The Kitchen Has Been a Busy Place

   Produce in the south of France is plentiful and we have been sticking close to the home front so time has been on the kitchen side. We found this wonderful farm in Correns, a nearby village touted to be the organic town in the area. The farm is open a few days as week, for a few hours in the afternoon, to sell their goods. They had a dozen different kinds of tomatoes, various eggplants, beautiful peppers and much more. I know summer produce is going to start winding down one of these weeks as it does back home. We all mourn the loss of the flavors of summer and kick dirt about having to eat root vegetables and stews. So the more tomatoes, eggplant and basil we eat now, the better.
   I have told you about the figs- I stuffed some with goat cheese that I flavored with rosemary and a hefty dose of black pepper, wrapped them in prosciutto and grilled them until the cheese was oozing and the prosciutto a little crispy.

Goat Cheese Stuffed Figs

We bought these elongated, red tomatoes at the Correns farm. I do not know the name of them, but they looked perfect for stuffing which is what I did.  There was some leftover rice and haricots verts in the fridge so I used that with some parmesan, basil and olive oil to mound on top of the hollowed out tomato and baked them.

Stuffed Long tomatoes

And, I made my first ever Soupe au Pistou. This is the French version of Minstrone- a summer vegetable soup with the freshest possible ingredients. It had carrots, haricot vert, zucchini, little pasta and fresh shelling beans. The pistou is basil pesto, made in a mortar and pestle. French pesto is simply garlic, basil, olive oil and salt. Delicious- every drop if it.

Pistou in the making

Soupe au Pistou

We went hunting for blackberries last weekend, too. We hit a jackpot, brought them home and made a poundcake with chantilly cream and blackberry sauce. The kids spearheaded this project and did a fabulous job. My kitchen in Durango has every conceivable appliance and tool available. Here, the cake was made with a wooden spoon, the cream whipped by hand.

Blood Sweat and tear- but I got a bowlful

Elbow Grease