered by the Alps and has a mild climate which allows for lush vegetation and colorful displays of flowers. We jumped off the main highway near Arona to take the smaller road closer to the lake, and spent the next couple of hours cruising up the west shore of the lower third of the lake, stopping often to admire the scenery and stretch our legs. Near Stressa we explored the option of taking a ferry to Isole Borromee, three islands belonging to the princely Borromeo family since the 16^th century. In the 17^th, Charles III established a residence on Isola Bella, named after his wife, and this palace is one of the major tourist destinations in Maggiore. Isola Madre is supposedly covered with gardens of flowers and rare/exotic plants, and the third island, Isola Pescatori still has a little fishing village. As Lauris chose this time to take a nap, we did not embark on a ferry journey, but instead decided to capitalize on the nap time of our most vocal passenger and continue north. After all, we had done plenty of the “ferry thing,” now was time for the “mountain thing.”

At the Simplon pass

And wow! Immediately upon entering Switzerland my jaw dropped, the scenery was just WOW! We pulled off at a little rest area at the Simplon pass, to snack and enjoy the mighty Alps surrounding us. Wow.

We ate dinner in Visp, a good meal of fish and potatoes, and for the first time since moving to France, Roberts looked to me for my language skills; I had chosen to study German in high school, and although the German spoken in Switzerland is reportedly not identical to German, I was able to understand enough to converse. This was short lived however, as we upon arrival in Lausanne we found that the proximity to France means French was the language of choice. For the curious, the official languages of Switzerland are German, French, Italian and Romansh (and the currency the Swiss Franc, which we had completely forgotten about having become so used to using euros wherever we go!).

Lausanne proved to be quite quaint, with its cobblestone streets and big Gothic cathedral in the middle of old town. That was our first stop the next morning, Cathédrale de Notre Dame, built in the 12^th and 13^th centuries. A walk through the nearby streets revealed a slight hitch in our plans; every street had a steep incline, the altitude change to Lake Geneva must have been 300 meters, and there was no way I was climbing back up, pushing the stroller up, that progressive incline to return to the car! So we drove down, and parked next to the Parc Olympique, located in Lausanne because it is home to the International Olympic Committee.

The Lausanne cathedral

The lakeside district is called Ouchy, and we strolled the boardwalk, enjoyed a pizza, checked out the playground, and spent at least an hour in a hundred-meter long wading pool with various fountains and waterfalls. To a family with a toddler, this pool was Lausanne’s best feature, and were it not for the call of home, we might have stayed longer.

Ouchy!

Top 25 Expat Mom Blogs

Circle of Moms (a major player in the on-line Mom world) informed me yesterday that my blog and interview for the “Top 25 Expat Moms” is featured this month. To read the interview, click here. With your votes, my Femme au Foyer blog reached 4^th place in the world. I want to thank each person who voted, your support is valued and appreciated.

I’ve been asked several times what the prize was, and here is the answer: the pink button you now see on my sidebar, and flowers from my husband for the top-5 finish! J But mainly, I ‘met’ and learned from other impressive bloggers* and learned how such contests are organized.  I also discovered that I have some hard-core readers who are willing to click away daily to show support. (Thanks dad!)

Thanks again, and I hope that I can continue to earn your interest with future posts!

* One of the things I learned was how to notify readers by e-mail when a new blog is posted.  If interested, you can sign up to receive this email on the right hand sidebar.

Oh, and almost forgot to mention, my blog was also listed as a resource by EasyExpat.com in their article "Expat Kids- A Baby Abroad." It's kind of cool to find my blog "out there"....