Category: Dinner Parties & Entertaining
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French recipe: Peach Mille Feuille
If I could be a fruit, I would like to cast my vote to be a peach. There may be a lot of us peaches jostling in the fruit bowl. There is a reason this blog’s logo is a peach – it’s a little cheeky (the peach emoji connotations have a lot to answer for).…
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Fig and Caramelised Onion Flatbreads
And at last, figs are here. The bounty of the season! Let’s frolic under heaving fig trees or shove armfuls of them into our bags-for-life at the market. Make snow angles in the teetering piles of them building up all around us. Or not. You may be thinking that a fig and caramelised onion flatbread…
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Summer Roulade with Raspberries, Strawberries and Basil: Easy Elevenses Recipe
My boyfriend is called Gaylord. He was named after a character in a book, apparently a rambunctious little boy. When we met (one day, I will tell you that story as it’s a good one), I assumed he was joking when he introduced himself. Now, I don’t hear the name as it is his. He…
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Easy Cherry and Almond Galette
Cherry season in Toulouse is early – one year I missed it entirely as it just kind of creeps in, slips onto supermarket fruit and veg shelves in the dead of night, then before you know it, they’ve been there for weeks coolly filing their nails and concealing yawns. I’m sorry guys, you’re just annoyingly…
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Halloumi and Blistered Tomato Panzanella
This week, I’ve been back in the UK. There was my friend’s joyously happy wedding day and I was very grateful I’d found an unopened waterproof eyeliner in my make up bag because woah turned out I needed it – the sniffles from me and my friends during the speeches could have been harmonised. Then,…
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The Perfect Eton Mess with Strawberries and Raspberries
Finally the French windows are throw open, the laundry is hanging up outside and fluttering in the breeze and I feel like I’m in a washing detergent advert at last. Even doing the laundry is better in the summer. Roland Garros is on the TV, not that I’m watching, my desk is conveniently angled in…
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Crab Linguine with Tomato and White Wine
Toulouse is an unusual beast. It proudly displays its terracotta buildings as a badge of honour that declares it belongs in the Mediterranean. I mean, you won’t spot any buildings that glow in the sun in wet and windy Wales for instance. So, you come to Toulouse, bedazzled and seduced. And yet now, this city…
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Coronation Chicken with Roasted Grapes
What I particularly love about coronation chicken is the fact that it’s not much to look at, yet it was conjured into existence purely because it was inspired by royalty. Surely royals eat fruits carved into swans, mousses, and vegetables suspended in aspic? But here you have what is essentially a quick, cold chicken curry.…
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Beer-Battered Fish Finger Sandwiches with Dill Salsa
I don’t have what you would call a busy social life. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve gone on a night out around the bars of Toulouse. One of these nights was this Friday (I’ve lived here for nearly two years fyi), and even then, I left around 10:30 because…
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French Recipe: Goat’s Cheese and Onion Tart
It may just be residual stress from cookery school, but making a tart – sweet or savoury – is up there in the top five reasons to bring me out in a cold sweat. Various forms of confrontation are another. As is speaking French. But back to tarts; over the last 6 and a half…