Today’s gifts from the garden

Photo above of today’s “winnings” - more tomatoes, our 3rd cucumber, lots of pears and our first 4 yellow courgettes.  Our french neighbours have never seen the yellow courgettes so we shall be giving them our “first fruits” especially as we have about another dozen on the way.  We’ve also just made a lovely melanzana (or ‘aubergine caviar’ as the french call it) with the aubergines they gave us the other day - recipe below - lovely with nice french bread or crackers for scooping!

Having had a few more days of rain, it was lovely to see the sun shining this morning and so we went to the next door village to check out their annual “Brocante” - similar to a ‘Vide-Grenier’ but with much nicer stuff including some genuine antiques.  Oona found a really beautiful pewter pepper grinder (pictured above) and a birthday present for Mark (sssshhhh it’s a surprise!) - a traditional wooden coffee grinder (pictured below).

We returned to the lake today - Isobel was keen to take a pedalo out - she had offered to pedal us around the lake for the 1/2 hour rental (for all of EUR 5!) but not surprisingly Daddy and Uncle Tony ended up pedalling us round while the girls took it easy in  the back - photo below of Isobel and Auntie Tara doing just that!

Melanzana

Take 1 large or as many aubergines as you’d like - you don’t get as much flesh out of them as you’d imagine - either put them in the oven on a baking tray and roast whole on a baking sheet until they’ve completely collapsed and blackened on the outside, or even better (because the smoky flavour is very traditional) - have a bbq and once you’re done - put the aubergines straight on the coals and leave overnight - in the morning they will (hopefully) have blackened and collapsed.

Open up the aubergines - scoop out all the flesh getting as close to the skin as possible for the smoky flavour.  Discard the skins.

For 1 large aubergine - Pop in a bowl and add a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, 2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed, 1-2 tablespoons of lemon juice (start with 1 and taste), a little salt and pepper, a dash of balsamic vinegar (approx 1 tsp) - give it a good mix with a fork to incorporate - chill and serve.

For a variation you can add a bit of tahini to make it into ‘mutabal’ or to make it a little more interesting - crumble some feta on top - a little parsley, a splash more olive oil and serve.

Bon Apetit!