Almond croissants

Yesterday I made almond croissants! Yes the kitchen smelled delicious and I do love the whole anticipation of cooking, especially when it is a bit of an unplanned adventure.

I popped out to the supermarket at 8pm, and found lots of lovely reduced items, including croissants for 40p. Croissants always remind me of holidays in France, though these would be but a pale comparison of the freshly baked croissants from the boulangerie.

This summer my cousin had told me how delicious almond croissants were - they are truly divine. To use up leftover croissants, they are filled with frangipane and baked again to make more of a sweet Danish.

I used a simple frangipane recipe shown below, but it used vanilla essence, whereas I will be using almond essence in future for a stronger almond flavour. This is my first attempt, but next time I will also spread more mixture on top to stop the croissants getting too dark. And maybe a sprinkle of sliced almonds to top them off.

100g ground almonds

100g butter

80g golden caster sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or almond)

Mix all the ingredients together. Stuff and spread your croissants, then bake them for 18 mins at around 180 deg C. This made enough mixture to generously stuff 4 croissants and would have stretched to 6.

I also bought 3 packets of dill reduced to 10p each. I have hung them in the kitchen to dry out, so that I can chop and store them for sprinkling on salmon. It is nice to feel that I have got a bargain and saved some food from being wasted.

I should probably mention that I have started a new job and I am back working the 9 to 5 again. 2015 was so busy for my little consultancy, that I had been working days and nights to try and keep up. Now that I am starting to get my evenings back I can enjoy cooking and blogging again.

I am not sure how things will work out with my allotment. Spring is fast approaching and I have barely started the gardening jobs that were due back in the Autumn! I am not ready to give up on it yet though. I just love that I still have a supply of my home grown potatoes and squash in the garage, and raspberries and runner beans in the freezer. It is so nice to announce at each meal that I have grown the cabbage, or the tomatoes in the sauce.

What began as a journey to be more green, by eating organic, locally grown food and reducing waste, seemed like hard work from the outset. Yet it has turned out to be rather enjoyable. Food makes me happy. I enjoy growing it, shopping for it, cooking it and sharing the end result with family and friends. I love that I substituted a handful of weeds for parsley in my stuffing at Christmas and no one was the wiser. But most of all I love..... almond Croissants ;-)

What do you love about food?

France

I'm going to be honest - I have at least another week of work to do for the project I am working on. It has been hard to see the end of it and my motivation has dipped to record lows. I have had to strictly prohibit trips to the allotment or writing posts until it is finished, and even spent 3 hours working on Boxing day. But my mind still try's to find other escapes and distractions!

So I spent a few days regularly checking for news from the tragedy in France and watching in horror as the events following the attack on Charlie Hebdo unfolded.



I like France. When my kids ask me where in the World I would like to go on holiday I always say France. Of course they always moan because they have dreams to travel the World and see amazing sights, and as far as they are concerned they have already ticked France off the list several times. But the next holiday I am planning will be in ...France :-)

Why? Because of the fresh croissants in the morning. They are nothing like the pre-packaged ones that you can buy in the supermarkets in the UK. It is worth getting up early and walking to the local Boulangerie, which you will find in every village, just for the delicious taste and texture of soft, warm, fresh croissants. Mmmm......heaven!

The French know this - how important it is to have delicious, fresh and varied food. It really makes you feel good to savour a delicious meal, even if it has taken all day to make, and meant sourcing ingredients from several different farms or markets. Just a slice of bread or a juicy tomato tastes better in France, because everything is about freshness, quality and the pleasure it brings, rather than just for hunger. It feels like we have lost this in the UK....if we ever had it.

And this is what shapes France, in my mind. It is why they still have a culture of lots of small rural farms and markets, and they fight companies like Amazon in order to retain small local businesses. It is why the Farmers have a voice and are quite willing to muck-spray government buildings or dump rotten cabbages outside, if the government ignores their needs. It is freedom of speech and more still. It is a population who reject TV dinners and demand better. It is a population who know that they have the power to object to stupid government or EU policies and to provoke a change. I'm not happy about it, but I am sure we would just grumble behind closed doors in the UK.

This is why it is always fascinating to see where the French stand on World affairs. The UK prime minister just parrots whatever the US have said and votes how they vote. But France doesn't always follow the rest of the flock. Look at the lead up to the war in Iraq, when Tony Blair was falling over himself to please President Bush, but the French had their own opinion and took a lot of bad press from the US for it. I seem to remember there was a boycott of French fries ?!?

And more recently President Hollande has been talking about ending the sanctions on Russia. Once again taking an independent line that is counter to that of the US. Here is what President Holland is reported to have said.

Mr Hollande said Russian President Vladimir Putin "doesn't want to annex eastern Ukraine - he told me that"............
..............."The sanctions must be lifted if there is progress. If there is no progress the sanctions will stay in place," Mr Hollande told France Inter radio.

On 15th January there will be a summit between Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine, which may lead to a decision on sanctions. It will be interesting to see what the French decide to do.

For today though there are mass rallies in France. I worry that it will provide a target for more attacks and I hope that the day remains peaceful and that the worst is over for the people of Paris. My thoughts are with the 17 killed in Paris, and also with the hundreds of thousands killed around the World by extremist forces. Let's hope that 2015 brings peace.