Tuesday 30 November 2010

Parsnips. And soup. So parsnip soup, then.

The French, until recently, didn't know about parsnips. Well, the majority of them didn't anyway.
I actually taught ze husband the French word for parsnip, which is panais (N.B. to be pronounced as "pané", not "pannayiece". Thank you for understanding).

Being English and, moreover, northern, I am well acquainted with most root vegetables, and parsnips are nothing unusual. That doesn't mean to say I like them. I acutally have something of a loathing for roast parsnips, in particular. There's just something about the sweetness that I don't like. If they were being blatantly and unashamedly sweet, like sweet potatoes (especially the kind with marshmallows on top, om nom nom), that would be fine, but...no, they try to be subtle, and as ze husband keeps telling me, "trop de subtilité tue la subtilité".

There is one way I like parsnips, though, and that's in soup. I made parsnip soup for ze in-laws a couple of weeks ago and they liked it, too. (It was actually them who bought the parsnips, having discovered some lurking in an obscure corner of the supermarket veg aisle. All is not lost).

I think a recipe may be in order, don't you? (I'm not sure where "order" is, mind. Let me know if you find it).

Ingredients (to feed 6. Maybe. It depends on how hungry they are).

Parsnips say...6 really big ones, or 8-10 smaller ones
Stock -about a litre. Homemade or not. I don't really care. I don't actually think it makes that much difference (ok, ok, burn me, I'm a food heretic. Whatever. It's cold outside, anyway).
Olive oil -a good drizzling sort of amount.
Onions- a few. (No, I didn't say ANYTHING about my recipe being precise)
A potato or two -if you want, and depending on how parsnippy you like your soup. Potatoes dilute the parsnippiness a bit and make the parsnips go further if you think you might be a bit short. (I'm a bit short. Just not of parsnips).
Curry powder - eh, a bit. We'll think about how much when we get to it).
Seasoning


Preheat oven to GM7/200°c. If you use Fahrenheit, go and turn on the computer and look up the conversion.

Peel and chop parsnips, onions and potatoes. Big or small chunks, batons or slices, whatever makes you happy. It's all going to get liquidised later anyway. Put vegetables on baking tray, drizzle with a decent amount of olive oil, stick in oven for about an hour (but keep an eye on them after the first 30 minutes, if they start to burn around the edges reduce the temperature). During this time, go away and translate something, or write a blog post, or have a nap. Or something.

Take vegetables out of oven and put in Big Saucepan. Pour on stock. The liquid should just cover the vegetables. If it doesn't, add a bit more boiling water. No-one will mind.

Let it cook for a bit until the vegetables are all properly soft. Liquidise, either using a handheld blender in the pan or in small batches in a freestanding blender. If you're anything like me, have a fight with the blender, splatter half the kitchen with soup, clean it up and then start again with the blending.

Put soup back in pan. Add salt and pepper to taste and one dessert spoon of curry powder (or cumin, if you have cumin. Nom nom cumin). Stir. Taste. Add more curry as necessary. I think I ended up putting around 3 dessert spoons in mine. Maybe.

Eat soup and feel like a paragon of healthy eating. Or a tarragon of healthy eating. Or an Aragorn of healthy eating, if that's what takes your fancy (note the absence of Legolas here. If we were talking about elfy eating, maybe he'd be around. But we're not).

Happy parsnip hunting!

Monday 29 November 2010

Je crois que nous avons affaire à un...


« Je crois que nous avons affaire à un céréale killer. »
« Pardon ? »
« Je crois que nous avons affaire à un céréale killer. »

(Sorry, anglophones, this one’s in French).

Si vous savez de quel film cette citation est tirée, bravo.

Sinon, allez voir ça.

Mais bon. L’essentiel, là, c’est qu’on a affaire à un céréale killer.

Mon mari apprécie beaucoup les céréales au chocolat, qu’on prend, donc, à chaque fois qu’on va au supermarché. Par contre, même si on en achète plusieurs paquets, ils ont tendance à disparaître à une vitesse pas possible. Comme un TGV, mais plus vite, parce que la vitesse d’un TGV reste possible, hein. 

La raison ? Mon beau-frère, qui passe à la maison parfois à l’heure du goûter, et semble penser que c’est une question d’honneur pour lui de terminer les paquets. Ou peut-être qu’il s’entraine pour les JO de Londres. Les anglais mangent beaucoup de céréales, ils pourraient introduire ça comme sport, non ? (Ou pas. Ce sont des anglais certes, mais des êtres humains tout de même).*

Comme vous avez probablement deviné, c’est lui le céréale killer. Il nous mange nos céréales au chocolat, et puis y’en a plus, et puis puisque y’en a plus, on ne peut pas les manger. Schniff. 

Mais pas de panique ! Nous avons un plan diabolique. Je vous explique. (Vous z’avez vu ? Ça rime !) Nous allons cacher les bonnes céréales dans un carton de Weetabix, et comme ça il ne les trouvera pas. Mouahahahaha. Mouahahahahaha. Mouahahahaha…

…euh…à part s’il lit mon blog, ce qui n’est pas impossible.

*Note de bas de page (c’est important, les notes de bas de page, je trouve qu’on n’en utilise pas assez) : en tant qu’anglaise, moi, j’ai le droit de me moquer d’eux. Par contre, j’aime pas quand les français le font, ces méchants frogs*.

*Note de bas de note de bas de page : Euhhh…je dis ça en rigolant, bien sûr. La xénophobie à base d’amphibiens, c’est pas mon truc. La gelée à la menthe, par contre, j’aime bien. #stéréotype stéréotype   

Fun with Words, Again

Helloes!

I've been playing with a certain automatic translator again. It makes me feel my job is worthwhile.

The phrase I fed it, this time, came from a packet of toilet rolls: they claim to be "doux et moelleux", which translates as something like "soft and squishy". Obviously no English-speaking toilet roll packet would use the word "squishy" (although I didn't think any English-speaking toilet roll packet would claim to be "kitten-soft", either, and THAT exists, God help us).

So. What did the automatic translator make of "doux et moelleux", then?

(Drumroll, please. Please? No? Why not? Naaaaaw, that's not very kind of you! Hmph).

Doux et moelleux: Sweet and mellow.

That is some seriously chilled out toilet roll we're using.

Wednesday 24 November 2010

Bilingue

I have a bilingual computer.

It's a bit confusing for anyone who isn't me, but some bits are in French, some bits are in English, and none of it seems to follow any logical pattern.

I'm setting up backup discs at the moment, and my computer came out with this:



From No. No more penguins.

Don't you just love it when inanimate objects show a bit of personality?

(In case you're struggling to read it, click on the picture and it'll take you to the full-size version in Picasa. We has a technology now!)

Tuesday 23 November 2010

The Beak

I know, I know, I've not been around much lately, apart from the occasional tweet (hey, have you seen my Twitter sidebar? Have you? Have you?) about being hungry, which is pretty much a permanent condition at the moment.

I have been translating. There has been much translating of the translatey stuff by the translator of late.

I have also been growing a beak, or at least, it feels that way.

I've suffered from (yes, suffered from is definitely the right phrase) cold sores as long as I can imagine, and, as my immune system's been a bit busy dealing with colds recently, they've got me again. That's what I really hate about them. They really do kick you when you're down. The swines. (I might use a stronger word here, but this is the Internets, and it doesn't do to say anything on the Internets you wouldn't want your parents/inlaws/younger siblings to hear. Close brackets).

Anyway, cold sores vary in terms of pain levels. Some look bad but don't hurt much, at least after the first day or so. Some make my whole face ache for a week. This particular one feels like I'm growing a beak, and ohhh, it HURTS. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

When I said "no more penguins", I thought that implied I didn't want to be one either. Clearly, I was wronk. (I meant to type "wrong", but I quite like "wronk", so I'm going to leave it there).

Back to the cupboard now (that's where the paracetamol is).