à la recherche des recettes!

The Cercle Français (French Club) at the school where I used to teach (Colorado State University) is looking for recipes from France and other French-speaking countries to publish in a cookbook to raise money for the club. If you have any tried-and-true recipes that you love and would be willing to have included, they'd be very appreciative! (They're currently short of their goal of 150.) No monetary compensation, of course, but I bet they'd be willing to cite your website under your name if you're a food blogger--so that means free publicity!

To share your recipes, please either post them here via the "comments" section or email them to me at babybilingual (at) gmail (dot) com.

Merci beaucoup!

Here's one of my favorites to get you started: Pasta Niçoise (inspired by the foods of Nice, on the French Riviera, and its delicious Salade Niçoise).

Pasta Niçoise

Adapted from a recipe in the Denver Post

2 Tbsp olive oil
3 large shallots, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb haricots verts, trimmed, cut into 1/2-inch slices (if haricots verts, the skinny French green beans, are not available, substitute regular green beans)
1/2 c. chicken or vegetable broth
1/4 c. red wine
1 Tbsp herbes de Provence (substitute dried Italian herb blend), or more to taste
1 tsp salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 c. pitted niçoise olives (very small briny black olives with pits; substitute larger black olives if necessary--but don't use canned black olives!)
1 lb rotini pasta, cooked according to package directions
1 c. soft chèvre (goat cheese)
Toasted pine nuts (optional)

Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat; sauté shallot and garlic until golden and fragrant, about 3 minutes. Add green beans, broth, wine, herbs, salt, and pepper to taste; cook until beans are cooked through, stirring occasionally, about 6 minutes (longer if using larger green beans).

Stir in olives; cook until heated through, about 1 minute. Put pasta in large serving bowl; add bean-olive mixture. Stir in chèvre. Sprinkle with pine nuts if desired and serve.

Other alternatives: Add (or substitute for the olives) chopped sun-dried tomatoes. Sprinkle finely diced hard-boiled egg on top to boost protein for a vegetarian main dish.

Serves 8.

clean-out-the-freezer bread pudding

Two people just can't eat a lot of fresh bread before it goes bad. I end up turning baguettes into bread crumbs and throwing rolls into the freezer. Ditto for pancakes and waffles--Mr. Tart and I can't even finish a half-batch of homemade breakfast goodies on our own. As a result, our freezer was bursting with leftover sweet and starchy goodies, and they had to go. It was time for bread pudding!

I used my favorite very easy recipe from Epicurious, but this time substituted leftover waffles and croissants (turning an already-French dish into a very-French dish). I cut them into big chunks and let them sit out on the counter until they weren't soft anymore, and then preceded with the recipe. (I also had more than the four cups' worth the recipe calls for, so I increased the amount of milk in the custard--enough to cover the pastry pieces--and also the baking time.) And I doubled the bourbon sauce--it's intense and delicious and takes the dessert from France back to New Orleans.

Noah's First Fondue

Mr. Tart and I recently joined some friends from grad school for a fondue dinner. We brought the chocolate dessert fondue, very traditional, and Cynde and Todd provided the swiss cheese fondue with bread and veggies. Our fearless hosts, completely undaunted by the prospect of serving fondue for the first time to a French teacher, decided to experiment a bit to avoid that whole meat-dipped-in-boiling-oil thing for the main course. Katie found a recipe for grilled steak brushed with pesto dipped into a blue cheese cream sauce (which made Mr. Tart a very happy man). Doesn't it look good?

We all loved all of it. The biggest fan, though, was perhaps two-year-old Noah, who delighted in the fruit and chocolate. We thought it dangerous to give him a fondue fork, seeing as he doesn't yet have the manual dexterity for something so long and pointy, so Katie just put the pre-dipped food on his plate:

Isn't he just the cutest thing you've ever seen at the dinner table? His enthusiasm soon spread:

And here's the "after" picture. The dinner party was clearly a rousing success! After all, nothing says "good party" like chocolate up one's nose.