IT'S CHRISTMAAAAAS!

Merry Christmas, everyone! After I get over the inevitable food coma that Christmas Day brings, I'll be back to tell you all about my baking exploits and the incredible Christmas dinner that I can currently smell wafting through the house. Perfect!

Baking days

As you may remember, my kitchen in halls is pretty limited, which hampers my ability to bake lovely things somewhat. As I am a massive fan of all things cupcake-y, this was obviously something I struggled with. So one of the first tasks when I got back home, after giving the cat a much-needed cuddle and saying hello to the family, was to nab the oven and settle in for a fortnight's worth of baking. And bake I have.

First on the list were ginger cupcakes with toffee frosting. They've been on my list since about November and struck me as the perfect Christmas treat. They were lovely, but I'd definitely add more ginger as it was a bit lost under the sponge and the toffee frosting. My mum and my friend both suggested using a combination of ground ginger (as called for in the recipe) and stem ginger in the batter to give the flavour a bit of 'oomph' and to add another texture. I decorated them with some edible gold glitter but I think some artfully-scattered ginger on the top would finish them nicely, too.

Yesterday, whilst in the middle of making Jamie Oliver's tried and tested chicken and leek pie, I had a sudden yen for delicate, pastel-coloured macaroons. I'd tried making them earlier in the summer, but a failure to read the instructions properly meant that they weren't so much macaroons as they were sugary, almond-flavoured flat cookies. This time, I decided to actually pay attention to what I was supposed to be doing and read the recipe before I got stuck in, and they turned out wonderfully. Coloured a beautiful, delicate pink (it's amazing how much food colouring you need to make them change colour!) and sandwiched together with whipped cream, they make a perfect "and a" for with a coffee. And, if you read the instructions properly, they're really not difficult to make at all.

Next on the list is an apple pie, the traditional sticky toffee pudding for Christmas day, and chances are some more Christmassy cupcakes. My mum bought me some lovely festive cupcake cases and I am determined to use them!

A very welcome welcome

There's something about coming home for Christmas that makes the holiday as exciting for a twenty year old as it is for a two year old. Being in a different country in the run-up to Christmas makes it quite hard to feel particularly festive. Without a doubt, I was counting down the days until my flight home, but all the usual signals that it's coming up to Christmas - the first viewing of the Coca-Cola advert, the tree going up, the very first cry of "IT'S CHRISTMAAAAAS!" from Noddy Holder - aren't there. It's surprising how out of the Christmas spirit you can feel without all of these usual indication of "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" being just around the corner.

The week leading up to my return to the UK was characterised by last-minute present buying, tidying up the odds and ends in my fridge so I don't come back to an unpleasant surprise, and a sudden panic that my suitcase would be way, way over the limit (it wasn't, so I can still bring my presents home - always good.). As can be expected after four months away from home, I was really ready to be coming home and seeing my friends and family again; and I think this anticipation was only increased by the prospect of a Christmas dinner - and my first roast since I left home in August - prepared for me by my old housemates. And what a feast it was. Turkey, stuffing, pigs in blankets, honey roast parsnips, carrots, broccoli, roast potatoes, gravy and, my special request, cranberry sauce - with apple strudel and custard (Ambrosia, of course) to finish.

It was utterly divine and such a welcome "welcome home". My thanks go to Izzy, Emily and Georgia for a indulgent dinner, lovely presents, and a really fantastic welcome back.

Forward planning

This is my last week in Montpellier before I make my triumphant (and long-awaited) return to good old Blighty. With that in mind, a bit of forward planning with regards to dinner has been needed - the last thing I want is to come back to a fridge full of food that's gone off. I've got a meal plan until Thursday - and Monday night was sausage casserole night.

It's amazingly simple and quick to make and is lovely and filling. All you do is cut sausages into small rounds and cook them with a tiny bit of butter in a pan. Once they're cooked, add a drained and rinsed tin of cannellini beans (which, in case you're interested, are haricots blancs in France), and then as much sauce as you fancy. Cook on a low heat until everything's warm through, then serve. That's literally it. And I made enough for two evening's worth, so after I return from my final exam on Wednesday I won't have to think about cooking anything as it'll be there already. I will admit to being a little bit naughty and eating some from the portion I set aside for dinner another night - so I might have to add something to supplement it then - but it was too delicious to resist.

Last weekend

 My weekend in Lyon was lovely, it really is a beautiful city and was definitely shown off to its fullest during the Fête des Lumières. Perhaps not the culinary adventure I'd been anticipating, but I was one person among 2 million tourists this weekend, and finding a table in one of their famous "bouchons" would've been akin to finding a needle in a haystack. So I've already decided that I'm going to come back next term to do a slightly less stressful weekend - which will include a visit to a nice restaurant, of course.

Quick update

Hello everyone! I apologise for the lack of posts this week, exam panic well and truly set in so when I wasn't frantically trying to learn everything I've been told since September I've been necking coffee and only just remembering to eat dinner.

However, I am off to Lyon to visit some friends from uni who are there for their Year Abroad and also to visit their "Fête des Lumières", a really huge festival that takes place all throughout the city from the 8th until the 11th. It draws in something like 3 million tourists over the three nights - so it's just as well I have a friends' apartment to crash at rather than trying to find a spare bed in a hostel, particularly as I only booked my train tickets on Sunday!

Lyon is the gastronomical centre of the country, apparently, so it should definitely be a good weekend for food! Plus, and I know that this is a really shallow reason to visit somewhere but hey, they have Starbucks which I haven't had since a weekend in Barcelona earlier in September (that I will do a very belated post on soon) and I'm craving a big latte instead of a café crème.

Right, best get a wiggle on and get myself moving!
A plus!

Breakfast of champions

For all I may complain about living here sometimes, I am definitely going to miss being able to nip out for pain au chocolat and coffee for breakfast from the canteen in the grounds of my halls every so often.

I try not to make a habit of it because I really would be the size of a house when I came back if I did this too often (amazingly there is a 'too often' when it comes to buttery croissants... Who knew?). But for mornings when you really, really need something to pick you up, there is something indescribably wonderful about being able to hop out of bed, get dressed and then go and get a warm croissant and some hot coffee. Today was definitely one of those days. Especially as I had no milk (therefore no coffee, the horror) and nothing for breakfast. Unwilling to go into an exam without having eaten something, what other option did I have?

I had an exam at noon which I was definitely in the midst of a panic about, so last night I decided that the thing to do was to get up early(ish), get about an hours' worth of revision done, then buy said breakfast, come back to halls and continue some last-minute note consolidating. And may I say, there is nothing in this world that makes revision of "Origines et diversité des langues" more bearable than a cup of coffee and a still-warm pain au chocolat. Particularly when it's dunked into the coffee. Yum.

The exam? It was okay. Not fab, not terrible, just okay. But you know, I could spend days revising for these exams; or I could just do my best, be prepared to resit them in February, and actually enjoy my year abroad. It's unlikely that I'll get an opportunity to live somewhere where fresh bread and pastries are just outside my door, and I intend to make the most of it whilst I'm here ;)

An uncharacteristically productive Saturday

Turns out the secret to revising for nearly five hours non-stop is to spend it in a café and have two strong café crèmes (complete with biscuits and chocolate) with good music and a friend who won't let you leave before she does.

My hands are shaking a bit. I should probably be more worried than I am.

The café in question is something of a haunt for the anglophone Eramus students - a bookshop called, inventively, Le Bookshop. It's full of English books at eye-watering prices but serves the cheapest coffee of any of the (many) cafés I've sampled in the three months I've been here. It's in the Old Town so the downstairs, where the majority of the bookshop and the tables and chairs are, is underground, all stone and vaulted ceilings and generally very attractive. They host a weekly conversation evening which is meant to be really good for meeting the locals, even though it takes them some persuading to speak in French, and not English! Definitely going on my to-do list for next term. Plus, there are plenty of wall sockets and their wifi is about a hundred times faster than what our halls can offer us, so that's a huge draw. But for me, the main attraction (apart from the dishy waiter, naturally) is their coffee. €1.90 for a café crème that always comes with two little biscuits and a tiny square of dark chocolate. Nom.

Dinner tonight was simple - bread with Boursin and ham on top, and a few petits pains grillés with the last bit of houmous. Carb overload, I know; but as the plan is to go to this bar (which has become the closest thing to our regular) in about an hours' time and have a couple of well-earned drinks, I think having plenty of bread to line the stomach is probably a good idea. Besides, I think I'm still feeling full from the burger I had at 10.30 last night with Chris and Ellen. Only in France.

Po-ta-toes

I have my father to thank for many of my traits. The ability to burn in cloudy weather. The gift of the gab and with it, the ability to talk myself out of or into seemingly any situation. And finally, my insistence that "if a meal doesn't have potato in it, it's not a meal."

My father's from Ireland, can you tell?

All of the people I've lived with have found my deep-seated belief that potatoes a meal make amusing. The Spanish people I was fortunate enough to have shared my kitchen with back in first year seemed pretty impressed by how many different ways of eating potato I could find in the ten months we lived together. Speaking of which...

As you can probably imagine, being a student and part-time potato fiend has its drawbacks. They take a long time to boil, it's not easy to make mash for one person and they're never as good as your mum/dad's. So discovering gnocci was something of a revelation for me.


[source]

Look at them! Beautiful, potato-y pillows of goodness. The French seem really keen on frying them so they turn into mini-roasties, but I prefer to cook them the more traditional way. I think what I love the most about gnocci is the fact that they are so insanely quick to cook. About five minutes in a pan of boiling, salted water and they all start to congregate together (they're very sociable) and float to the top. And that's it, they're ready.

What I've been doing recently is then draining them, but keeping them in the pan, then adding some bacon lardons and tomato sauce. Once the bacon's cooked, I take them off the hob and - I really do think this is the secret - I add a bit of Boursin. It doesn't have to be a lot, but it just adds even more depth to the flavour of the sauce and makes it beautifully creamy. Best served in a bowl with a slice of fresh bread to mop up all that yummy sauce. Or just to enjoy the bread. Well, when in France.

It's so filling and warm and is just perfect comfort food. I made this last night, after I came home from my lecture. I was tired but I didn't want to eat straight away, so I decided to wait a bit. About an hour after I got in  I was hungry, but I wanted something quick so I wouldn't be eating dinner too late. And good old gnocci saved the day again.

Plus, it was a meal with potato which meant it was an actual meal.

"An owinge owinge..."

I'd like to thank the little old lady who was eating clementines on the tram today. There is nothing as tempting as the smell of oranges as they're being peeled, and nothing as satisfying as eating one that is perfect in every single way: sweet, but with enough sharpness to cut through the sugar and perfectly juicy. First thing in my shopping basket once I hit Monoprix was a bag of clementines and I am pleased to say, this one is absolutely divine.

"Houmous on bread, it's the future. I've tasted it."

The fastest and most immediately satisfying lunch/snack (depending on how strong your willpower is) has to be this:

It really has become my most recent food obsession. Grilled 'petits pains' dipped into a tub of plain houmous. Incredibly more-ish but, all things considered, not actually all that bad for you. I first tried this last Friday, when I went to the zoo with some of my friends here and we had a picnic. I can't believe it had never occured to me that grilled bread + houmous = three bites of heaven, but it is.

Thursdays are pretty hard going for me. I have one lecture from 11.15-12.45, then have a coffee and panini in the canteen with my friend, then I go home for a couple of hours to pick up the work we're going to do when I come back onto campus to meet her and our other friend at 3.15 after their lecture. We have a two hour natter - I mean, work session - before our (give me strength) three hour lecture from 5.15-8.15. Needless to say, by the time I do eventually crash through the doors at about 8.30 the idea of cooking anything is pretty unappealing, but if I eat a big meal just before the lecture, I'll get even sleepier than can be naturally expected of a person in a hot lecture theatre being droned at about "les sciences du langage" for three hours. The solution seems to be to have a coffee before I go to the lecture, something sugar-y to give me energy in the break we're given halfway through, and then have something like this when I come back in. That way, even if I cannot summon up the energy to cook, at least I've eaten something.

A heads-up for anyone thinking of coming to France: make sure you come with an open mind when it comes to carbohydrates because this really is a country built on bread. And what good bread it is, too...

Oh, and, happy December! I'd be opening the first door of my Advent Calendar, only I haven't got one. If it's not Dairy Milk, it just doesn't feel the same :( Psst, Mum that's a 'subtle hint' for  my triumphant return...

Musings.

I am one of life's procrastinators. If I'm given a job, I will leave it until the last minute so I end up rushing around like a mad thing, hair plastered to my forehead, eyes wide and hands shaking from an overdose of caffeine, frantically trying to get whatever job it is that needs to be done, done. This has a nasty tendency to carry over into my uni work - which is why, instead of starting my revision for the exams I have next week I spent tonight reading this incredible, hunger-inducing blog and thinking about... Well, this one, actually.

When I started the blog, I had every intention of documenting my adventures in the kitchen, but as is so often the case with me, after a while I sort of... gave up. Found better things to do. Reasoned that the food I cook is pretty repetitive and I can't afford to make really fancy, exotic meals (and at the moment I can't due to the useless kitchen - see post below...). But then I realised that being a "student foodie" doesn't just mean cooking really sumptuous, yet cheap, meals.

Because when it comes to it, what I really love is food and the experiences that come with it. Going for a really fantastic meal where you and your friends don't actually say anything because you're so busy enjoying eating it. Finding a place that nobody else knows about and sharing it with the select few. The incredible way that food can take us right back to our childhoods. Going to a restaurant where the food is just okay and the décor a bit naff but it doesn't matter because you're with your friends. Spending an hour talking to your friend about bread, and planning (only half-jokingly) to open a bakery.

The point is, I am a foodie, not because I can come up with exciting new recipes and revolutionise the way we think about cooking, but because I just love food. So this blog is having a bit of a change in attitude. Same title, same student with aspirations above her means (at least for the moment) - but this time, it's about my relationship with food.

And on that note - I'm going to get stuck into my pasta alla genovese, which, incidentally, was the first meal I blogged about. What can I say - it's a student staple ;)

Kitchen woes

It's been nearly nine months since my last post, in which time a lot has happened. I took, finished, and passed my exams, had an awesome time at my university's Summer Ball, spent a week in Paris with the parents, attended my first ever festival, and made cupcakes. Lots and lots of cupcakes.

First attempt at making and frosting cupcakes. I'd like to point out that I have improved. Something about frosting 75 mini-cupcakes will do that to a girl.

And where am I now? In the south of France. Montpellier, to be precise - for my year abroad.

The mini Arc de Triomphe just opposite Peyrou.

Montpellier has a lot to recommend it: beautiful architecture, gorgeous weather and one of the youngest populations in France (something like 60% of the Montpelliérain are under 25) - but the kitchens in halls are truly atrocious. For a culture that is so defined by cooking I have never seen halls so ill-equipped for doing precisely that.

Each floor of the building has about 20 rooms, and I'd estimate that about half of these are studios, so have their own small kitchen corner. The rest of us have to use the communal kitchen. And what a sorry thing it is, too. For the ten to fifteen people who don't have their own facilities in their room, we get to go to an opressively dark and antisocial kitchen and cook on one of the four hot plates. It's worth noting that in the three plus months I've been here, there's been maybe three weeks where all four are functioning, and there was one horrid week where none of them worked. We also have two sinks. No oven, no microwave. Just four rings which may or may not be working, and two sinks.

Back when I was a lowly first year and in my halls it's not like I used the oven a lot, but it was nice to have the option there. It was nice to know that if all I wanted was an oven pizza or a quiche or to make potato wedges I could. And the old saying "absence makes the heart grow fonder" is so, so true. I have never missed the presence of an oven more than in these past 3 months. I've had dreams where I assemble an amazing roast dinner and then get to this ridiculous kitchen and have to cook all of it over the one ring that's working - the small one, too - and in a frying pan. I wake up in a cold sweat.

So is it really any surprise that for the past three months, after the novelty of spaghetti/rice with meat and tomato sauce wore off (I'll give you a clue: it didn't take more than a week), I've been daydreaming about an opportunity to come home and use the oven? Baking cakes, helping my mum out with the Christmas dinner, making stews - I'm not entirely sure whether I miss my parents or my parents' kitchen more. Now that they've had underfloor heating installed, I fear it may well be the kitchen that I miss.

I am aware that sympathy for someone who gets to spend a year in the south of France as part of her degree is not going to be particularly forthcoming, but please, won't somebody think of the kitchen?

Sink number two is just around the corner, but this is the kitchen. It makes my inner foodie weep, it honestly does.

Easy like a Sunday morning

I think that there is no better way to start my Sunday than by a long lie-in, preferably with people bringing me cups of coffee, gloriously buttery toast and allowing me free reign of the remote control. However, I am living the student life, so the coffee and toast has to be made by me - quelle dommage!

But, I had the next best thing this morning - half a carton of eggs left to me by my housemate and the offer, nay, the instruction, to use them up before she comes back from visiting her father. As you can imagine, it was a real struggle to think of something to cook, and after I puzzled for about thirty seconds, I got the necessary accoutrements together to make a fluffy cheese omelette.

Like a lot of things I cook, I judge whether it is a success or a failure based on how much like my mother's the end product resembles, and omelettes are absolutely no exception. My favourite dinner when I'm home is when Mum can't think of what to cook, none of us have anything in mind, and there's plenty of eggs in the fridge. Cheese, ham, bacon, occassionally potatoes and onions to make a traditional Spanish tortilla - omelettes would certainly be a contender for my last meal on earth.

The key with making a perfect (read: my mother's) omelette is to make it really, really fluffy, keep the pan well-oiled but the heat not too high, and to wait for the open top to cook before you fold it, and flip it. Getting a good non-stick pan that's not too wide across is also important, as if you get one that's too wide, you really need an obscene quantity of egg to be able to cover it from side to side but also have a bit of depth. Luckily, my housemate has provided us with a pan that is absolutely perfect for this.

So, with your pan on the hob and a glug of olive oil in it, spread all across the pan so the majority of the pan is covered, you need to beat your eggs, seasoned with a little pepper (2-3 for one person), and preferably prepare any fillings so it's nice and quick to throw the fillings in once it's ready. Once the eggs are beaten, pour them into the pan and as soon as it starts to cook around the edges, take your fork and drag some of the edge into the centre, then tilt the pan so that the raw egg covers the space. Keep doing this, working all the way around the pan until there's a pile of fluffy egg in the centre. This is why it is crucial to keep the pan on a medium heat - if it's too high, the egg will cook too quickly and you won't be able to make it gorgeously fluffy. Once the top's cooked and there is no more runny egg, add the filling, then get a fish slice under the omelette, and fold it in two. Press down so that any remaining raw egg seeps out and can be cooked, then once you're happy everything's cooked, carefully flip the omelette to cook the other side. This is where experience pays off! Once that's cooked, slide it onto a plate and enjoy - preferably while watching "Saturday Kitchen" on the iPlayer ;]

Procrastination? I'll do it later...

This seems to be how my brain works:

10.45 - At 11am, I'll start working on this essay.

10.55 - Need coffee for with writing essay.

10.57 - Kettle boiling, coffee and milk in mug. Need biscuits for with coffee. No biscuits in house.

10.58 - Ooh. Cornflour, butter, flour, icing sugar... Shortbread?

11.55 - Oops.

This is not the first time I've made something to avoid writing an essay - I made an entire lasagne essentially from scratch last year to avoid having to sit down and work. The hilarious part about my making shortbread today is that I've just been invited to an event at my university called "Putting off procrastination". Now that, Alanis Morissette, is ironic...

The thing is, shortbread is so much more fun to make than sitting down with an absolute tome of an anthology, trying to write about depictions of the Passion in Medieval lyrics. And it's so obscenely easy to make, and provides such a quick pick-me-up (particularly when it's Valentine's Day and instead of walking hand-in-hand along a river, having a picnic, swapping presents etc you're writing an essay) that my little brain can't help but go, making shortbread? Why not! even though the pile of notes and very bare-looking Word document open on my laptop is testament to all the reasons why I shouldn't be making shortbread...

The recipe is simple enough, although I halved the quantities to make my life a little easier:

• 16oz of flour, cornflour and butter
• 8oz of icing sugar
• some caster sugar to sprinkle

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC and grease a long tin - mine's one of those long flan tins with the removable base
2. Sift together the flour, cornflour and icing sugar in a bowl.
3. Grate the butter in - this works particularly well if your hands tend to be on the warm side (I've been given the nickname Radiator Hands by many) - even better if you freeze the butter beforehand so it doesn't melt.
4. Rub the butter into the mix until the flour stops looking white and starts looking more golden and crumb-y.
5. Gently press into the tin - use the back of a spoon to work it into corners and even it out if you have to.
6. Bake for 15-20 minutes, then once you've taken it out, dust it immediately with caster sugar and use a sharp knife to cut it - this will make it easier when you eventually come to take it out once it's cooled.
7. Leave it to cool in the tin, then remove and try to resist the temptation to eat them all straight away ;]

Done and dusted. It really is so so easy to make and one of those things that really does supply instant gratification.

New term, same old routine.

Thankfully, my new Mondays aren't nearly as horrific as they once were. But for the first two weeks, the Erasmus Soc meetings are going to be at the same time as before, so a bit of forward planning for tonight was pretty crucial. I hadn't had salmon for quite some time, and knew there were some fillets in the freezer, so got my lovely housemate Georgia to take one out when she was going to get the things for her dinner out.

Earlier on, I'd found a Jamie Oliver recipe on his website for pesto salmon parcels, wrapped in foil and cooked in the oven. Although the recipe calls for beans to be partly boiled and then put in the foil parcel along with the salmon, I don't really like green beans and I'd bought some sugarsnap peas and babycorn earlier, so decided to go for that instead.

Firstly, I preheated the oven to 180 degrees and got some baby new potatoes on the boil. I placed the salmon fillet, skin side down, onto a long piece of tinfoil and put a generous tablespoon of pesto on top, then the juice of half a lemon, a drizzle of olive oil and seasoned. This went into the oven on top of a baking tray while the potatoes bubbled away happily.

About 10 minutes in, I popped the steamer full of my veg - and a very good portion of veg it was too, my mother would be proud! - on top of the saucepan of potatoes and left to steam while the salmon finished cooking, which only took about another five minutes. After that, I took the baking tray out of the oven and opened it, to be greeted by a waft of lemony pesto. The salmon flaked off of the skin (a small mercy, as I am quite squeamish when it comes to fish skin!) and left a lovely juice to be poured over the salmon, potatoes and veg on the plate. A final squeeze of the half lemon over everything (and a bit of butter, because it is the first Monday of term, after all) and I was really very ready for it.

Definitely, definitely, better to do that than to just have toast or something junky, or worse, nothing at all. It only took about 20 minutes and used three dishes - a saucepan, a steamer and a baking tray, and I think I could've avoided having to wash the baking tray if I'd doubled the tinfoil so the oil didn't seep through.

Truly yummy, very easy and surprisingly quick. Another one to do again!